Elizabeth, however, Henry was severely in-
jured in a joust, and soon afterward died.
Catherine had Diane banished from the
court and then saw her son succeed to the
throne as Francis II. At this time French
Protestants were gaining strength and ally-
ing with the Protestant monarch of En-
gland, Elizabeth I, raising suspicion of
treason among them by Catholic nobles
and ministers. In 1560, after the death of
Francis, Catherine served as regent for her
son Charles IX. Catholics and Protestants
were unable to reconcile their differences
and in the 1560s their disagreements
brewed into open warfare.
Catherine took the Catholic side in the
Wars of Religion and conspired endlessly
against the French Protestants, known as
the Huguenots, as a way of strengthening
her family’s position at the royal court. In
the countryside, Huguenot armies ravaged
Catholic towns, raided convents and mon-
asteries, and committed atrocities, while
the Catholic forces staged bloody reprisals
in northern France, a Huguenot heartland.
By the Peace of Saint Germain in 1570,
she arranged the marriage of her daughter
Marguerite to Henry of Navarre, a Hugue-
not leader. In 1572, on the occasion of the
wedding, Catherine plotted at a wholesale
massacre of Protestants in the kingdom,
known as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre. Four years later she helped to
form the Catholic League, an anti-
Huguenot army, and worked tirelessly to
garner support for her son, King Henry
III. Shortly after her death, this king was
assassinated by a Dominican monk, and
Catherine’s ambitious dreams for the
Valois dynasty came to an end when the
Protestant Henry of Navarre came to the
throne (after converting to Catholicism) as
King Henry IV.
SEEALSO:HenryIV
Médicis, Marie de ............................
(1573–1642)
The queen consort of King Henry IV of
France. The daughter of Francesco de’
Medici, the Duke of Tuscany, and the
Archduchess Joanna of Austria, she mar-
ried Henry in 1600. When Henry was as-
sassinated in 1610, she served as regent for
their son and successor, Louis XIII. She
made a truce with the Habsburg dynasty,
the traditional enemies of France, and al-
lied with Spain through the marriage of
her son Louis to Anne, a princess of the
Habsburg clan. In control of the royal trea-
sury, she squandered vast sums on court
festivities and on bribes to nobles hostile
to the crown. She also ordered important
building projects in the capital of Paris,
gracing the city with imposing monuments
and palaces, including the Luxembourg
Palace on the city’s formerly neglected Left
Bank. This palace was decorated with an
important series of paintings describing
her life, by the Flemish artist Peter Paul
Rubens.
Marie’s regency saw trouble brewing
among the French nobility, which was as-
serting ancient rights to balance the au-
thority of the king. A general assembly
known as the Estates General was con-
vened in 1614; at the same time Marie pro-
moted an Italian friend, Concino Concini,
to a powerful position within the govern-
ment over the capable Duc de Sully. Re-
sentment at the meddling of this outsider
hardened opposition to the monarchy.
Louis came to the throne in 1617, three
years after his age of majority. Concini was
assassinated on Louis’ orders in the same
year and the young king soon exiled his
mother to the castle of Blois, fearing con-
spiracies on her part against him. In 1619
Marie escaped her virtual captivity and
raised an open revolt against her son, butMédicis, Marie de