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- BIOGRAPHY
Gaston was born on 27 November 1422, the elder son of Jean III de Grailly, comte de Foix et de Bigorre and Jeanne d'Albret. On 30 July 1436 he married Leonor, queen of Navarre, infanta of Aragón, daughter of Juan II, king of Aragón and Blanca II, queen of Navarre. Gaston and Leonor had nine children, including their eldest son and heir Gaston, who married Madeleine de France, daughter of King Charles VII of France. Gaston, his brother Jean and three sisters would have progeny.
In 1447 Gaston IV bought the viscounty of Narbonne, and having assisted Charles VII in Guyenne, he was made a peer of France in 1458. In 1455 his father-in-law designated him as his successor in Navarre, and Louis XI of France gave him the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne, and made him his representative in Languedoc and Guyenne; but these marks of favour did not prevent him from joining a league against Louis in 1471.
His eldest son Gaston died in 1470, and when Gaston IV died two years later (about 28 July 1472 at Roncevaux), his lands descended to his grandson François Phoebus, who became king of Navarre in 1479, and was succeeded by his sister Catherine, the wife of Jean, seigneur d'Albret, comte de Penthievre. Thus the house of Foix-Grailly was merged into that of Albret and subsequently into that of Bourbon; and when Henri of Navarre became king of France in 1589 the lands of the counts of Foix-Grailly became part of the French royal domain.
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