She then sent a messenger to England claiming the protection of Henry VII.
Her chancellor, Montauban, supported her, considering the match far beneath her, and told Albret plainly of the aversion and indignation of the Duchess and the preposterous nature of his claims. The Comte d’Albret flew into a furious rage, but was of course powerless in the matter. And just then Charles VIII. sent to claim the wardship of the Duchess and her sister, saying that he would marry them to the two sons of the Vicomte de Rohan and resign all his claims to the duchy.
But the Bretons, who hated the Rohans because they were considered friends to France and traitors to Bretagne, would not hear of this; Louis d’Orléans was in prison at Bourges, help did not come from England, and the friends of the Duchess, including the Maréchal de Rieux, who saw that it was hopeless to think of the Comte d’Albret, proposed the eldest son of the Emperor Maximilian, King of the Romans, who had been already suggested as a possible husband for her during the lifetime of her father, and to whom she had no objection. For, although Maximilian was also a widower and a great deal older than herself, he was a handsome, courteous, pleasant man in the prime of life, and could give her the most splendid position in Europe.
The duchy was by this time in a condition equally deplorable and dangerous. Charles VIII., exasperated at the English and other foreign troops being called in, made vigorous war upon Bretagne, town after town was besieged and taken by his army. Alain d’Albret continued to put forth his claims on the young Duchess, declaring that he had her father’s promise and her own consent, but ignoring the fact that this consent had been wrung from a weak and almost dying man, and a child of ten years old, who directly she was free had made a public protest against this arbitrary act. Madame de Laval for a long time continued her advocacy of her brother’s cause, while Anne steadily persisted that she would take the veil sooner than marry him.
Meanwhile she waited anxiously for help from England, but Henry VII., unwilling to make war on France, lost a great deal of time in correspondence with the French King, hoping to arrange matters by this means. But the war went on, and the young Duchess fled from one town to another, and at length, finding herself in an unsafe position in the unfortified town of Rhédon, with her sister, where there was a great chance of being taken by the French, sent to her guardians, Rieux and Comminges, to come up with the troops and escort them to Nantes. There was no time to lose, for the French were in the neighbourhood, and the place could not be defended.