C16 makeups: Catherine de’ Medici

Catherine de’ Medici

Catherine de’ Medici (1519—1589) was born in Florence as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de’ Medici and was orphaned within weeks of her birth. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, she married the Dauphin Henry. Under the gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she was queen consort of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout his reign, Henry excluded Catherine from participating in state affairs and instead showered favours on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wielded much influence over him.

Henry’s death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II. When he died in 1560 she became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574 Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life.

Catherine’s three sons reigned in a period of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or Huguenots as they became known. She failed however to grasp the issues that drove their movement. Later she resorted, in frustration and anger, to hard-line policies against them. In return she came to be blamed for the excessive persecutions carried out under her sons’ rule, and in particular for the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572 in which thousands of Huguenots were killed in Paris and throughout France.

The movies

Mary, Queen of Scots (1971): Mary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots, reigned as Mary I of Scotland from 1542 to 1567 and as Queen Consort of France from 1559 to 1560. She became Queen of Scots when she was only six days old; she was betrothed to the dauphin of France at eight and sent to live in France to be safe from the English; she returned to Scotland a widow at eighteen – and it was pretty much downhill all the way thereafter. Catherine de’ Medici (Katherine Kath), her mother-in-law, was featured briefly at the beginning of the movie. George Frost was the chief makeup artist.