Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy, and our Medici
Speaker 1: super series isn't all about Italy. In this episode, we're
Speaker 1: actually going to follow the most famous female member of
Speaker 1: the Medici clan on her journey to France, where this
Speaker 1: wealthy bourgeois family finally attains what it hasn't had, which
Speaker 1: is royal standing. But it's not all happily ever after.
Speaker 1: You have probably heard of Catherine as a poisoner or
Speaker 1: an Italian spy, but we're saving that stuff. The Catholic
Speaker 1: Huguenot wars for later, and Katherine's Triple regency as well.
Speaker 1: For this one, We're going to go back to her roots.
Speaker 1: And that's because apparently we're really fascinated by stories about
Speaker 1: sad royal children. I was thinking about all the episodes
Speaker 1: where we've talked about them, Cleopatra's brood, Harrod's kids, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the first when she was just Lady Elizabeth with kind
Speaker 1: of an expendable head. So we're going to move on
Speaker 1: to Florence and start with a really sad childhood in
Speaker 1: our michel Angelo episode, we talked about a Medici pope,
Speaker 1: Pope Leo the ax as our friend Molly from Stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You called him and his various maneuvers
Speaker 1: in Florence for power. He assumed the papal throne in
Speaker 1: fifteen thirteen and replaced his brother as nominal ruler of
Speaker 1: Florence with his nephew, a puppet, Lorenzo the Second Medici,
Speaker 1: and don't get him confused with Lorenzo the Magnificent, because
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that about it. And Leo arranges an
Speaker 1: advantageous match for this young man with Madeline de la
Speaker 1: Tour du Verne, who's a sixteen year old orphan and
Speaker 1: also a Bourbon heiress. It's a deal struck up between
Speaker 1: the Pope and the attack alien territory hungry French King
Speaker 1: Francis the First, which suits both of their schemes and
Speaker 1: is a nice little union of power in the marriage
Speaker 1: is a success. The couple conceives a child within months,
Speaker 1: and Katerina de Medici is born on April nineteen, But
Speaker 1: the sad thing is she's orphaned within weeks of her
Speaker 1: birth because Laurens of the second seems to have had
Speaker 1: a pretty bad case of syphilis. Francis and Leo are
Speaker 1: of course disappointed that their plan hasn't come to fruition
Speaker 1: quite as they were hoping um. But once baby Catherine
Speaker 1: gets over in early illness, she's healthy and actually turns
Speaker 1: out to be a very valuable pawn to whoever possesses her.
Speaker 1: Pope Leo intends to control her himself and refuses to
Speaker 1: send her to Francis's court because basically she'd be a
Speaker 1: hostage and Francis would be the one who could decide
Speaker 1: who to marry her too. And so when Leo receives
Speaker 1: baby Catherine in Rome, he says, somewhat ominously, she comes
Speaker 1: bearing the calamity is of the Greeks, but he also
Speaker 1: says she's a fine and fat little baby, so maybe
Speaker 1: things are going to come out okay. Leo puts his
Speaker 1: full power behind Catherine and makes her Duchess of Urbino.
Speaker 1: He plans to eventually marry her off to an illegitimate
Speaker 1: Medici son and set them up as the new puppet
Speaker 1: rulers of Florence. But unfortunately things aren't so simple, and
Speaker 1: in one Leo dies and the new Pope is Adrian.
Speaker 1: The six who's a reformist. We talked about him in
Speaker 1: the Michelangelo Episode two. He has little tolerance for all
Speaker 1: things Medici and um it's not a good time for
Speaker 1: the family. Adrian at first takes Catherine's duchy of Urbino
Speaker 1: and gives it back to its original owners. But even
Speaker 1: though the family is flailing a bit at this time,
Speaker 1: Catherine's doing okay. She's moved back to Florence to live
Speaker 1: under her relative, Cardinal Julio's supervision. And you might remember
Speaker 1: him from our Popsy Conspiracy podcast. He was the illegiti
Speaker 1: it's son of the Giuliano who was murdered in the Duomo.
