The President of the Navarre Parliament, Lostau, wrote a letter in which she regretted the meeting. This year is four hundred years since France strongly joined the Basque State. On 20 October 1620, the Council of France imposed its edict on the Kingdom of Navarre. This order linked the sovereign territory of Navarre — the Lower — to the Kingdom of France.

Signed Luis XIII.ak: “We, by the mandate of the sovereign authority of wars, unify the People of Navarra and its crown to our French crown and dominions, without suppressing their forces, freedoms and righteousness, to which we will retain, provided that the situation does not oblige us to suppress them. We also want and order that from here the ordinances, documents and procedures of the Parliament of Navarre be given in French.'

Almost a century earlier, the Kingdom of Navarre was invaded and occupied by Spain and, since 1527, the only sovereign who had been amassed was Baja Navarra: “When the Albret restored the state in the North, the institutions were the same as in the Middle Ages: on the one hand the Courts and, on the other, the same institutions of justice, although a little more to adapt to the situation they modernize. Therefore, they reproduce the same administration, based on the General Jurisdiction and with the same legal system,” explains the legal historian Roldán Jimeno. “The date of 1620 is very important because it happened to the Kingdom of France, which happened to Spain a century earlier: Abolishing the sovereignty of Navarre. When founding the nations of state, Navarre lost the essence of its identity: independence,” adds Jimeno.

Historian Jean Louis Davant has also spoken in the same direction: «In 1620, Navarre fell: Annexed to France, the Basques were then left without a sovereign state. Navarre became a colony of France’.

One head two crowns

The Navarro king Henry III became the IV of France and, although he was a monarch, he ruled two kingdoms "as was often the case in the Middle Ages": "without questioning" the sovereignty of one and the other", according to Jimeno.

Davant joins: “The legitimate kings of the kingdom sent in the Lower Navarre. But from Paris. He had two rockets under the same king."

Until then, the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Navarre were managed differently, but also the King of Navarre became France. “With Joan de Albret, except for religious issues, things have not changed much,” Jimeno said.

However, he stressed that the French had already begun to project a kingdom, his own: Starting in 1607, an attempt was made to combine both administrations to give way to the future unit: “In 1608, Enrique de Navarra III.ak requested the drafting of a new jurisdiction, a very important measure that was accepted by his son Luis and that has a greater influence from France compared to the medieval jurisdiction of Navarre”. He has given two examples of the importance of change: on the one hand, medieval pactism disappeared, that is, the king’s obligation to swear the rage; and, finally, he established the two on the same level. ‘The Navarro democratic system thus disappeared to become an absolutist monarchy. The Navarre constitutional base broke out," Jimeno summarized. On the other hand, this oath was taken in the Kingdom of Navarre, and according to the new jurisdiction, the king could do so from Paris.

Davant recalled that his mother, Joana de Albret, Henrike III.aren, banned the Catholic religion through the imposition of a reformed church. But following Castile, the attitude of Íñigo de Loyola is still notable after his victory and conversion in the battle of 1521. In the state of the Basilica of Santa Maria de la Zurriola has the book Reforma that tramples under his feet. Henry III.ak “restored peace”, but after his death in 1610, his son Louis XIII, driven by his mother Maria Médici, had the objective of tracing all Bearno’s Catholic goods. They could “correct them without annexing themselves, but the French kings always had a meal to swallow the entities of the area.” Thus, with the union of Bearno and Navarre, France pursued a twofold objective: on the one hand, the weakening of Calvinism and, on the other, the imposition of the Sálica law, that is, the destruction of what had until then been permitted by the general jurisdiction of Navarre: the reign of women.

Thus, it was drafted in 1608 and entered into force in 1611, when the Navarre legislation suffered a great French impact until the 1620 Edict. Jiménez explains: “The edict was an imposition of the king. In Navarre it was not approved and, however, Baja Navarra was incorporated into the French crown. The new jurisdiction of 1611 and the 1620 Edict were catastrophic for the sovereignty of Navarre.”

Crushed resistance

The Kingdom of Navarre lasted until 4 August 1789, but "in brain death", says Davant. In fact, the loss of sovereignty was weakened by the 1620 Decree and, among other things, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Kingdom of Navarra in Donapaleu was extradited to Pau. ‘The Navarre justice has thus lost its independence’, said Davant, from then on ‘without any certainty of speaking in Basque’.

Since that new era of 1611, Navarre law was devoid of any force, always against the opinion of the national institutions. Although the third resistance of the time is extremely subtle, the letter from the President of the Parliament of Navarre clearly shows the existence of resistance. The letter of 20 January 1617 “is a very harsh, very straightforward letter; today Peir Lostau used phrases that took his hands over his head, criticizing even the king of France,” explains historian Álvaro Adot, who translated this letter from the French classic. It is he who has clarified the institutional opposition of Navarre to join the Kingdom of France. Lostau knew the first text of the unification project, “in this letter he expressed his total disagreement, and also intended to expand it, because he printed it. He is a great expert in the history of politics of the time, and he has the impression that the real objective of this edict is the disappearance of Navarre as a Kingdom, making it a mere province”.

The publisher Mintzoa, Aritz Otazu, mentioned the issue with great emotion, as he recently found a copy of Lostau’s four-page letter in Naples (Italy): ‘This letter is terrible, because Lostau not only says that Navarre should be untied to France, but also says that Lost Castilla la Alta Navarra had to be taken away. This was a brand of training that took place four hundred years ago. His love for Navarre was terrible, because such words were punishable by death. It is a very important document because of its content, something we have not seen in all historiography.” Public institutions have been asked to sell the document first, but, “unfortunately”, it has ended in private hands.

Adot clarifies that the 1617 Decree was not published or applied in practice. Therefore, ‘There was probably a great discrepancy in Navarre with regard to this confluence, and in Biarno, because the text totally destroyed the hugonote sector it sent there’.

But in 1789, in the face of an immense aggression, the General States of the Kingdom of Navarra were published and are now recovered by Xabier Irujo: "P tantrotocolos on the independence of the Kingdom of Navarra and its relations with France". The member of the Sindi of the Kingdom of Navarre, Etienne Plerel, defended before the National Constituent Assembly and the French Monarchy that the State of Navarre was an independent kingdom and had never belonged to the kingdom of France, so its inhabitants were not French but Navarros. Therefore, the National Assembly has neither the right nor the ability to modify the powers that constituted the constitution of the Navarros. The General State of the Kingdom of Navarre ordered the publication of the book with the speech of the Trustee and all the reports used that confirmed what was said. This book is one of the main political reports in the history of the Kingdom of Navarre.

To commemorate the fourth anniversary of the 1620 Edict, Nabarralde and Urolakoak, with the help of HerrIesixtentzia, have organized street theatre in Azpeitia on Saturday, October 17, at 7 p.m. in the Plaza Mayor.

Since we are today, when we are well tied, we will develop a healthy fruit that will make the future.