glove's labors lost
glove's labors lost
Or, Catherine de Medici and the return of weird and wacky ways to poison someone.
Hi friends,
The subject of today’s newsletter is so obvious and so rich in weird gifs that it’s almost inconceivable I haven’t profiled her before. It wasn’t until last week, when she came up naturally in conversation (as, in my life, she is wont to do), that I realized I hadn’t covered her yet. And that was an oversight that simply shall not stand.
So, without any further ado, High Priestess of the Lady Dirtbags herself,
Catherine de Medici, Occult Murder Queen of France!
Catherine was born to the Medici family in 1519 in Florence, Italy. If you’re not familiar with the Medicis, they are the historical Italian equivalent of Jeff Bezos. They funded the biggest bank in Italy in the 15th century, which gave them enough political power to essentially run the whole peninsula and pick whoever they wanted as pope. They weren’t filthy rich so much as they were “bankroll Michelangelo, invent opera, get the moons of Jupiter named after you” rich.
This seems like a pretty good start in life, but both of Catherine’s parents died of 16th-century diseases before she turned four weeks old. She was raised by a series of relatives until 1527, when the city was overrun by an angry sectarian religious mob and she was taken prisoner and sent to a convent.
I’m thinking that Catherine’s relatives weren’t great substitute-parents, because she loved being a prisoner in a convent and never wanted to leave. Unfortunately, the pope summoned her to Rome in 1530 after the religious violence subsided, and if there’s one thing you can’t do in 16th-century Italy, it’s ask the pope for a rain check because you’re enjoying nun jail. So 11-year-old Catherine grumpily went to Rome so the pope could find her a husband.
(This was, apparently, the pope’s job back then. Head and spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, military leader of the Papal States, part-time yenta to 11-year-old rich girls.)
Return of Our Old Friend: Poison
Lots of dudes came to Rome to marry this preteen heiress, but the one who got the nod was Henri, Duc d’Orleans. The pair were married in 1533, when both Henri and Catherine were 14. I’m not a fan of child marriage, but I cannot express to you the relief I felt while researching this when I realized Henri wasn’t, like 65. Here is a picture of him as a child holding what might be a dog, a small monkey, or a dinosaur from the 2000 Walt Disney film Dinosaur.
As if to make sure this child wedding was still extra horrifying, though, Pope Clement VII visited them in their marriage bed to make sure the marriage was consummated. Yikes.
A few years after the marriage, Henri’s older brother François died, suddenly making Henri and Catherine next in line to be King and Queen of France. And yes, if you were wondering, François died under—say it with me now—mysterious circumstances!!
Historians try to make the death of the Dauphin boring by attributing it to tuberculosis. To which I say: BOO, HISTORIANS. Secret poison murder is right there!! My interest in poison-based murders has been well documented in this newsletter, and knowing what we know about Catherine’s absolute passion for schemes, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that she had the Dauphin poisoned so she would eventually become the Queen of France. And if she didn’t actually do it, she 100% definitely thought about it.
Save the Last Lance
Anyway, Catherine and Henri were now next in line to rule, which meant the French were starting to get anxious about her producing an heir to the (heir to the) throne. This was tricky for two reasons. A of all, as we have discussed, Catherine was still wholly a teenager. B of all, Henri was—how to put it nicely—a fuckboi. As soon as their marriage was consummated, he started taking mistresses, including the famous Diane de Poitiers, who was fully old enough to be his mother.
Catherine, though, knew her position depended on having that heir, and she was determined. Not only did she give him one child, she gave him six in the space of about ten years. The sheer work ethic this involves is alarming to me, but good on her. Diane de Poitiers might have been a hot tits-out woman in her mid-40s, but she didn’t give birth to an entire ice hockey shift, goalie included.
(Aside: historians spend a lot of time here speculating about the shape of Henri’s penis, which I will not be getting into here, for obvious reasons, those being that I don’t care what shape his penis was.)
When King François I died in 1547, Henri took the throne, and Catherine settled in as the new Queen of France. Henri deeply underestimated Catherine during the few years of his reign. He didn’t allow her any political influence, snubbed her at every opportunity, kept sleeping with Diane de Poitiers, and apparently felt Catherine up during state occasions in front of the whole court.
So it is with great satisfaction I inform you that in 1559, King Henri II was participating in a joust when one of his courtiers gored him through the face with a lance, leaving big-ass splinters sticking out of his eyes and in his brain. He died shortly after. I personally will not miss him.
Rinse, Regency, and Repeat
With Henri’s death, Catherine’s eldest son François became king. (Every man in this story is named either François or Henri, and I’m sincerely sorry for that.) However, François II was 15. And while technically that was old enough for him to be king on his own, there was absolutely no doubt for anyone at court who was actually pulling the strings: mom.
