Countess Charlotte Flandrina of Nassau

Countess Charlotte Flandrina of Nassau (Antwerp, 18 August 1579 – St.Croix (near Poitiers), 16 April 1640) was a French abbess. She was the fourth daughter of William the Silent and his third spouse Charlotte of Bourbon.^[1]

17th-century illustration of Charlotte Flandrina

Biography

After her mother's death in 1582, her French grandfather asked for Charlotte Flandrina to stay with him.

Against the will of her paternal family, she was raised to become a Catholic nun by her maternal aunt Jeanne de Bourbon, abbess of Jouarre de Ste. Croix in Poitiers, and became a nun in 1595, succeeding her aunt as abbess in 1605.^[2]

She spent her life in the convent, tending to religion and religious charity. She maintained a correspondence with her stepmother and her sisters, and while she sometimes attempted to convert them, their relationship was a good one, and her sisters Elisabeth Flandrika and Charlotte Brabantina sometimes visited her.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Countess Charlotte Flandrina of Nassau

8. John V, Count of Nassau-Siegen 4. William I, Count of Nassau-Siegen 9. Elisabeth of Hesse-Marburg 2. William the Silent 10. Bodo III, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode 5. Juliana of Stolberg-Wernigerode 11. Anna of Eppstein-Königstein 1. Charlotte Flandrina of Nassau 12. Louis, Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon 6. Louis, Duke of Montpensier 13. Louise de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier 3. Charlotte of Bourbon 14. Jean de Longwy 7. Jacqueline de Longwy 15. Jeanne of Angoulême