Maria de' Medici

Queen of France (1573-1642)

Italian princess, queen of France between 1600 and 1642. Born on April 26, 1573 in Florence and died on July 3, 1642 in Cologne. Her parents were Francis II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Archduchess Joan of Austria. She was the wife of Henry IV of France, whom she married in 1600, the year in which she became queen of France. From her marriage was born Louis, the future King Louis XIII. She died in exile in a state of abandonment that resulted in almost complete poverty.

 

 

Queen of france

In October 1600 she married King Henry IV of France, who had recently separated from Margaret of Valois. With this marriage, the king intended that the fortune of the Medici would help him balance the accounts of the monarchy. But even though she was very beautiful, she made herself hated by her husband. This was due both to her cold and authoritarian character and to the flippancy of her manners and equally to her desire to command. However, King Henry himself had his love affairs and in fact shortly after his marriage to Mary was celebrated, he installed his mistress, the Marquise de Vernouil, close to the queen, by giving her a position in the house of the queen. same. Likewise, María de Médicis made continuous expenditures of money, which she distributed among characters who were supporters of her, including her favorite, Concino Concini, as well as Leonor Galigai, his wife. Under these circumstances, her relations with the king were not very cordial. When their son, the dauphin Louis, future King Louis XIII, was born in 1601, the situation in the relationship of both spouses, instead of improving, worsened. This despite the fact that in the following eight years the couple had five more children. But the prince disunited them even more, because it was the pretext for a solid group of supporters to form around Queen María, grouping around her, and who were favorable to the policy of the Spanish monarchy, the great rival of the French. There were in this faction several religious, as well as the Italian element, among which stood out Concino Concini, the queen's favorite. Things were like this when Henry IV began preparations for the campaign he intended to carry out in Germany. Due to these preparations, María de Ella obtained from her husband that he appoint her regent in her absence. She also managed to have the consecration ceremony held, which had been postponed until then, which happened on May 13, 1610. The next day the king was assassinated. This coincidence of facts raised many suspicions and it was assumed that María could have some complicity in the death of the monarch. However, no one could prove anything against the queen.

 

Regency and exile

When King Henry IV was assassinated, Marie de' Medici was appointed regent during the younger age of now King Louis XIII. During her regency period, she changed the general lines of the international policy of the monarchy of France, so now the friendship of Spain was sought. One result of this new line of political action was the Franco-Spanish marriages in 1615, in which King Louis XIII married the Infanta Ana de Austria and Isabella of France married the Prince of Asturias, Felipe. At first, she kept her collaborators like Sully by her side, but she also initiated the honors for characters like Guise or Condé, as well as those who had been enemies of her late husband. But this policy, in which Concino Concini helped her, also caused the discontent of the nobles. In 1614, these forced the queen regent to gather the General Estates and in them the money that the French treasury had saved during the reign of Henry IV was distributed, even so the nobles continued with their claims so they used force against they. On October 20 of that same year, Louis XIII of legal age was appointed.

 

The situation reached the limit when his favourite, Concino Concini, was assassinated on April 24, 1617 by Carlos Alberto de Luynes, favorite of King Louis XIII and who was carrying out direct orders from the sovereign. Despite the fact that Louis XIII had already been recognized as of legal age, the government had continued in the hands of María de Médicis and Concino Concini, who had obtained from her the title of Marquis of Ancré, so the assassination of Concini meant an attempt of the new king to disassociate himself from maternal politics. Luynes forced Mary to withdraw from court in 1617 and she was confined in the fortress in the town of Blois.

In February 1619 she was able to leave his seclusion and again, with the aim of obtaining power, he gathered around him some disgruntled nobles. His intention was to confront his son, something that finally did not happen because the two reconciled around 1622. He devoted all his energies and influences so that in 1624 Richelieu, his confessor, was appointed cardinal, who on April 29 entered the royal council and that the king also gave him the position of prime minister in August of that same year. This happened after Luynes, who had been one of Marie de' Medici's greatest enemies, died. Luynes was replaced by Richelieu in this role, and soon showed independence of mind and refused to bow to the demands of Maria, who began the conspiracies against the cardinal. This was opposed to a Franco-Spanish alliance and also aligned with the Protestant powers against the Hispanic monarchy.

 

In 1629 it seemed that Maria had won her political game when her son appointed her regent as he began the Italian campaign. When her son returned from Italy, she suggested to him, on November 10, 1630, that Richelieu should leave the government. Initially it seemed that the king yielded to his proposals, but the cardinal maneuvered deftly and managed in February 1631 that the queen was banished again, this time in Compiègne. In April, she managed to escape from her place of confinement and took refuge in the Spanish Netherlands, specifically in the city of Brussels, where she arrived in July. Here he continued the conspiracies and he was also met by another of his sons, Gastón de Orleans, who also conspired against his brother, although his attitude towards the Hispanic monarchy was as negative as that of King Louis XIII. In Brussels, where, according to rumors, María de Médicis had arrived with the direct help of the Count-Duke of Olivares, María continued her pro-Spanish policy and had Abbot Scaglia in her court, who acted as the ambassador of the Hispanic monarchy before María, in addition, María received considerable economic aid, 333,000 shields, from the Hispanic monarchy, when the war against France began. In 1638 she continued her flight, this time to England, where she arrived in the autumn of that year as London had become the city where the most significant noblemen dissatisfied with the government of Louis XIII resided. However, in 1641 and due to the pressure exerted by Parliament on his son-in-law, King Charles I, who had been married since May 1625 to Enriqueta María, one of the daughters of Enrique IV and María de Médicis, had to leave England and headed for Germany. There, despite all her efforts, she was unable to return to France and died in Cologne on July 3, 1642.

 

As an exemplary nobleman of Italian origin, she protected the arts, and it was to her that the construction of the Luxembourg Palace was due, in which Rubens painted the gallery of this name. He also spent enormous amounts of money with which the French capital was embellished with magnificent buildings, he began the Luxembourg Palace and between 1622 and 1624 he had Pedro Pablo Rubens paint a series of 21 frescoes in which life actions were narrated. of María de Médicis and that were preserved in the royal palace and later the Louvre museum.