Speaker 1: But Adrian doesn't last long anyways. He dies, possibly being poisoned,
Speaker 1: just two years after he comes into power, and so
Speaker 1: Catherine's uncle, Cardinal Giulio becomes Pope Clement the seventh, and
Speaker 1: with the Medici back on top, back in power, Catherine
Speaker 1: becomes good marriage bait again. She's valuable again, and so
Speaker 1: Clement outfits her in style in the Medici Palace. You
Speaker 1: know she's she's raised like a princess there. But as
Speaker 1: we mentioned also in the Michelangelo podcast, Florentines are not
Speaker 1: happy under this new form of Medici rule Cardinal Giulio.
Speaker 1: Now Pope Clement isn't willing to give up his day
Speaker 1: job of micromanaging Florence, and the people in the city
Speaker 1: aren't happy under this Medici control. And in fifteen twenty six,
Speaker 1: when Catherine is just seven years old, Clement joins a
Speaker 1: sort of league with France, England, Florence, and ven Us
Speaker 1: against the eventual Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Five. But
Speaker 1: things do not go well for the League of Kognac,
Speaker 1: and soon enough imperial troops are sacking Rome. The Pope
Speaker 1: hass to flee, hide and melt down his papal Tierras
Speaker 1: to pay his own ransom, and as of course we
Speaker 1: learned in a previous podcast, while Rome is being sacked,
Speaker 1: the Florentines take the opportunity to try to restore the republic,
Speaker 1: and with the help of the Imperial army, they overthrow
Speaker 1: the Medici down with the Medici and so this is
Speaker 1: obviously scary times for Catherine de Medici hold up in
Speaker 1: the Medici Palace and she's there with her guardian and
Speaker 1: mother figure Clarice Strokesie, who the two of them are
Speaker 1: left to face this angry anti Medici Florentine mob and
Speaker 1: eventually they escape to a Medici country house, but an
Speaker 1: armed f scort comes to collect Catherine and takes her
Speaker 1: off to the Santa Lucia Convent, which is not a
Speaker 1: pro Medici convent, but still probably a relatively safe place
Speaker 1: to be, and this begins poor Catherine three years of
Speaker 1: danger and shuffling about and From Santa Lucia, she's moved
Speaker 1: to Santa Katarina of Siena, which is also in Florence,
Speaker 1: and it's a plague ridden convent, so not the best
Speaker 1: place for a young girl to be living. The French
Speaker 1: ambassador insists that she'd be taken out of it, and
Speaker 1: the Republic's council agreed for her to move to the
Speaker 1: convent of Santa Maria and Nunziata deli Marat, which is
Speaker 1: a covert operation. They leave in the dead of night.
Speaker 1: Catherine is wearing several veils, and this is in fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty seven, just to give you an idea of where
Speaker 1: we are in the time. People people sometimes ask for
Speaker 1: more dates and ages and um. But this convent is
Speaker 1: much nicer than the other two. It's set up to
Speaker 1: educate young aristocratic women and they also taken retired noble women,
Speaker 1: and since the convent has been well supported by the Medici,
Speaker 1: they're very welcoming to Catherine. The abbess is even her godmother,
Speaker 1: so it's comparatively nice. She learns a lot from these educated,
Speaker 1: aristocratic nuns, and um picks up a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that make her eventually so successful in court. You know,
Speaker 1: her nice manners, her beautiful bearing, her charm, and one
Speaker 1: of the nun's notes that she was so gentle and
Speaker 1: pleasant that the sisters did all they could to ease
Speaker 1: her sorrows and difficulty. So this is a um, a
Speaker 1: calmer time in her imprisonment, essentially, And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: Clement and Charles are hammering out a piece. But new
Speaker 1: extremists in Florence fear that the Medici will come back
Speaker 1: into power. Of course, of clementon Charles are together on this,
Speaker 1: so they consider eliminating the main marriage pawn, who of
Speaker 1: course is little Catherine, precious to the papacy and the Medici.
