Catherine de' Medici

Catherine (Italian: Caterina) was born on 13 April 1519, in Florence. She was the only child of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and his wife, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne. According to a contemporary chronicler, when Catherine was born, her parents were as pleased as if it has been a boy.

However, within a month of Catherine's birth, both her parents were dead: Madeleine died on 28 April, possibly of puerperal fever, and Lorenzo died on 4 May. King Francis I of France wanted Catherine to be raised at the French court, but Pope Leo X had other plans for her.

Catherine was first cared for by her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini. After her death in 1520, Catherine was raised by her aunt, Clarice Strozzi. The death of the Pope in 1521 interrupted Medici power until the election of Pope Clement VII in 1523. Clement housed Catherine in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in Florence.

In 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence; Catherine was taken hostage and placed in a series of convents. Clement VII had no choice but to crown Charles Holy Roman Emperor (now Charles V) in return for his help in retaking the city. In October 1529, Charles' troops laid siege to Florence. As the siege dragged on, voices called for Catherine to be killed and exposed naked and chained to the city walls; some even suggested that she be handed over to the troops to be used for their sexual gratification. The city finally surrendered on 12 August 1530 and Clement summoned Catherine to join him in Rome. He now had to find her a good husband.

When Catherine was in Rome, the Venetian envoy described her as small of stature, and thin, and without delicate features, but having the protruding eyes peculiar to the Medici family. However, suitors lined up. When Francis I of France proposed his second son, Henry, Clement VII jumped at the offer. The wedding, on 28 October 1533, was a grand affair, marked by extravagant display and gift-giving.

Catherine saw little of her husband in their first year of marriage, but the ladies of the court treated her well, impressed with her intelligence and keenness to please. The death of the Pope on 25 September 1534, however, undermined Catherine's standing at the French court.

Henry showed no interest in Catherine as a wife; instead, he openly took mistresses. For the first 10 years of the marriage, Catherine failed to produce any children. The fact that Henry fathered and publicly acknowledged a bastard daughter added even more pressure on Catherine.

In 1536, Henry's older brother died, leaving him as the heir. As Dauphine, Catherine was expected to provide a future heir to the throne. Divorce was being discussed and, in desperation, Catherine tried every known trick for getting pregnant. On 19 January 1544, Catherine finally gave birth to a son: Francis. After becoming pregnant once, Catherine had no trouble in doing so again. She quickly conceived again and, on 2 April 1545, she bore a daughter, Élisabeth. She would have eight more children: Claude, Louis, Charles, Henri, Marguerite, Hercule, Victoire and Jeanne. The future of the Valois dynasty seemed assured. Catherine's ability to bear children, however, failed to improve the marriage. In 1534, at the age of 15, Henry had taken as his mistress the 38-year-old Diane de Poitiers, whom he adored and kept for the rest of his life.

When Francis I died, on 31 March 1547, Henry succeeded him as Henry II; Catherine was now Queen of France. However, Henry allowed Catherine almost no political influence as Queen. Although she sometimes acted as regent during his absences, her powers were strictly nominal.

Henry II of France died on 10 July 1559, aged 40, after a jousting accident. Their son succeeded him as King Francis II of France, aged just 15. In a coup d'état, the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise (uncle of Mary, Queen of Scots and now Queen of France) seized power immediately after Henry's death and moved themselves into the Louvre Palace with the young King and his wife.

Despite not being entitled to a role in her son's government, he relied on her and all his official acts began with the words: This being the good pleasure of the Queen, my lady-mother, and I also approving of every opinion that she holdeth, am content and command that... Catherine exploited this new authority. One of her first acts was to force Diane de Poitiers to hand over the crown jewels and return the Château de Chenonceau to the crown.

The Guise brothers set about persecuting the Protestants with zeal. Catherine adopted a moderate stance and spoke against the persecutions, though she had no particular sympathy for the Huguenots, whose beliefs she never shared.
In June 1560, Michel de l'Hôpital was appointed Chancellor of France. He worked with Catherine to defend the law in the face of the growing anarchy. Neither saw the need to punish Protestants who worshipped in private and did not take up arms. On 20 August 1560, they advocated this policy to an assembly of notables at Fontainebleau.

When Francis II died on 5 December 1560, the Privy Council appointed Catherine as governor of France with sweeping powers. She wrote to her daughter Élisabeth: My principal aim is to have the honour of God before my eyes in all things and to preserve my authority, not for myself, but for the conservation of this Kingdom and for the good of all your brothers.

Nine-years-old Charles IX was now King of France. The young boy, who cried at his coronation, was kept close to his mother. However, Catherine was facing complex challenges that were, in some ways, difficult for her to comprehend as a foreigner.

Catherine summoned church leaders from both sides (Catholic and Protestant) to attempt to solve their doctrinal differences. Despite her optimism, it ended in failure. In January 1562, Catherine issued the tolerant Edict of Saint-Germain in a further attempt to build bridges with the Protestants. However, on 1 March 1562, in an incident known as Massacre of Vassy, the Duke of Guise and his men attacked worshipping Huguenots, killing 74 and wounding 104. This incident lit the fuse that sparked the French Wars of Religion.

