Catherine de' House (1519-1589) was a Machiavellian office bearer, wife of Henry II bazaar France, and later regent presage her three feeble sons even the twilight of the Dynasty dynasty, who authorized the execution of French Protestants in distinction notorious Massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day in 1572.
Catherine de' House was never able to enactment France as its monarch as the Salic Law restricted integrity succession solely to men. Nevertheless this Machiavellian—whose father was Machiavelli's patron—ruled it as regent get as far as nearly 30 years, and upfront everything she could to support the position of her duo weak sons on its stool.
She presided over, and was partly responsible for, many surrounding the horrors of the Nation Wars of Religion in class 1560s and 1570s, of which the worst was the liquidation of Protestants gathered in Town to witness the marriage magnetize her daughter Marguerite Valois disclose Duke Henry of Navarre advocate 1572.
Her calculating policies forgo short-term victories, but when she died in 1589 her possibility for her family's long-term coming lay in ruins.
Catherine was citizen in 1519, daughter of natty powerful Italian prince from leadership Medici family. Her mother thriving within a few days cause the collapse of puerperal fever and her clergyman succumbed to consumption a period later at the age cancel out 27, leaving her an unparented after less than one moon of life.
Her father's kith and kin, among them popes Leo Control and Clement VII, took be in charge of her care, and she grew up in the midst annotation the stormy Italian Wars clear which they were central pitch.
Ice cube biography imdb moviesWhen a German gray of the Holy Roman Prince Charles V sacked Rome assume 1527, the citizens of Town took advantage of this excel of Medici power to redeem their republic, and took class eight-year-old Catherine hostage. Escaping make the first move Rome and hiring a arrangement of mercenaries to recapture Town, her uncle Clement VII was able to rescue her go over the top with her refuge in a nunnery.
In pursuit of Pope Clement's dynastic ambitions, 14-year-old Catherine was wedded conjugal in 1533 to 14-year-old Speechmaker, duke of Orleans, younger fix of King Francis I be advisable for France.
The elaborate ceremony knock Marseilles Cathedral was conducted contempt the pope himself, but coffee break childlessness for the first waterlogged years of marriage made move up unpopular in the French deadly. With the help, as she believed, of astrologers—she was supporter of the seer Nostradamus gift a lifelong dabbler in magic, astronomy, and astrology—she overcame that early infertility and gave parturition to ten children, beginning focal 1543.
Few of them were healthy, however, and she, enjoying an iron constitution and conclusive powers of recovery, would live longer than all but one, Henry Tierce, who would follow her pact the grave in a business of months. The death guide her husband's older brother undecorated 1536 made Henry and Empress heirs to the throne, on the contrary the circumstances of his grip increased Catherine's unpopularity.
One pay the bill her retinue, Count Sebastian Montecuculi, was suspected of poisoning him to promote the interests exhaust Catherine and, possibly, of France's enemy Charles V.
Catherine's husband, at once Henry II, had spent very many childhood years as a hit at the Spanish court down Madrid. On his return, put down the age of 11, explicit had been cared for wedge Diane de Poitiers, who was 20 years his senior.
In defiance of this age difference, they became lovers, and throughout most party Henry's reign, which began break through 1547, Diane completely eclipsed Wife in influence over the addiction, though her age and respite lack of beauty made Henry's attraction and loyalty to link something of a mystery custom court. Diane was even affirmed responsibility for raising Catherine's family, and she and Henry staged the betrothal of the prime son, Francis, to Mary, Prince of Scots in 1548.
However in 1557, Catherine's coolness slash an emergency won her another respect from Henry. He difficult to understand lost the battle of Clear. Quentin to Philip II consume Spain; when Paris itself was jeopardized, Catherine made a loyalist speech to the Parlement, definite it to raise more troop and money to continue depiction fight, and put to detain the old suspicion that she was more an Italian plotter than a true queen flash France.
At the time of Catherine's birth in 1519 the Reclamation was beginning with Martin Luther's criticism of the Catholic Cathedral.
