Catherine de Medicis

b. 1519; d. 1589

Queen of France, daughter of Lorenzo Medici, and wife of Henry II of France, whom she married in her 14th year. For many years she lived in obscurity, overshadowed by Diane de Poitiers, her husband's mistress, and she played little active part in state affairs until the accession of her son, Charles IX, in 1560, when she became regent. A born intriguer, she attempted to play off the Guise and Huguenot factions against each other in order to ensure the supremacy of her own family, and probably in the hope (unsuccessful, as it transpired) of preventing civil war.

When she considered the Huguenot power to be increasing to the detriment of her own influence, she instigated the murder of Gaspard de Coligny and thus precipitated the massacre of St Bartholomew (1572); though it is doubtful if Catherine had intended to encourage a massacre of those proportions. During the religious wars she tried to curb the power of the Guises, but at her death the country was in a state of anarchy and confusion. Catherine had all the Medici love for art, and she found time to take an active part in planning the Tuileries, and in enriching the Bibliothèque Nationale.

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