Catherine de Medici; A Most Ruthless and Cruel Queen

Catherine de Medici, who was married to King Henri II, was indeed one of the most shadowy and diabolic queens of France.   She was implicated in murders, including a massacre, poisonings, child abuse,  favouritism with her children, and last but not least ignoring an incestuous relationship amongst her children.

Some recent historians have tried to write more sympathetic biographies of her, due to unfortunate circumstances in her marriage to the king, and the fact that she is accredited with some political accomplishments.   Historians can continue to debate her political merits and contributions to the arts during her reign,  but as a therapist,  I find her personality and behaviour extremely warped  and  pathologic.

Catherine de Medici was born on April 19, 1519 in Florence, Italy into the very infamous Medici family that ruled Florence with brute political power off and on between the 1200’s to 1743.   Her father was Lorenzo de Medici who was the grandson of the likewise ruthless Lorenzo the Magnificent.  Her mother was Madeleine de la Tour d’ Auvergne, who was from a noble French family.

Sadly, her mother died several days after her birth, reportedly from syphilis, that had already caused the death of her father a month before she was born.  Orphaned, she was taken in by her paternal grandmother and aunts.

She reportedly was passed around several relatives and ended up in a convent, after an uprising against the Medici’s, where she stayed until her teens and her marriage to the future king of France.

This marriage was arranged by her uncle, Pope Clement VII, who was also a Medici, looking to establish the Medici power in France.   The marriage took place in Marseille in October of 1533, when she was only 14 and her groom, 15, the future King Henri II.

She was described as not being very attractive, but frankly that mattered little to her young husband who was already smitten with Diane de Poitier, 19 years his senior, that I wrote an article about in March 2013.

Her husband’s total lack of interest in her extended to the bedroom to the degree that, even  his mistress, Diane tried to encourage him to make more of an effort in producing an heir.  After 10 years had gone by without any pregnancy, doctors were consulted who diagnosed Henri as having hydrospadias, a penal deformity.

Court doctor Jean Fernel intervened with advice on sexual positioning and herbal concoctions, and Catherine gave birth to the first of her 10 children in January 1544.   Though her infertility was cured, she really did not have any influence on her husband, nor in the French court until after her husband died.

Henri II died from a massive brain infection in July 1559, tens days after being accidentally wounded in a sporting joust .  As he lay dying he constantly begged to see the only woman he had ever loved, Diane de Poitier, but Catherine denied his final requests. After his death, she banished his mistress from the courts and that is when her own Machiavellian personality became more evidently in view.

Although one can certainly feel sympathy for her being unloved by her husband; it was after all an arranged marriage, as all royal marriages were.  Who knows, perhaps her  husband saw a softness and loving nature in his mistress, that just wasn’t possible with Catherine.

Her maternal skills were just as lacking as her wifely ones in rearing and loving her children.  Those that survived into adulthood were all harmed by her manipulation, favouritism, neglect and downright abuse.

After years of infertility, she ended up having ten children, out of which seven survived.     Those who survived went on  to become three kings of France and her daughters, Elizabeth the Queen of Spain and daughter Margarite, Queen of France.

Her eldest son ascended to the throne at the age of 15 years, becoming King Francis II, but she did not attend his coronation, supposedly due to her grief.    He only survived 14 months on the throne, and then her next eldest Charles IX became king at the age of ten, at which time Catherine became the queen regent.

Charles  was not her favourite son, and throughout his reign was easily manipulated by Catherine even as an adult. He rarely exerted his own thoughts and generally went along with her directives probably in hopes to win more of her love and favour, as children who feel less appreciated and loved are sometimes prone to do.

During his reign, Catherine was very involved in supposedly trying  to bring about some resolution to the war between catholics and protestants, called Huguenots.    One of her efforts to do so was to propose  her daughter Margarite de Valois to the hand of the future king of France, Henri de Navarre, a protestant.

Margarite,( Queen Margot), who I wrote an article in August of 2012, was already in love with the young Henri de Guise , and greatly protested being forced into a marriage she did not want, inciting much wrath from her mother.

This so infuriated Catherine, that one night she had Margot dragged from her bedroom, and proceeded along with her son Charles to beat her , pulling out clumps of her hair.  In the end her mother had her way and the marriage was set for August the 18 th, 1572, to take place at Notre Dame Cathedral.

Five days after the marriage had taken place,  Catherine, masterminded,  overriding  her son Charles IX, and  orchestrated the horrendous massacre of Saint Barthelemy, slaughtering over 3000 protestants, who had come to witness the marriage of their protestant king.