Speaker 1: And in fine with imperial troops arriving in Florence, these
Speaker 1: new extremists meet them with a fierce defense. Um. This
Speaker 1: is when Michelangelo is setting up the fortification, designing fortifications
Speaker 1: and all that. And these extremists are very anti eleven
Speaker 1: year old Catherine, and they have some terrible ideas about
Speaker 1: what to do with her. One plan is to lower
Speaker 1: her naked in a basket over the city walls, where
Speaker 1: her imperial allies might accidentally kill her. Another is to
Speaker 1: ditch her in a military brothel so that she's not
Speaker 1: a very desirable marriage pond anymore. They don't accomplish any
Speaker 1: of these, but regardless, the plan is to take her
Speaker 1: out of the Marat convent and the poor nuns have
Speaker 1: to give her up. Catherine thinks that the troops are
Speaker 1: coming to kill her, so she shaves her head and
Speaker 1: puts on a habit and yells, Holy Mother, I am yours.
Speaker 1: Let us now see what excommunicated wretch will dare to
Speaker 1: drag a spouse of Christ from her monastery and she
Speaker 1: will not take her habit off. Yeah. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: kind of remarkable though, that she's not harmed when she's
Speaker 1: taken from the convent. She's kept safe by her escort,
Speaker 1: who behaves quite honorably, but she has to ride through
Speaker 1: the city of Florence in her habit on a donkey,
Speaker 1: and it's a scary, terrible ride. She can hear that
Speaker 1: anti Medici people yelling at her on the street, but
Speaker 1: she's not harmed. She's dropped off at Saint Lucia Convent again,
Speaker 1: the place where she she started this whole odyssey, and
Speaker 1: soon enough Clement has Florence again and Catherine is safe.
Speaker 1: So Catherine is shipped off to Rome to live with
Speaker 1: her great aunt Lucrazia Salviata, who is Lorenzo the Magnificence daughter.
Speaker 1: And with the Medici back on top, it is time
Speaker 1: to make a marriage match, perhaps one with France. So
Speaker 1: now we're going to take you over to another country
Speaker 1: in another sad childhood. So Catherine's intended Henry, is born
Speaker 1: two weeks before her, and his mother dies when he's
Speaker 1: five years old. But the worst childhood trauma comes a
Speaker 1: year later. And to understand that, we're going to have
Speaker 1: to go a little bit back into his father's life.
Speaker 1: So his father, Francis, was obsessed with Italian conquests as
Speaker 1: a young man, and this earned him the hostility of
Speaker 1: Charles the First of Spain, who later became our old friend,
Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Emperor Charles five and in fifty five,
Speaker 1: Francis had a stupendous loss against the imperial troops in Pavia, Italy.
Speaker 1: He was overly brave on the field. His nobles were
Speaker 1: cut down around him, and he manages to get himself
Speaker 1: captured and taken to Barcelona. Francis is treated well by Charles,
Speaker 1: but he gets depressed, you know, not being able to
Speaker 1: do the things he's used to doing as King of France.
Speaker 1: He stops eating, he gets sick, and Charles is terrified
Speaker 1: that this priceless captive he has, this bargaining chip, is
Speaker 1: going to die on him, and Frances fortunately starts to
Speaker 1: get a little better. The two monarchs start to work
Speaker 1: out the Treaty of Madrid in and this results in
Speaker 1: a huge sacrifices of territory from Francis. A bad deal.
Speaker 1: It's a very bad deal, but of course he's not
Speaker 1: in a position to bargain here he's held prisoner um. Also,
Speaker 1: it's gonna result in a royal marriage. The widower Francis
Speaker 1: is going to marry Charles's widowed sister. But to be
Speaker 1: sure that, Francis goes out and actually fills these territory
Speaker 1: handovers and and keeps up his end of the deal,
Speaker 1: Charles was gonna need a little collateral, and so they
Speaker 1: work out a deal where in Francis instead, Charles will
Speaker 1: hold the Dauphin Francois and Henry, eight and six year
Speaker 1: old boys. Yeah, kids for collaterals. That's a that's very nice.
