Queen Catherine de' Medici

Queens of Europe Catherine de Medici [Music] Queen Catherine de Medici from the powerful Italian family married the future King onry ii of france at 13 when he was impaled through the eye during a joust catherine ruled France as regent for three of her sons during civil and religious wars she was also a patron and devotee of mystic Nostradamus Catherine was born in Florence to Lorenzo de Medici and his french wife Madeleine de Latour Dovan her parents were as pleased as if she had been a boy but within a month of her birth the baby was an orphan her mother died of plague and her father of syphilis infant Catherine was cared for it by her paternal grandmother but she died a year later and Catherine was taken by her aunt when her cousin was elected Pope Clement the seventh he returned four-year-old Catherine to Florence where she was addressed as the little Duchess four years later the Medici family was ousted in Florence and young Catherine was held prisoner in a convent these years were the happiest of her life Holy Roman Emperor Charles v laid siege to Florence and there were calls for Catherine to be killed and chained naked to the city wall but eventually the siege ended and Catherine was sent safely to Rome and to the protection of Pope Clement who greeted her with open arms and tears in his eyes and immediately set about finding her a husband suitors lined up for the hand of the wealthy heiress Clement was keen to Wed her to royalty as though the Medici family was fabulously wealthy and powerful they were of common origins King James v of Scotland was considered but when King Francois the first of France proposed his second son Omri Duke of Orleans Clement jumped at the chance the wedding of the two fourteen year olds was a fabulous affair with extravagant gifts from both sides Prince Omri Dan and jousted for Catherine at midnight they left the wedding ball to perform their marital duties the groom's father escorted him to the bedroom and stayed until the marriage was consummated he reported that each had shown valor in the joust Pope Clemente visited the young newlyweds in bed the next morning to further bless the fruitfulness of their union onry showed little interest in his new bride and she saw very little of him for the first three years of their marriage at fifteen onry became enchanted with the 38 year old Deanne to Portier whom he adored for the rest of his life but she was by no means the amorous Kings only mistress meanwhile Catherine impressed the French Court with her intelligence and her eagerness to please Catherine was a woman of small stature she had a royal cobbler of fashion her high-heeled shoes to make her appear taller making her one of the first women in Europe to wear high heels but when Pope Clement died the new Pope Paul the third broke the papal alliance with France and stopped payments on Catherine's huge dowry a decade into their marriage Catherine had not yet had any children and she was on shaky ground anri's older brother Francois caught a chill after a game of tennis and died shortly after as the new heir to the throne it was essential that onry have an heir of his own and he and his father began discussing divorce from Catherine in desperation she tried every trick she could find to promote conception including placing cow dung and ground stags antlers on her a source of life and drinking mules urine rumors began to circulate that the Italian Delphine was a witch as a woman's power was her ability to create life it was believed that a witch possessed the opposite power and could not bear children at last Catherine gave birth to a son Francois the real solution to the couple's fertility problems was more likely physician general Finnell who noticed slight abnormalities in the couple's organs and advised them how to solve the problem Catherine quickly conceived again and gave birth to ten children Francois Elizabeth cloud Louis Charles Omri Margaret Francois Joan and Victoria Catherine's fertility did not improve her marriage however and her husband continued to be unfaithful to her in 1547 King Francois died and Omri and Catherine became king and queen of France on Aria granted his queen no political power while his mistress Diane de Poitiers was at the center of court life Catherine expressed her desire for the Chateau of Chenonceau as a personal retreat but Audrey gave it to Deanne instead the Imperial ambassador reported that Honoria would sit on Diane's lap and fondle her breasts in full view of the court Dionne did not consider the Queen a threat and encouraged onry to spend time with her in order to sire more legitimate children Catherine nearly died giving birth to twin daughters Joan and Victoria Joan died in the womb and Victoria a few weeks later Catherine had no more children after this tragedy when King James v of Scotland died his only child five year old Mary Queen of Scots was brought to the fringe court and betrothed to the Dolphin frost wah Catherine brought up the young queen with her own children she invited mystic seer Nostradamus to court where he drew up horoscopes for her children made her a talisman containing a human blood and told her more about what he foresaw for her family particularly quatrain i-35 in which he predicted the young lion shall overcome the older one on the field of combat single battle he shall pierce his eye in a golden cage two forces one then he shall die a cruel death in 1559 King Inari competed in a jousting tournament wearing d-ends colors black and white his opponents Lance shattered and five large splinters of wood pierced the king's head and I Catherine stayed by his side for ten days as his health fluctuated at times he was well enough to dictate letters and listen to music but eventually he lost his sight speech and reason he called out repeatedly for Deanne but the Queen barred her rival from the room King Inari died at the age of 40 Catherine took a broken lance as her emblem and wore black from then on vn was forced to hand over the crown jewels and the Chateau additional suit and was banished from court chateau de chillon sue one of the most elegant and unique palaces in France was known as the lady Chateau for the many women who owned and renovated it from Catrin Brooklyn a who oversaw its construction in the Middle Ages to Simone munier who converted it into a hospital during World War one and a hub for French resistance in World War Two in next week's video we'll explore the captivating history of this charming Chateau Catherine's fifteen-year-old son was now King Francois ii and his wife Mary Queen of Scots was Queen consort of France her uncle's the Cardinal of Lauren and the Duke of gi's moved themselves into the Louvre palace with the young couple and seized power the teenage king looked to his mother for guidance and she had little choice but to work with the powerful gi's brothers they were devout Catholics and said about persecuting Protestants called Huguenots with fervor when the brothers learned of a plot to overthrow them they moved the court to the