Kiss Me, Kill Me, Kate

Dear Folk,

On this date June 22, 1559 Philip II king of Spain took to wife Elizabeth of Valois. Now that sounds like a happy occasion and you can bet there was plenty of great food and heavy drink to go around. Phil II was hardly a pimpled faced youth; he had two wives die previous to Liz. Both Phil and Liz were Roman Catholics so they were compatible. No, really that matters! Understand that Liz was a pawn in her mother's game. Who was Mommy Dearest? You may have heard of her: Catherine de Médicis. Let's talk about her.

Catherine de Médicis (1519-89), was queen of France (1547-59) and mother of the last three Valois kings of France. She was the major force in French politics during the 30 years of so-called Roman Catholic-Huguenot wars and an instigator of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. More on that in a second.

Catherine, I always called her Kate, was born on April 13, 1519, in Florence, Italy, the daughter of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo de' Medici, called Lorenzo the Magnificent. Lorenzo was pretty darned good: a patron of the arts and light-handed ruler of the center of arts for all of Europe. In 1533 she married the duc d'Orléans, who became king of France in 1547 as Henry II. She twiddled her dainty thumbs during the reign of her husband and that of her first son, Francis II, but on Frank's death in 1560 the government fell entirely into her hands. Huzzah! She ruled as regent for her second son, Charles IX, until he reached his majority in 1563, and she continued to dominate him for the duration of his reign. Hey, aren't we all still 10 years old to our moms? You really need to see the movie "Queen Margot" to get a feel for this. Pretty dysfunctional parenting.

In her righteous determination to preserve royal power at any cost, Kate devoted her energies to maintaining a teeter-totter balance between the Protestant group known as the Huguenots, a sort of a cleanish rabble led by the French military leader Gaspard de Coligny, and the Roman Catholics, led by the powerful house of Guise, sleazy Cavalier types. During the religious civil wars that began in 1562, Kate, a good Roman Catholic, usually supported the Church. Sometimes, however, "political expediency" led her to switch her support to the Huguenots. This hard work also affected the personal affairs of her family. After all she arranged for her daughter, Elizabeth of Valois, to become the third wife of the powerful Roman Catholic Philip II. In 1572 Catherine found it somehow logical to marry another daughter, Margaret (Margot) of Valois, to the Protestant king Henry of Navarre, who later became Henry IV, king of France.

Later in 1572 she found the growing Huguenot influence over her son Charles, the French king, a tad frightening –I mean Chuck was treating Coigny as a father figure. Somehow that custody battle was bound to cause hard feelings. Accordingly, she "kind of suggested" the plot to assassinate the Protestant leader Coligny that led to his death and the deaths of an estimated 50,000 other Huguenots in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572). Those nice Protestant folk were in town for the wedding of Margot and Henry. I guess it was one way to cut down on the catering bill.

After the death of Charles in 1574 and the accession to the throne of her third son as Hank III, Catherine's power declined. She died in Blois, France, on January 5, 1589.

Now some of you may have heard of Kate's liking for poison. I say to you, pish-and-tosh. Sure she gave folks gloves with arsenic inside of them but it was a homeopathic treatment for arthritis. And those books with heavy metal inks? She was just ahead of her time as a fontaholic. Trust me.

And nobody much talks about Kate as a patron of the arts. Her interest in architecture was demonstrated in the building of a new wing of the Louvre Museum, in initiating construction of the Tuileries gardens, and in building the château of Monceau. Her personal library, containing numerous rare manuscripts, was renowned in Renaissance France.

What can we learn from Kate, her sons and her daughters? Sometimes it is good to play both sides? Look for ways of economizing on those dreadful wedding bills? Give your daughters away but keep your sons where you can watch them? How about no matter how wonderful you are, kill 50,000 folks and that is all anyone remembers? Maybe we should remember that old saying taught to me by Captain Penny out of Cleveland, Ohio: "You can fool some of the people all of the time; all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool Mom!"

BTW, If you are unamused by these musings, do let me know. I shall take you off the list. If you think someone else may like these, feel free to forward them with my name and email address attached. If you are Isabella Adjani and are reading this: I worship you! You were incredible as Queen Margot. Call me, write me. (Never can tell, *G*)

Your servant,
Ells