Today’s post features a Valois historical event closely linked to my novel Medicis Daughter. Four-hundred-and-fifty-two years ago today, Marguerite de Valois’ second oldest brother, King Charles IX of France passed away in his twenties.

Charles the IX was the second son of Henry II and Catherine de Médicis. He became king upon the death of his brother Francis II, with his mother acting as his regent. Even after he was proclaimed of age on August 17, 1563, he remained under his mother’s domination (was there anyone Catherine couldn’t dominate?).

In 1571 Charles began to take his own path, after meeting and befriending the Protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny. Already jealous of the victories of his brother, the Duc d’Anjou (later King Henry III), over the Huguenots at Jarnac and Moncontour in 1569, Charles decided to favor a Huguenot plan for French intervention against the Spanish in the Netherlands. He sanctioned a defensive alliance with England and Huguenot aid to the Dutch.

Unfortunately for the King, his mother disliked his new policy and more than that was alarmed by Admiral Coligny’s ascendancy at Court and in her son’s inner circle. After an attempt on Coligny’s life (doubtless organized by Catherine) the Queen Mother persuaded Charles to order the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. The resulting bloodshed was apocalyptic. Bodies littered the streets of Paris and were so thick in the Seine that witnesses testified one could walk across the river without wetting their feet.

The massacre haunted Charles the short life he had left. His health deteriorated, and he became increasingly melancholy. He died before his twenty-fourth birthday

Both Charles and The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre play central roles in Medicis Daughter. The massacre occurred shortly after Princess Marguerite’s marriage to Henri of Navarre, with guests who had traveled to witness the event slaughtered in Paris and some within the walls of the Palace itself.