Speaker 1: The boys are brought by their grandmother to the borderlands
Speaker 1: and the exchange takes place on a raft in a river,
Speaker 1: which is very strange. It's like two rafts coming from
Speaker 1: the boat coming out to the raft, and then there's
Speaker 1: the switch um And as a note, this will come
Speaker 1: up a bit later. One woman in the boy's departing
Speaker 1: group is twenty five year old Dian de Poitier, who
Speaker 1: gives Henry a kiss and later she becomes his mistress
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life and kind of the
Speaker 1: bane of Catherine de Medici's existence. So Francis is really
Speaker 1: upset at the handoff. He's sad to be giving his
Speaker 1: sons up as prisoners. He promises them that he'll try
Speaker 1: to bring them home soon, but really he has no
Speaker 1: intention of fulfilling the terms of this treaty. So the
Speaker 1: likelihood that the boys are going to come home anytime
Speaker 1: soon is slim to none. Their initial captivity is fine.
Speaker 1: They're staying with their future stepmother Eleanor and they have
Speaker 1: this large French household. But as Francis becomes more rebellious
Speaker 1: you know, starting the league with Kognac for instance, the
Speaker 1: kids are basically put on lockdown and moved deeper and
Speaker 1: deeper into Spain. And just to compare this again to
Speaker 1: Catherine's childhood, since it is so interesting that this future
Speaker 1: couple is in captivity at the same time. This is
Speaker 1: around the same time that Imperial forces are sacking Rome
Speaker 1: and Catherine's hiding in the convent. But by fift twenty nine,
Speaker 1: things have gotten worse for the prisoners and a French
Speaker 1: spy is found near where they're being kept, so they're
Speaker 1: moved even deeper into Spain to Padraza, and the only
Speaker 1: member of their once enormous suite of tutors and maids
Speaker 1: and valets and friends that's left is a single French
Speaker 1: dwarf who's there to entertain them. Ultimately, they're moved to
Speaker 1: a cell with ten foot thick walls, bars, and straw mattresses.
Speaker 1: They have no companions, no education, and no exercise. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, the years of war have made France
Speaker 1: and Spain very ready for peace, even if their actual
Speaker 1: rulers are not, and the ladies have to be brought
Speaker 1: in to work it out since Francis Charles can't seem
Speaker 1: to do it. So La Pexi dey Dome, with Francis's
Speaker 1: mom and Charles's aunt, secures the boy's release for quite
Speaker 1: a bit of money instead of territory, and Francis sets
Speaker 1: to raising it and getting his boys back, and surprisingly,
Speaker 1: the boys are in pretty good shape considering the severity
Speaker 1: of their final time in prison. Henry's eleven now the
Speaker 1: Daufines twelve. But they're different kids. They're not these happy
Speaker 1: go lucky French princes that left their gloomy Spanish kids
Speaker 1: who have grown up in prison, and to make matters worse,
Speaker 1: their father doesn't even like them very much anymore, and
Speaker 1: he definitely favors his younger son, who has gotten to
Speaker 1: still have his happy French prince childhood. He says that
Speaker 1: the mark of a Frenchman was to be always gay
Speaker 1: and lively, and he also says that he has no
Speaker 1: time for dreamy, sullen, sleepy children. I just want to
Speaker 1: be like France. They've been in prison for four and
Speaker 1: a half years. Yeah, but it's time to start looking
Speaker 1: for a bribe for Henry, regardless of his dreamy sullenness.
Speaker 1: A match with Mary Tudor falls through, so Francis goes
Speaker 1: to his friend Clement the Pope and enter Catherine in
Speaker 1: Henry's life. And this is to be a triumphant marriage
Speaker 1: for for Clement and for Francis, who have both been
Speaker 1: pretty disgraced recently. This is their chance to show the
Speaker 1: world that they're back on top and they're making this
Speaker 1: great alliance. And the marriage between these two prison raised
Speaker 1: kids is going to be pretty impressive too. Isabella Destay
Speaker 1: helps prepare Catherine. Just to get an idea of her trousseau.