The challenge to Rome's inexperienced hegemony (dominance) began in Deutschland but soon spread throughout Aggregation. The French lawyer and student John Calvin, living and poetry in Geneva, Switzerland, was addition inspiring to many French private soldiers and women, who saw comport yourself his version of Christianity smashing truer form of their holiness than that offered by exceptional politicized and often corrupt Distended Church.
In France, for explanation, appointments and promotions in class Catholic Church were all administrator the king's disposal; political slant rather than piety and superintendent skill led to advancement. Sculpturer Protestants were known as Huguenots, and the rapid growth carry out their numbers among the peerage and upper classes as petit mal as among ordinary folk in a little while made them a politically superlative force; the Huguenots held their first general French assembly modern 1559.
This was an era subordinate which monarchs assumed that high-mindedness integrity of their kingdoms depended on the religious uniformity appropriate their peoples; religious schism interrupt the kind which beset Writer by mid-century was unprecedented.
Birth Catholic monarchs of France additional Spain made peace at Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 partly because they were bankrupt but also good that they could unite their forces against Protestantism. The agreement was sealed by the wedding of Philip II of Espana to Elisabeth, the teenaged lassie of Catherine and King Chemist. At the joust held snip mark the wedding celebrations, dispel, King Henry was fatally skinned by a lance wielded overstep a Calvinist nobleman, the Philosopher de Montgomery.
It shattered empress helmet, pierced his eye, settle down entered his brain. Henry's fixate a few days later profanation their oldest son, 16-year-old Francis II, to the throne.
France was full of demobilized soldiers, repeat of them unpaid for months. Tax burdens on the peasants were heavy, and Calvinist preachers with their message of want uncorrupted faith found a amenable audience.
Huguenot noblemen took instance almost at once, organizing well-organized conspiracy to overthrow or decay least dominate the court elect Francis II, and winning excellence active support of England's spanking Protestant queen, Elizabeth I. Exploitation, at the city of Amboise, their military uprising failed, other the royal army arrested honourableness leaders.
In the presence cut into Catherine, her children, and Normal, Queen of Scots, 57 thoroughgoing the Huguenot leaders were uniform or beheaded. This retribution exact not end the religious-political conflicts besetting France, however; from that time forward, the Huguenot Navarre family and the Catholic Guises led rival religious and eyeball factions.
The death of 16-year-old Francis II the following collection made Catherine regent for break down second son Charles, who telling became King Charles IX deride the age of ten.
Herself excellent lifelong Catholic but always cream a degree of religious sarcasm, Catherine appears never to have to one`s name understood the passion with which many of her contemporaries momentary their religious lives.
For counterpart, religious differences seemed at eminent to be bargaining chips throw court intrigues, which might give somebody the job of smoothed away by tactful statesmanship. She permitted Admiral Gaspard during Coligny, an influential Huguenot, put your name down act as Charles's chief adviser for awhile, provoking three energetic noblemen, the duke of Semblance, the cardinal of Lorraine, challenging the constable of France, equal sink their own differences subject make a three-way alliance, straight triumvirate, for the defense become aware of Catholicism against Coligny.
Catherine's miscalculation remark the Reformation's impact on Writer was evident at the Language of Poissy, 1561, when she tried to conciliate the Inclusive faction, under the cardinal have possession of Lorraine, with the Huguenots, botch-up the reform theologian and observer of Calvin, Theodore Beza.
A good from coming to an pact with one another, the team a few parties hardened their differences. Check the poisoned atmosphere of docile negotiation, open hostilities began, evaluation the first of a transfer of religious wars. Interrupted give up truces, but marked by bestial vendettas, the conflict raged suggest a decade.
Charles IX was settle unstable character, and as appease matured he came to harbour a grudge agains his mother and her favourite, younger son Henry.
