Marie of Brittany was born to John IV, Duke of Brittany, and Joan of Navarre on 18 February 1391 in Nantes. She was the fourth child of nine, and the second child to survive to adulthood. In the first four years of her life, Marie was offered as a possible wife for Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV of England, or for his son, the future Henry V, but negotiations fell through when her father instead married her to John I d’Alençon in 1396.Michael Jones, Ducal Brittany, 1364–1399: Relations with England and France During the Reign of Duke John IV, (London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1970), 134–36; Michael Jones, "The Finances of John IV, Duke of Brittany, 1364–1399", in The Creation of Brittany: a late medieval state, (London, UK: Hambledon Press, 1988), 252 Instead, after the death of John IV of Brittany, Marie's mother Joan would marry Henry IV of England.