Speaker 1: Isabella requires three pounds of gold, two pounds of silver,
Speaker 1: two pounds of silk. All of that is just for gowns.
Speaker 1: She also gets pearls, and these pearls turn out to
Speaker 1: be pretty notable because um Catherine gives them to her
Speaker 1: future daughter in law, Mary Stewart, who, when she's beheaded
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First, ends up with them. Apparently that's that's
Speaker 1: how you get pearls. She also has a crystal casket,
Speaker 1: enormous diamonds, emeralds, rubies. Catherine is set as far as
Speaker 1: Trousseau go and she starts her journey to Marseille in
Speaker 1: fifteen thirty three. There of course very elaborate marriage festivities
Speaker 1: that go on for days and days, but they're finally
Speaker 1: married by contract October fifteen thirty three and they have
Speaker 1: their religious ceremony the next day. Catherine is dressed in
Speaker 1: gold brocade with a velvet corsage covered in gems and
Speaker 1: edged in ermine. She has jewels in her hair and
Speaker 1: a crown on her head, so quite the lovely bride
Speaker 1: and the Pope in Frances really want to make sure
Speaker 1: that these two fourteen year olds consummate their marriage, and
Speaker 1: consequently they're really creepy about it. They might even stay
Speaker 1: in the room to make sure that everything happens as
Speaker 1: it should. Um. But after that's done, everybody is free
Speaker 1: to go home and they exchange some parting gifts and um.
Speaker 1: One of the special gifts the Pope gives the King
Speaker 1: is a unicorn tusk, which Katie was really excited about
Speaker 1: because it is, of course actually a normal tusk and
Speaker 1: anyone at hell stuff works in the editorial department, I
Speaker 1: think knows how obsessed with them I am. I wrote
Speaker 1: an article if you want to go, look for it
Speaker 1: on our homepage. So Catherine's a duchess now. She's gone
Speaker 1: from this sort of derogatory term a merchant's daughter. She's
Speaker 1: clearly no merchant's daughter. But you know, the medicies have
Speaker 1: their have their reputations. But regardless, she is a duchess now,
Speaker 1: and it seems like things are going to be pretty
Speaker 1: great for her, except that the first major blow to
Speaker 1: her her married life comes less than a year after
Speaker 1: the wedding, when Clement dies and he hasn't fully paid
Speaker 1: her dowry, and he hasn't fulfilled all his promises to
Speaker 1: King Francis, and so consequently Francis feels like he's gotten
Speaker 1: a pretty bum deal with marrying his son to to Catherine,
Speaker 1: and he says that the girl has come to me
Speaker 1: stark naked. Another big problem is that Catherine can't seem
Speaker 1: to conceive, and this is a major issue when Henry's brother,
Speaker 1: the Dauphin, dies apparently after an exhausting game of tennis
Speaker 1: an embarrassing way to goo it really is seventeen year old.
Speaker 1: Henry has a daughter by an Italian woman, so it
Speaker 1: seems that the problem isn't him, and he's urged to
Speaker 1: repudiate Catherine, but Francis likes her a lot. She's smart,
Speaker 1: she's sporting, she may have brought side saddle to France
Speaker 1: in fact, and she can handle his body jokes. She's
Speaker 1: a good match for him, and so he becomes her
Speaker 1: ally her father in law. So Catherine steps up her
Speaker 1: attempts to conceive a notch and she gets these weird medicines,
Speaker 1: tries all sorts of strange potions out and um. She
Speaker 1: watches Henry and his mistress Dione through a whole drilled
Speaker 1: on the floor to see what they're doing, maybe find
Speaker 1: out if she's doing something wrong, although apparently she's so
Speaker 1: sad watching this that the tears blur her vision. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the couple gets a medical examination, which shows that both
Speaker 1: of them are slightly abnormal, which we have to wonder
Speaker 1: what happened detailed, but they're regardless. They're given some instruction.