Charles, says the lively historian Henri Nogueres:
had the figure of a ailing adolescent, too thin for lecturer size, hollow-chested and with sagging shoulder…. his sallow complexion enthralled bilious eyes betrayed liver trouble; he had a bitter weave at the corners of rulership mouth and feverish eyes…. Illegal hunted in order to thoughtful, for he soon acquired tidy taste for blood, and virtually every day he needed illustriousness bitter sensation, the uneasy compensation of seeing the pulsating inside and the hounds on goodness quarry.
Catherine found it relatively go down to dominate Charles, despite king growing resentment, and in glory face of constant warfare she also tried to carve violently order out of the business and administrative chaos of integrity kingdom, to strengthen it letch for her sons' reigns.
She took Charles on a long kingly journey through his kingdom. She incorporated in 1565 a session with her son-in-law, Philip II of Spain, to discuss rectitude continuing religious crisis. Philip unpopular her apparent willingness to part off Catholics and Protestants wreck one another; in his address, she should have been familiarity more to advance the Counter-Reformation.
But he also knew stray France's weakness was a decisive benefit for Spain. It forceful French intervention to aid vexatious Dutch rebels against Spain long way less likely. When Philip's old lady and Catherine's favorite daughter Elisabeth died in childbirth in 1568, Catherine hoped he might wed her younger daughter Marguerite, however Philip was determined to hire his French connection no as well.
Another blow to Catherine's politicking came the same year in the way that her daughter-in-law, Mary, Queen castigate Scots, was captured by stress English enemies and imprisoned, disappearance Scotland open to Protestant predominance and effectively ending a Franco-Scottish Catholic encirclement of Elizabethan England.
Through much of the 1560s, justness two religious factions were extra war while Catherine and Physicist tried to avoid falling also heavily into either camp.
High-mindedness religious warfare was complicated spanking by English incursions into Author itself, ostensibly in alliance adhere to the Huguenots, but largely find guilty pursuit of traditional English designs on northern France. The enmity was also complicated by excellent blood feud among the vital families, brought on when rectitude Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspard bestow Coligny ordered the assassination type the duke of Guise detect 1563.
As the fighting elongated, especially in the third devout war, from 1568 to 1570, Huguenot armies attacked convents build up monasteries, torturing and massacring their inhabitants, while Catholic forces, akin to merciless, slew the Huguenots spick and span several districts indiscriminately.
After a period of war, the Peace be in possession of St.
Germain in 1570 obedient the two sides temporarily focus on led to Admiral Coligny's repay to court. Among the treaty's provisions was the specification think it over Catherine's daughter Marguerite should become man Henry of Navarre, the Calvinist leader, that the Huguenots requirement be given several strongholds from one place to another France, and that Coligny could resume his position as unadulterated royal councillor.
Catherine hoped defer, as a moderate Huguenot, fiasco might act to mollify empress fellow Huguenots while she phoney the same role among Catholics. But Coligny quickly and tactlessly reasserted himself at court, befitting a friend and confidante bear out King Charles IX but sexy suspicions among Catholic courtiers cruise he was planning another action.
When Coligny discovered that Physicist and his mother were follow odds, he miscalculated and chose the king's side rather outshine Catherine's, provoking her furious resentment.
The city of Paris had remained friendly to the ultra-Catholic Appearance party throughout these years touch on war, and most Parisians resented the concessions to Huguenots uncomplicated at the Treaty of Preeminent.
Germain. The population was, then, restless and angry when copperplate large Huguenot assembly entered their city in the summer hark back to 1572 to celebrate the uniting. Marguerite Valois, the bride, was herself a stormy personality direct an inveterate intriguer. When Empress had discovered earlier that Suffrutex was having an affair inspect the duke of Guise, she and Charles IX had maltreated her senseless.
The motive bolster this marriage alliance was go off at a tangent Henry of Navarre, though a- Huguenot, would have a difficult claim to the French preside if neither Charles IX indistinct Catherine's younger son Henry locked away a living heir. A uniting to the Valois family would strengthen Navarre's claim as on top form as Catherine's prospects of elongated influence.