Again, some recent historians have said, she only meant to kill a” few” of the major protestant leaders, with the others murdered by the crowd’s furor.  This horrific event certainly was a bad omen for Margot’s marriage, as both were completely unhappy with each other, from the beginning, which lead to them being involved in multiple extramarital affairs.

Charles IX did not reign too many years , reportedly dying of pleurisy at age 24. Rumours though, circulated that Catherine had a hand in his demise because she wanted her favourite son, Henri, to ascend to the throne.

Her daughter Margot’s continuous extra conjugal escapades was said to have been an embarrassment to the court, especially to her mother and brother, who had become King Henri III. Her wrath against her  flew into such fury that on a summer night in 1583, while the entire family was attending a sumptuous banquet, Catherine de Medici had her daughter kidnapped and transported under guard to a prison in the southwest part of France.

While she was imprisoned for over 17  years, Catherine decided to disown her daughter and withdraw her inheritance.  Additionally just to make sure her former sweetheart would never renter the picture, along with political reasons, she is suspected of plotting along with favourite son, King Henri III, of killing Margot’s former beloved. Tricked into meeting with Henri,  the Duke de Guise was brutally murdered, along with eight of his relatives at the Chateau de Blois.

Margot eventually would go on to write in her memoirs how much she had suffered from her mother’s lack of love and abuse.   She hinted that she had been also sexually molested by some of her brothers.

Although Henri might have been Catherine’s favourite child, he came to be the most despised king of France.  He was described as ruthless and as mean as she.  Public opinion was so against him, that when he was assassinated, France was over joyous, calling his murder a grateful act of God.

Catherine had over three hundred females spies in the court, called the Flying Squadron,who constantly reported on all the inside gossip heard in private.  She was known for her very lavish parties, and used these pretty spies to infiltrate and gather information.

Lo be it to anyone  that fell in disfavour with Catherine, as many of her enemies either disappeared or were found ill and died.  At the Chateau de Blois , one can still visit a room of over 327 little wooden drawers said to have been filled with various poisons, that she was suspected of having her master poisoners concoct to do away with those she felt threatened by or disliked.

Among those rumoured to have been poisoned by her was Jeanne de L’Albret, the mother of Henri the IV, who had previously criticised her.  Catherine also had the man who accidentally caused the death of her husband murdered too.

Throughout her life, Catherine was very interested in astrology and often consulted her court astrologer,  Come Ruggueri.   During one of his readings, he told her that she would die someday near Saint Germaine.

She also had consulted Nostradamus, who predicted her husband would die in a joust and that she would out live 3 of her children. Believing fully that there was a possibility she would die near Saint Germaine, which she interpreted as the parish church of Saint Germaine de L’Auxerrois, which was just across the street from the Louvre, where she resided, she made plans to leave her royal palace for safer grounds.

She eventually retired to the Chateau de Blois, seen in the photo, in order to get far away from the church of Saint Germaine de L’Auxerrois.   It was there several years later that she became very ill with a pneumonia like illness.  She asked to see a priest and welcomed the sight of a young priest who administered her the last rights.  When she asked his named, he replied Julien de Saint Germaine!

Catherine de Medici died on January 5th , 1589 at the age of 69, indeed near a Saint Germaine as predicted by her astrologist.  Her death did not bring much sympathy from her populace, as a historian said her death was treated with as much grief as  that of a goat.

One can easily blame her narcissism, lack of maternal skills and obviously pent-up anger and resentment on her orphaned childhood, but I have known others who despite their own painful childhoods went on to be kind parents towards their offspring and decent citizens.

Again, her emotionally sterile marriage,  compounded by her husband’s strong alliance with Diane de Poitier must have further provoked her into extreme violent behaviour.

Her disturbed relationship with Margarite, who she probably saw as extension of herself, therefore unable to love, left poor Margarite destined to forever seeking love from any male she could attract.  Margarite, also, was the only one who stood up to her, and refused to completely comply with all her dictates, but severely suffered from the consequences.

Her overt favouritism with Henri must have created much sibling rivalry, especially with Charles towards Henri, who he reportedly detested.

All in all she left each of her children with painful childhoods.   Her favourite Henri, internalized his mother’s pathology as his own, wrecking violent havoc during his reign.

Some latest research has come out linking sociopathic behaviour as possibly inherited.  If that is true, one can certainly look at the pathology of the Medici’s, especially Catherine and her wicked son Henri, as an interesting case study.

In Catherine’s case, I feel her upbringing in the end probably contributed the most, and that certainly her severe pathological mothering, along with perhaps genetic tendencies helped create her depraved son Henri, who died several months after her.

addendum:   This is a repost because of the  popularity of an American television series, Reign, which is highly fictionalised.  I therefore felt in need to bring forth again the real history of Catherine de Medici, one of the main characters.