Word: catherinee
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
The book's villainess-heroine is Catherine de' Medici. A stumpy Italian woman who had been married at 14 to the man who was to be Francis II of France, she had studied under Machiavelli and learned her lessons well. The women of the French court thought her...
Catholic Spain was the dominant power in Europe, and the fact that Spain's Philip II was Catherine's son-in-law did not prevent him from being an ominous potential enemy. Between Philip and England's Elizabeth, the most powerful Protestant ruler, Catherine ran an erratic...
Anatomy of Power. But in 1572 the balance of confusion at last tipped toward a resolution-or so it seemed. France's most influential Protestant was Admiral Gaspard Coligny, a military hero and a onetime condemned traitor (in Catherine's vacillating France, it was easy to be both...
To Catherine, it seemed easier to assassinate Coligny than to reason with him. But just as the official murderer discharged his arquebus at Coligny, the Protestant leader bent to adjust a shoe. Admiral Coligny was merely wounded. Later one autumn afternoon, Catherine gathered her closest counselors in the Tuileries Gardens...
The massacre was seen throughout the courts of Europe not as a bungled execution that got out of hand, but as an exemplary show of royal authority. Thus embellished in reputation. Catherine was able to get her son Henry elected King of Poland (he became King of France the next...