Marie de Medici (26 April
1575 – 3 July 1642), was queen consort
of France
. She
was the second wife of King
Henry IV
of France, of the
Bourbon
branch of the kings of France. Following his assassination in 1610,
she was the
regent for her son King
Louis XIII of France.
Early life
Portrait of Marie de Medici as a young
girl
Born in
Florence
, Italy
, she was the
daughter of Francesco I de'
Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and of Johanna, Archduchess of Austria.
Her maternal grandparents were
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman
Emperor, and
Anne of
Bohemia. Anne was a daughter of
Vladislaus II of Bohemia
and Hungary and his wife
Anne de
Foix. She was one of seven children but only she and a sister
Eleonora de' Medici survived to
adulthood.and she died at an early age
Marriage
Uncommonly pretty in her youth, in October 1600 she married
Henry IV of France following the
annulment of his marriage to
Marguerite de Valois. She brought as
part of her dowry 600,000 crowns.
Her eldest son, the future King Louis XIII, was born at Fontainebleau
the following year.
The marriage was not a successful one. The queen verbally feuded
with Henry's mistresses, in language that shocked French courtiers.
She quarrelled mostly with her husband's leading mistress,
Catherine Henriette de
Balzac d'Entragues, whom he had promised he would marry
following the death of his former
official mistress,
Gabrielle d'Estrées. When
he failed to do so, and instead married Marie, the result was
constant bickering and political intrigues behind the scenes.
Although the king could have easily banished his mistress,
supporting his queen, he never did so. She, in turn, showed great
sympathy and support to her husband's banished ex-wife
Margaret of Valois, prompting Henry to
allow her back into the realm.
During her husband's lifetime Marie showed little sign of political
acumen or ability. Hours after Henry's assassination in 1610 she
was confirmed as Regent by the Parlement of Paris. She banished
from the court his mistress, Catherine Henriette de Balzac
d'Entragues. However, not very bright, extremely stubborn, and
growing
obese, she was soon entirely under the
influence of her maid Leonora "Galigai" and the latter's
unscrupulous Italian husband,
Concino
Concini, who was created Marquis d'Ancre and
Marshal of France, despite never having
fought a battle.
They dismissed Henry IV's able minister the
duc de Sully. Through
Concini and the Regent, Italian representatives of the
Roman Catholic Church hoped to force
the suppression of
Protestantism in
France. Half Habsburg herself, she abandoned the traditional
anti-Habsburg French policy. Lending her support to Habsburg Spain,
she arranged the marriage of her daughter,
Elisabeth to the future
Philip IV of Spain.
The
construction and furnishing of the Palais du Luxembourg
,which she referred to as her Palais
Médicis, formed her major artistic project. The site
was purchased in 1612 and construction began in 1615, to designs of
Salomon de Brosse. Her court
painter was
Peter Paul
Rubens.
Marie was
crowned
Queen of France on 13 May 1610, a
day before her husband's death.
Politics
Under the regent's lax and capricious rule, the princes of the
blood and the great nobles of the kingdom revolted, and the queen,
too weak to assert her authority, consented (15 May 1614) to buy
off the discontented princes. The opposition was led by
Henry de
Bourbon-Condé,
Duc d'Enghien, who
pressured Marie into convoking the
Estates General (1614-15), the last
time they would meet in France until the opening events of the
French Revolution.
In 1616 her policy was strengthened by the accession to her
councils of
Richelieu, who
had come to the fore at the meeting of the Estates General.
However, in 1617 her son
Louis
XIII, already several years into his legal majority, asserted
his authority.
The king overturned the pro-Habsburg,
pro-Spanish policy by ordering the assassination of Concini,
exiling the Queen to the Château de Blois
and appointing Richelieu to his
bishopric.
After two years of virtual imprisonment "in the wilderness" as she
put it, she escaped from Blois in the night of 21/22 February 1619
and became the figurehead of a new aristocratic revolt headed by
Louis's brother
Gaston
d'Orleans, which Louis's forces easily dispersed. Through the
mediation of Richelieu the king was reconciled with his mother, who
was allowed to hold a small court at Angers. She resumed her place
in the royal council in 1621.
