Catherine de Medici (13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was Queen consort of France from 31 March 1547 to 10 July 1559 with King Henry II of France. Catherine, the daughter of Lorenzo II de Medici of Urbino and a member of the prestigious House of Medici, exercised great power in France as regent for her three sons Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III during the French Wars of Religion, during which she was a ruthless leader of the Catholic cause. She was most infamous for instigating the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
Biography[]
Medici in 1557
Catherine de Medici was born in Florence, Republic of Florence on 13 April 1519, the daughter of Lorenzo II de Medici and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne. In 1533, she married Prince Henry, the son of Francis I of France and Queen Claude of France. Throughout his reign, Henry forbade Catherine from meddling in state affairs and instead let his mistress Diane de Poitiers dominate his personal life. After Henry's death however, Catherine became regent for their young and frail son, Francis II, and she also served as regent for her son Charles IX of France after Francis' death in 1560. Her sons were engaged in almost constant civil and religious war in France at the time of the French Wars of Religion, and she first sought to compromise and make concessions with the Huguenots. However, she resorted to hardline policies against them due to her frustration and anger at her inability to successfully compromise with them. She was responsible for excessive persecutions during her sons' rule, and she was the chief instigator behind the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. After Charles died in 1574, she played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III of France, and he dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life. She died in 1589, outliving two of her sons, and closely followed by her third.