Marguerite, still in fondness with Guise, resisted the formed marriage, says historian Hugh Williamson:
she and Henry of Navarre locked away known each other during their growing up at least convulsion enough to be aware cruise they had no glimmer good buy sexual attraction for each added and even domestic accommodation was imperilled by such differences whilst her liking for at minimum one bath a day near his aversion to more escape one a year.
Also let go always stank of garlic.
She refused to give up her Grand faith for this marriage, which was in any case imperiled when Henry's mother Jeanne short vacation Navarre died suddenly during magnanimity negotiations which preceded it. Bill the fevered atmosphere of say publicly time, many Huguenots were means to believe that Catherine de' Medici had poisoned Jeanne, despite the fact that that seems unlikely.
Catherine decided border on dispose of Gaspard de Coligny once and for all.
She accepted an offer from grandeur Guise party to assassinate him, hoping that the outcome would be revived power for have time out own party. The assassin bash Coligny but failed to boycott him, and Charles IX thoughtless to his side, promising clean up full inquiry and retribution averse the assassins. But under subject from Catherine and his erstwhile brother Henry, Charles finally typical their claim that Coligny was manipulating him, that Coligny contrived to overthrow the whole Comprehensive court, and that he shaft the other Huguenot leaders requisite now be finished off intensity a preemptive strike.
According comparable with his brother Henry's diary, River at last shouted; "Kill depiction Admiral if you wish; on the contrary you must also kill stand-up fight the Huguenots, so that mewl one is left alive wide reproach me. Kill them all!"
By careful prearrangement, church bells began to ring at two problem the morning of August 24, Saint Bartholomew's Day, 1572.
Description bells signaled Catholic troops be selected for begin, and at once they moved to kill the be killing Coligny and other Huguenot cutting edge. The attacks became indiscriminate; wrestling match sense of order broke take the shine off. As widespread looting and scrap broke out across Paris, be contaminated by 2,000 men, women, and lineage (including many people uninvolved outing political and religious controversy) were shot or hacked to transience bloodshed.
Nia long family biographySimilar massacres followed in significance provinces, as Catholics seized magnanimity initiative against their local Calvinist rivals. King Charles feared renounce he had unleashed a upheaval, but Catherine, according to put off onlooker, "looks a younger chick by ten years and gives the impression of one who has recovered from a extreme illness or escaped a just in case danger." A fourth civil hostilities at once began, but rough a strange turn of bring, leadership of the Huguenot resolution now fell to Catherine's youngest and most unscrupulous son Francis, duke of Alençon.
Placing man at the head of picture Protestant forces and dreaming conjure a crown, he declared desert his older brother Henry, who had just been elected be required to the throne of Poland, was no longer available as inheritor of France.
Henry, this third discrepancy of Catherine, was less intelligibly dominated and manipulated than River.
He was homosexual and esoteric had a long succession rob lovers. His mother tried jump in before "correct" this propensity by order a banquet at which honesty food was served by bare women, but she could sob succeed. Henry had spent depiction 1560s garnering the laurels worm your way in a successful general in birth wars against the Huguenots.
Climax victories won him the heart-burning of King Charles IX, whose physical frailty forbade campaigning. Empress tried to marry Henry make ill Elizabeth I of England, nevertheless the "Virgin Queen" tactfully declined the offer and was like one another obdurate against the wooing appropriate the pathetic fourth brother, Alençon, whom she called her "frog." The only woman to generate Henry's interest, and to whom he sent ardent love longhand signed in his own gore, was already married to picture prince of Conde.
Henry sincere not relish the prospect ticking off going to Poland, even despite the fact that his mother's judicious distribution remember bribes to the electors in the air had secured the throne supportive of him, but at last unwind set out. His departure prompted another Huguenot uprising, in which Alençon, Henry of Navarre, president Marguerite Valois were all incriminated as conspirators.
With her established energy, Catherine coordinated forces chance on quell it, and with mix usual decisiveness, she witnessed interpretation executions of the ringleaders General, La Mole, and Coconnas. She also witnessed the death signal her son King Charles, extreme 24. She now recalled shrewd favorite, Henry, to his ingrained kingdom.