fortified Chateau de Noirs there they launched a surprise attack against the Huguenots and drowned them in the river or strung them up on the battlements while Catherine Francoise and the court looked on in horror after just over a year on the throne 16 year old Francoise fell ill and died of an ear infection though many Catholics believed that he had been poisoned by Huguenots Catherine negotiated a pact with the Huguenots leaders that made her regent for her nine year old son now King Charles the ninth the young King wept through his coronation his mother did her best to protect him keeping him close and sleeping in his chambers she tried to broker peace between Huguenots and Catholics who were on the verge of Civil War she invited church leaders from both sides to come together and solve their differences but she failed to understand the religious zeal of her adopted country and the peace talks broke apart the Duke of Keys and his men attacked a group of Huguenots who were worshipping in a barn killing 74 and wounding 104 gi's was cheered as a hero in the streets of Paris while Huguenots called for revenge the massacre of Vassy sparked the French war of religion which would last for the next thirty years Huguenots allied themselves with Protestant England and battle raged the Queen Regent visited the frontlines herself and when warned of the dangers proclaimed my courage is as great as yours the Duke of Kees was shot and killed in battle and Catherine secretly celebrated the death of her ally as he had been the instigator of all the trouble she now faced she took her son on progress around France in an attempt to promote peace and loyalty to the crown while on the journey Huguenots forces ambushed the king and he and his mother barely escaped with their lives after this direct threat on her son's life Catherine had had enough of trying to broker peace and set out to suppress the Huguenots in 1572 Catherine arranged a marriage between her daughter Margaret of Valois and Omri the third of navarre member of a prominent Huguenots family seeing this as a sign of peace many Wellborn protestants traveled to paris to celebrate the wedding a few days after the nuptials while Huguenots leaders continued their revelry and nursed hangovers they were assassinated the slaughter spread throughout Paris and into the countryside somewhere between five thousand and thirty thousand Protestants were murdered during what became known as the st. Bartholomew's Day Massacre catherine was popularly blamed for the bloodbath rumors abound that she was involved in the occult and performed black masses with her son her Italian astrologer Cosimo Roux Jerry was believed to be her personal necromancer though much of the centuries-long suspicions surrounding catherine may boil down to cultural differences between the spiritually curious Italian Queen and her devoutly religious French subjects the st. Bartholomew's Day Massacre took a serious toll on King Charles's mental health he vacillated between bragging about the bloodbath and screaming at his mother blaming her for the murders Catherine remarks sadly that she had a lunatic for a son within two years his health deteriorated and he died of tuberculosis at the age of 23 on his deathbed he named his mother Regent as his brother and heir on read' was at the time away in the polish-lithuanian Commonwealth where he had been elected King the new king onry the third had dropped everything and returned home when catherine greeted her son she told him if I were to lose you I would have myself buried alive with you in addition to Huguenots King honoree also had to deal with the rise of the Catholic League led by the new Duke of Keyes who felt that the crown was too lenient on Protestants and his younger brother frost wah Duke of Anjou who coveted the crown and gathered support among the nobility calling them cell the malcontents these enemies delighted in using rumors of the Kings homosexuality so-called devilish vice to undermine his authority Katherine's daughter Margaret was unhappy in her marriage to onry of Navarre their union hadn't exactly started off on a great foot and had openly taken a lover Katherine ordered the arrest and execution of her daughter's lover cut her out of her will and never saw her again in 1584 Henry's heir his brother Francois died of malaria and after over a decade of marriage to Louise of Lorraine the King had failed to father any children this meant the next in line to the throne was his distant Protestant cousin Omri of Navarre the result was a succession crisis with the different factions putting forward their own alternative for heir in 1587 Queen Elizabeth the first of England ordered the execution of Catholic Mary Queen of Scots Queen Catherine was deeply shocked at the death of her former daughter-in-law who she had raised from childhood and the wider Catholic world was outraged philip ii of spain prepared for an invasion of england and the catholic league took over much of northern france catholics rose up in paris barricaded the city and refused to take orders from anyone but the Duke of Gea's an aria signed a treaty giving in to the Catholic League's demands and requested that the Duke of Kees visit him in his chambers when he arrived the Duke was stabbed to death by the Kings guards at the same moment eight other members of the gi's family were hacked to death by the king's men Audrey went to his mother's chamber and informed her begging her forgiveness and confessing I have had him killed I have done to him what he was going to do to me Catherine later told her confessor pray for him I see him rushing towards his ruin a few days later the 69 year old Queen Catherine died she had devoted her life to her children but one by one disease and the war of religion had taken them from her that summer King Honoria was assassinated by a fanatical Dominican friar making onry of Navarre the new King of France he converted to Catholicism in order to win back Paris and the throne thus ending nearly three centuries of Valois rule in France and bringing the Borbon dynasty into power Katherine's daughter Margaret was now queen of France if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe comment your thoughts and check out my other royal history videos if you really want to help please consider supporting me on patreon a link is in the description thank you for watching

Channel: Lindsay Holiday

Views: 160,502

Rating: 4.9546905 out of 5

Keywords: history, documentary, royal family, nobility, royalty, sex, bbc, the crown, british history, england, scandal, royal wedding, pregnancy, feminist, women, europe, historic costumes, medieval, france, french history, paris, king henry ii of France, queen of france, queen consort, strong female character, pope, medici family, catherine de medici, jousting, mary queen of Scots, Château de Chenonceau, affair, Huguenot, St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, Nostradamus, witch, black magic, astrology, reign

Id: pGHfRrzRMOM

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020