Catherine de' Medici

An orphaned Florentine heiress who became queen of France, Catherine de' Medici was the mother of three French kings and for nearly thirty years one of the most powerful people in the country. Her sons' reigns, from 1559 to 1589, were dominated by the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenot Protestants, and she struggled, often by shifting tactics, to keep the Valois dynasty on the throne. Her reputation was shaped above all by the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572.

Catherine was born in Florence on 13 April 1519, the only child of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and his French wife, Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne. Within a month both parents were dead. She was brought up by relatives, protected by her family's two popes, Leo X and then Clement VII. When the Medici were driven from Florence in 1527 she was held as a hostage in convents. After Florence surrendered, Clement arranged a great match: in October 1533, at Marseille, the fourteen-year-old Catherine married Henry, second son of Francis I.

Henry became heir on his elder brother's death in 1536 and king in 1547, but he gave his love and much influence to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. For ten years Catherine had no children, and there was talk of divorce. Then, from 1544, she bore ten, among them three future kings. On 30 June 1559, at a tournament celebrating the peace that ended the Italian wars, a lance splintered into Henry's eye; he died on 10 July, and Catherine wore mourning for the rest of her life.

Her eldest son, Francis II, was fifteen and married to Mary, Queen of Scots, whose uncles of the Catholic Guise family took control of the government. When Francis died in December 1560, Catherine became governor of the realm for the ten-year-old Charles IX. At first she sought compromise. In January 1562 she issued an edict of limited toleration. Weeks later, on 1 March, the Duke of Guise's men killed worshipping Huguenots at Vassy, and the civil wars began. France would know little peace for thirty years. After a Huguenot attempt to seize the king in 1567, Catherine turned to a harder line.

Hoping to reconcile the two sides, Catherine married her daughter Margaret to the Protestant Henry of Navarre in Paris in August 1572. Days later the Huguenot leader Admiral Coligny was wounded by a gunman. Historians still debate who was behind the shot, but there is reason to think Catherine shared in the decision, taken amid fears of a Huguenot revenge, to kill the Protestant leaders gathered in the capital. The St Bartholomew's Day massacre that began on 24 August spread from Paris to many provincial towns and killed thousands. Protestant writers then created the enduring image of Catherine as a wicked, scheming Italian queen.

Charles died in 1574 and was succeeded by Henry III, her favourite son, who leaned on her for most of his reign. She travelled the country as his negotiator, once spending eighteen months touring the south to meet Huguenot leaders. When her youngest son died in 1584, the Protestant Navarre became heir, and the Catholic League led by the Duke of Guise rose against the crown. In December 1588 Henry had Guise murdered at Blois without telling his mother. She died there on 5 January 1589, probably of pleurisy. Henry III was assassinated months later, and Navarre became Henry IV, the first Bourbon king.

Catherine spent heavily on the arts to bolster a weakened monarchy. She built the Tuileries palace in Paris, commissioned Henry II's tomb at Saint-Denis and staged court festivals; the Ballet Comique de la Reine of 1581 is regarded as the first true ballet. Many later legends, such as the claim that she brought Italian cooking and the fork to France, are rejected by food historians.

Our 1530 map shows the Kingdom of France she entered as a bride, and our 1600 map the kingdom under Henry IV, a decade after her death.