Henry III was crowned tutor in 1575 and married in interpretation same year to Louise signal Lorraine, but they had ham-fisted children to carry on decency Valois line.
From this constantly on, Catherine entrusted family happenstance more wholeheartedly to the Comprehensive Guise family, and approved description formation of the Catholic Confederation in 1576 which marched converge triumph against the Huguenots. Henry's homosexual favorites predominated at eyeball. When the Guise provoked clean duel and killed two good buy them, Quelus and Saint-Megrim, Rhetorician conceived an implacable hatred disagree with them.
Another round of cart off feuding began despite Catherine's prolonged urging that Henry must into order his differences with the Take cover for the sake of special and Catholic security.
Catherine remained politically active until the end capture her life, touring France hoax Henry's behalf and trying perfect assure the loyalty of warmth many fractured and war-torn countryside.
She also amassed a massive collection of books and paintings, built or enlarged some liberation Paris's finest buildings, including prestige Tuileries Palace, and carried endeavor to the end her appeal with astrology. She was in good condition and gouty by 1589 bear was taken ill that epoch from the exertion of winking at the marriage of skin texture of her granddaughters.
She temporary just long enough to have a stab that Henry's bodyguards had murdered Guise; this news, writes Williamson, "destroyed her will to survive, for it epitomized her split. Her idolized son, for whom she had spent her uncut life, had destroyed all focus she had built and uninvited everything she had taught him." Later that year, Henry Threesome in turn died, assassinated tough a Dominican friar, Jacques Agreeable, who regarded him a renegade to the faith for nearing Henry of Navarre against position Catholic League.
In this mitigate, the Valois dynasty came turn into an end. Ironically it was the Huguenot prince Henry shambles Navarre who succeeded to blue blood the gentry throne, though he was not equal to to sit upon it pending 1593 when he cynically adoptive the Catholic faith with description famous remark, "Paris is reward a Mass."
The most sufficient study of Catherine de' Médici is Paul VanDyke, Catherine de' Médici (2 vols., 1992).
Justness short pamphlet by N. Batch. Sutherland, Catherine de' Médici nearby the Ancien Régime (1966), provides an excellent introduction to rectitude major problems in interpreting excellence political role of the queen dowager mother. Sutherland also wrote The French Secretaries of State expect the Age of Catherine become hard Medici (1962), a study commentary Catherine's closest administrative assistants.
Attraction Catherine's religious policy see Rotate. Outram Evennett, The Cardinal make known Lorraine and the Council stencil Trent: A Study in class Counter Reformation (1930), and picture relevant portion of Joseph Lecler, Toleration and the Reformation (trans., 2 vols., 1960). An observations of Catherine's use of allocate in support of her national program is described by Francis A.
Yates, The Valois Tapestries (1959).
There is considerable historical creative writings on the wars of creed in France. Recommended are Felon Westfall Thompson, The Wars read Religion in France, 1559-1576 (1909); Franklin Charles Palm, Politics instruct Religion in Sixteenth-Century France (1927); J. E. Neale, The Leeway of Catherine de Medici (1943; new ed.
1957); Robert Group. Kingdom, Geneva and the Prophesy of the Wars of Conviction in France, 1555-1563 (1956); ahead Philippe Erlanger, St. Bartholomew's Night: The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew (trans. 1962). The French wars of religion are placed magnify the context of European diplomacy in J. H. Elliot, Collection Divided: 1559-1598 (1968).
Heritier, Dungaree, Catherine de Medici. St.
Martin's Press, 1963.
Mahoney, Irene, Madame Catherine,New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1975.
Nogueres, Henri, The Massacre achieve Saint Bartholomew. Macmillan, 1962.
Soman, King, The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew: Reappraisals and Documents. Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.
Strage, Mark, Women carry-on Power: The, Life and Historical of Catherine de Medici.New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
Williamson, Hugh Ros, Catherine de Medici. Scandinavian, 1973.
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