The portrait by Rubens (
above right) was painted at this
time.
Marie rebuilt the Luxembourg
Palace
(Palais du Luxembourg) in Paris, with an
extravagantly flattering cycle of paintings by Rubens as part of
the luxurious decor, called The Marie de' Medici Cycle (detail
from one painting on left).
After the death of his
favourite,
the duke of Luynes, Louis turned increasingly for guidance to
Richelieu.
Marie de Medici's attempts to displace
Richelieu ultimately led to her attempted coup; for a single day,
the Day of the Dupes, in
November 1630, she seemed to have succeeded; but the triumph of
Richelieu was followed by her exile to Compiègne
in 1630, from where she escaped to Brussels
in 1631 and
Amsterdam
in 1638.
Her visit to Amsterdam was considered a diplomatic triumph by the
Dutch, as her visit lent official recognition to the newly formed
Dutch Republic; accordingly she was
given an elaborate ceremonial
royal
entry, of the sort the Republic avoided for its own rulers.
Spectacular displays (by
Claes
Cornelisz. Moeyaert)
and water pageants took place in the city’s harbor in celebration
of her visit. There was a procession led by two mounted
trumpeters; a large temporary structure erected on
an artificial island in the
Amstel
River was built especially for the festival. The structure was
designed to display a series of dramatic
tableaux in tribute to her once she set foot
on the floating island and entered its
pavilion. Afterwards she was offered an
Indonesian rice table by the
burgomaster
Albert Burgh. He also sold
her a famous
rosary, captured in Brazil. The
visit prompted
Caspar Barlaeus to
write his
Medicea hospes ("The Medicean Guest")
(1638).
Marie subsequently travelled to
Cologne,
where she died in 1642, scheming against Richelieu to the
end.
Honoré de Balzac encapsulated
the Romantic generation's negative view:
- "Marie de' Medici, all of whose actions were prejudicial to
France, has escaped the shame which ought to cover her name. Marie
de' Medici wasted the wealth amassed by Henry IV; she never purged
herself of the charge of having known of the king's assassination;
her intimate was d'Épernon, who did not
ward off Ravaillac's blow, and who was proved to have known the
murderer personally for a long time. Marie's conduct was such that
she forced her son to banish her from France, where she was
encouraging her other son, Gaston, to rebel; and the victory
Richelieu at last won over her (on the Day of the Dupes) was due
solely to the discovery the cardinal made, and imparted to Louis
XIII, of secret documents relating to the death of Henry IV." –
Essay Catherine de Medicis.
Children
Marie de Medici and her family
| Name |
Birth |
Death |
Notes |
| Louis XIII, King of
France |
27 September 1601 |
14 May 1643 |
Married Anne of Austria (1601 -
1666) in 1615. Had issue. |
| Elisabeth, Queen of
Spain |
22 November 1602 |
6 October 1644 |
Married Philip IV, King of
Spain (1605 - 1665) in 1615. Had issue. |
| Christine Marie, Duchess
of Savoy |
12 February 1606 |
27 December 1663 |
Married Victor Amadeus I,
Duke of Savoy (1587 - 1637) in 1619. Had issue. |
| Nicholas Henri,
Duke of Orléans |
16 April 1607 |
17 November 1611 |
Died young. |
| Gaston, Duke of
Orleans |
25 April 1608 |
2 February 1660 |
Married (1) Marie de Bourbon,
Duchess of Montpensier (1605 - 1627) in 1626. Had issue.
Married (2) Margaret of Lorraine (1615 - 1672) in 1632. Had
issue. |
| Henrietta Maria, Queen of
England |
25 November 1609 |
10 September 1669 |
Married Charles I, King of
England (1600 - 1649) in 1625. Had issue. |
|
See also
Descendants of
Marie de' Medici which maps how the
Medici became part of the European Royal families,
eventually leading to
Prince
William of Wales.
Ancestry
See also
Notes
External links