Within a month, Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, had raised an army of 1800 and formed an alliance with France; they seized town after town in France. The royal army struck back quickly and set out to recover Huguenot-held Rouen. They succeeded but the triumph was short-lived. On 18 February 1563, the Duke of Guise was murdered at the siege of Orléans. This triggered an aristocratic blood feud that complicated the civil wars for years to come.

On 17 August 1563, Charles IX was declared of age, but he was never able to rule on his own and showed little interest in government. Catherine decided to revive loyalty to the crown. To this end, she set out with Charles and the court on a progress around France that lasted from January 1564 until May 1565.

On 27 September 1567, in a swoop known as the Surprise of Meaux, Huguenot forces attempted to ambush the King, triggering renewed civil war. This ambush marked a turning point in Catherine's policy towards the Huguenots. From that moment, she abandoned compromise for a policy of repression.

On 21 August 1572, the Huguenot Admiral Coligny was wounded in the hand and arm. A smoking arquebus was discovered in a window, but the culprit had escaped. Catherine made a visit to Coligny and promised to punish his attacker. Many historians have blamed Catherine for the attack; others point to the Guise family or to a Spanish-Papal plot. Whatever the truth, the bloodbath that followed was soon beyond the control of Catherine or any other leader.

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre began two days later and has stained Catherine's reputation ever since. There is reason to believe that she was party to the decision when, on 23 August, Charles IX is said to have ordered Then kill them all! Kill them all! The slaughter in Paris lasted for almost a week. It spread to many parts of France, where it persisted into the autumn. From this time dates the legend of Catherine, the wicked Italian queen.

Two years later, Catherine faced another crisis: Charles IX died at the age of 23. The day before he died, he named Catherine regent, since his brother and heir, Henri, was in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he had been elected King. However, three months after his coronation, Henri abandoned the throne and returned to France, in order to become King. Henri was Catherine's favourite son. Unlike the others, he had come to the throne as a grown man and was healthy. Is interest in the tasks of the government, however, proved to be irregular. He depended on his mother until the last few weeks of her life.

Henri married Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont two days after the coronation. His choice thwarted Catherine's plans for a political marriage. Time passed and the likelihood of children from the marriage was decreasing; Catherine's youngest son Francis (previously called Hercule) played upon his role as heir. Catherine did all in her power to bring Francis back into the fold.

In 1576, in a move that endangered Henri's throne, Francis allied with the Protestant princes against the crown. In May of the same year, Catherine gave in to almost all Huguenot demands.

Francis died of consumption a few years later, in June 1584. Catherine wrote: I am so wretched to live long enough to see so many people die before me, although I realise that God's will must be obeyed, that He owns everything, and that He lends us only for as long as He likes the children whom He gives us. The death of Francis was a calamity for the dynasty: under Salic law, the Huguenot Henry of Navarre was now the heir to the throne.

Catherine was unable to control Henri in the way she had controlled his brothers. Her role became that of chief executor and roving diplomat: she travelled across the kingdom, enforcing his authority and trying to head off war. At the age of 59, Catherine embarked on an 18-month journey around the south of France to meet Huguenot leaders face to face; her efforts won her new respect from the French people. The Venetian ambassador wrote: She is an indefatigable princess, born to tame and govern a people as unruly as the French: they now recognise her merits, her concern for unity and are sorry not to have appreciated her sooner.

However, many leading Catholics were appalled by Catherine's efforts to appease the Protestants. They started forming local leagues to protect their religion, and after Francis' death, the Catholic League planned to block the succession and replace Henry of Navarre with Charles de Bourbon. By 1585, Henri III had no choice but to go to war against the League. The King was unable to fight the Catholics and the Protestants at once and, on July 1585, he was forced to give in to all the League's demands. He went into hiding to fast and pray, and left Catherine to sort out the mess. The crown had lost control of the country.

On 8 September 1588, at Blois, Henri dismissed all his ministers without warning. Catherine, in bed with a lung infection, had been kept in the dark. The King's actions effectively ended her days of power. At the meeting of the Estates, Henri thanked Catherine for all she had done; he called her not only the mother of the King but the mother of the state. He didn't tell her of his plan for a solution to his problems: the death of the Duke of Guise (the son of the one murdered at the siege of Orléans) and other members of his family.

Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, died on 5 January 1589, aged 69. Only eight months later, her son was stabbed to death and the Valois dynasty ended. Henry of Navarre took the throne as Henry IV of France. He was reported to have said of Catherine:

I ask you, what could a woman do, left by the death of her husband with five little children on her arms, and two families of France who were thinking of grasping the crown - our own and the Guises? Was she not compelled to play strange parts to deceive first one and then the other, in order to guard, as she did, her sons, who successively reigned through the wise conduct of that shrewd woman? I am surprised she never did worse. 

Catherine de' Medici

attributed to François Clouet

c. 1555