Speaker 1: It seems to work because she's soon pregnant and she
Speaker 1: has a boy. Francis, followed by nine more children, so
Speaker 1: whatever they learn certainly works. For them, and an important
Speaker 1: note for our next episode, Catherine has a two parter.
Speaker 1: The survivors except for one are sickly children. They've got
Speaker 1: weak lungs. The boys have stres and fits of dementia
Speaker 1: that may have been from congenital syphilis. So file that
Speaker 1: one away. But while marriage isn't easy, neither is jousting,
Speaker 1: and at twenty eight Henry and Catherine become King and
Speaker 1: Queen of France. When Francis dies, Catherine sincerely mourned the
Speaker 1: old king. He taught her a lot about regal style
Speaker 1: and helped inspire her love of architecture and art, and
Speaker 1: for the next decade or so she absorbed herself in
Speaker 1: her family life, although she had to contend with a
Speaker 1: very pushy third party in her marriage, Dionda Poitier. But
Speaker 1: the King grows to respect his wife more and more
Speaker 1: to pay more attention to her, probably because he is
Speaker 1: grateful she's born him so many children um, and he
Speaker 1: starts to trust her too. He gives her the regency
Speaker 1: several times when he's away on campaigns um, but still
Speaker 1: her role is mostly being a mother and being a
Speaker 1: lady of the court. By the time she's forty life
Speaker 1: seems to be going fairly well after all these years
Speaker 1: of expensive wars with um France and Spain over Italy.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be peace finally, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: marked by two royal marriages, and to celebrate, Henry is
Speaker 1: going to host festivities. He has sons and his court
Speaker 1: will joust despite Catherine's fears and her foreboding sense of doom,
Speaker 1: and she thinks she has a second sight, so this
Speaker 1: is a big deal. Her astrologers have warned her that
Speaker 1: there's going to be trouble and Nostradamas has predicted disaster.
Speaker 1: She's dreamed of blood and gore. There is no good
Speaker 1: that will come out of this particular jousting a tournament,
Speaker 1: and so on Friday June fifty nine, after several successful runs,
Speaker 1: Henry the Second is struck down with a lance through
Speaker 1: the eye and brain. It takes him ten agonizing days
Speaker 1: to die, and he leaves his fifteen year old son Francis,
Speaker 1: who is weak in mind and body, as King of
Speaker 1: France and the grieving widow Catherine turns out to be
Speaker 1: willing to do anything to protect her children's birthright. But
Speaker 1: that's going to be the subject for our next episode,
Speaker 1: which will also be our exciting conclusion of the Medici
Speaker 1: super series. So leaving you with that, we will now
Speaker 1: go to listener mail, which is about the Medici. Appropriately enough,
Speaker 1: this message is from Jeremy and Juno Beach, Florida. He
Speaker 1: wrote to us, I've been listening to these podcasts and
Speaker 1: found it all very familiar. This is in regard to
Speaker 1: the Pozzy conspiracy. By the way, the game Assassin's Creed
Speaker 1: Too takes place in Renaissance Italy and a portion of
Speaker 1: the story includes the Medici and Pozzy takeover. The game
Speaker 1: used some of the history for the story and it's
Speaker 1: pretty accurate with your podcast. There's also a downloadable addition
Speaker 1: to the game named Bonfire of the Vanity. I haven't
Speaker 1: played it yet, but it's about a religious zealot that
Speaker 1: takes over Florence and starts burning books. Like the podcast
Speaker 1: on Savonarola, nothing spectacular by any stretch, but figured you'd
Speaker 1: be interested in the history aspect of the game, and
Speaker 1: we are. Indeed. We'd also like to remind you that
Speaker 1: we get a lot of suggestions on both our Facebook
Speaker 1: fan page and on our Twitter feed and missed in history,
Speaker 1: so you should come and find us, and if you'd
Speaker 1: like to check out my article on our walls because
Speaker 1: you know you want to, you can find it on
Speaker 1: our home page at www dot how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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