Catherine was born at Florence, the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and the great-niece of Pope Leo X. In 1533 her kinsman Clement VII married her at Marseilles to Henry, the second son of Francis I, who became Henry II in 1547. After Henry’s death in 1559 she was the power behind the throne of her sons Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III.

Catherine was less a zealot than a survivor. She tried conciliation at the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 and granted the Huguenots limited worship by the Edict of January 1562, then made war on them when that failed. Jeanne d’Albret, the Reformed Queen of Navarre, met her pressure with a reply that has been remembered ever since:¹

Madam, if I, at this moment, held my son and all the kingdoms of the world in my grasp, I would hurl them into the bottom of the sea, rather than risk the salvation of my soul.¹ Jeanne d’Albretto Catherine de’ Medici

In August 1572 Paris was full of Huguenot nobles for the wedding of Jeanne’s son, Henry of Navarre, to Catherine’s daughter Margaret. On August 22 an assassin wounded Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Two days later, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, the killing began. Coligny was murdered, and thousands of Protestants died in Paris and in the provinces in the weeks that followed. Pope Gregory XIII celebrated the news with a Te Deum.

Historians still debate how far Catherine planned the massacre. Many have held her responsible for the first attempt on Coligny’s life and for the king’s decision to strike the Huguenot leaders; others place more of the blame on the Guise family and the Paris crowd.² Catherine died at Blois on January 5, 1589, months before the last of her sons was murdered.

Catholic Opponents