Liard with H - Henry I of Albret

Henry I of Albret inherited Béarn through his mother Catherine de Foix, ruling a territory that maintained its own monetary tradition with stubborn independence from the French crown. The liard denomination itself was a small billon piece circulating widely across French feudal domains in the early sixteenth century, but Béarn's issues remained distinctly local in character. Henry spent much of this period fighting to recover Navarre — lost to Ferdinand of Aragon in 1512 — and these coins circulated through a court perpetually short of funds and long on political grievance.