Who is Catherine de’ Medici?
Yeah.
And they had two daughters.
And Spain is a superpower at this time, isn't it? Absolutely. France and Spain are superpowers.
And then she has people in Lorraine and Tuscany. She is the grandmother of Europe.
And what about her final years, Catherine? I mean, she's quite old by this point, not like elderly, but she's lived a life by this point. So what's life like for her in the mid-1850s or so?
Well, for her, it's very hard because in 1585, there's the eighth religious civil war that is triggered, obviously, by the death of her son, her last son. Also, you have to realize that now, you know, she's counting her kids. Oh, my God. And there's still Henry.
But Henry and herself, so her favorite son, are going to drift apart because Henry III is going to make a secret alliance with Elizabeth I because he understands now that the Protestants don't want his crown, but the Guises and Mary Stuart want much power in Europe. Right.
So he's going to make a secret alliance, and Catherine is going to get closer to the Guises, wanting to preserve the Catholic faith, ultimately, in France. And Henry III is going to commit a very horrible thing. He's going to order the murder of the Guises, and Catherine de' Medici is going to know that's the end. I think she really gets very ill. Mm-hmm.
At that time, so it's December 1588, she gets very ill and she has nowhere to recover because the country is in, honestly, it's hell. France is hell at that point. And she dies on the 5th January 1589. And I'm so glad she didn't see her favorite son, the beautiful Henry, murdered. He's murdered a few months later, in August 1589.
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