Catherine took charge of all the complicated matters of state while François II, I don’t know, made out with his tall wife Mary Queen of Scots. Whatever he did, he didn’t do it long, dying at age 16 of an ear infection. (Shortly after, Mary Queen of Scots noped out of the French court back to Scotland, which is a whole saga that involves so many additional dirtbags I cannot possibly get into it here.)
Catherine was, obviously, upset at the death of her son. But fortunately she’d been proactive and had shit tons of children earlier in this story. She subbed in her next-eldest son Charles—now age nine, and also hooray a new name!—leaving her as the power behind the throne. Charles IX was an irredeemable weenie, so Catherine was even more obviously in charge of everything during his reign.
Forks and Dark Magic (Separately)
Like the rest of her family, Catherine was very into supporting artistic developments throughout her regency. She sponsored painters, sculptors, architects, and chefs, and rumor has it that she was the first one to introduce forks in France. This probably isn’t true, but it does give me a chance to use this image, so.
More importantly for my interests, Catherine wasn’t just into art. She was also into witchcraft!! She was notoriously into astrology and fortune-telling, and one of the cultural-figures-in-residence at Catherine’s court was none other than the famous seer and occult magician Nostradamus. She also had a guy named Cosimo Ruggeri on retainer as her personal occult magician.
Which, may I just say: good for her! If I was in charge of a country, you bet your ass I would have my own personal occult magician! I would like one now, frankly! If you are a freelance occult magician and are accepting new clients, please drop me a line!
People also whispered about Catherine participating in Satanic masses and casting hexes on her political rivals. Again, I know this isn’t true, but god I wish it were.
The rumors of her having a “Flying Squadron” of hot lady spies who slept with all of her courtiers to extract their deepest darkest secrets is a little more realistic. I’m always in favor of hot lady spies, and so I choose to believe this also.
Only Glovers Left Alive
Now, France was having a whole Protestant-Catholic dustup in the 1560s and 70s, because all of Europe was very upset about Martin Luther and other things that aren’t important to this story. The important thing is, part of Catherine’s duties as Basically The Queen was to try to get those Protestants under control. Part of this was dealing with Jeanne d’Albret, Protestant queen of the autonomous region of Navarre in northern Spain.
This…did not go great. It does, however, go great for the purposes of this newsletter, because I thrive on mess.
With the help of the Hapsburgs, Catherine launched a surprise strike against Jeanne, trying to put all the Protestants to death. Jeanne took a brave stand, ready to die for her faith. But then…Catherine ran out of money to murder Protestants. So she had to quickly double back and try to pursue a peaceful resolution. Which is, uh, sort of a hard thing to do after you’ve just threatened to slaughter four thousand people.
Catherine’s master plan was to arrange a marriage between her daughter Marguerite and Jeanne d’Albret’s son Henri of Navarre to solidify a peace between them. (What did I say about the available names for men in this story.) Jeanne, unsurprisingly, was not thrilled with this plan. She refused Catherine’s summons to court at first, but Catherine eventually wore her down, and Jeanne came to France and handed her son over to be married.
Immediately the fuck after, Catherine poisoned Jeanne’s mother-of-the-groom wedding gloves and killed her. This is the first glove-based murder we’ve encountered in the Dirtbags Through the Ages archive, but I sincerely hope it will not be the last.
Three days later, Catherine was probably behind launching the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, a weeklong slaughter of Protestants, including almost all of her new in-laws the Navarres. This is not the jaunty, sneaky kind of murder I enjoy, and so I am obliged to give a big thumbs-down to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
Regent? More Like Threegent.
Charles IX lived a bit longer than his brother, but he died of tuberculosis in 1574. Fortunately, Catherine had another son, this one named—please guess.
If you guessed Henri, obviously you are correct.
Henri, unlike his two older brothers, was at least an adult when he came to the throne. Unfortunately for France, he was a religious weirdo who spent all his time praying or self-flagellating, so Catherine was able to pursue her second encore in the role of Queen Regent. She spent the decade cleaning up her son’s mess every time Henri tried to involve himself in politics, basically running the whole show up until her death at age 69.
Due to many things, including the ongoing Catholic/Protestant wars Catherine had been a part of for decades, the French people did not like Catherine, and they didn’t spend much time mourning her. French diarist Pierre L’Estoile reported that the people treated her corpse “with as much consideration as a dead goat,” which is a fucked-up thing to say, though a hell of a turn of phrase.
Anyway, that’s the story of Catherine de Medici. 10/10 for panache and schemes. Docked points for general massacring tendencies. An inspiration in many ways.
Anyway, that’s all for this time.
Until next month’s dirtbaggery, be well, and check your gloves for poison,
-Allison