Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615)

Im reading a biography of Marguerite, who was the daughter of Catherine de Medici and the wife of Henry IV of France. She was famous for her learning and her love affairs. I hope to blog about this later. She was known as Margot and was the youngest daughter of Catherine de Meidici and Henri II of France. She was a devout Catholic and quarrelled with her brother Henri III who tried to interest her in the new Huguenot Protestant faith. Her father was killed in a tournament when she was a child and when his eldest son, Francis II died too at a very young age, Catherine became Regent for her son Charles IX who was very young and who had a violent temper. Catherine married off her daughters Elisabeth to the King of Spain and Claude to a member of the Lorraine family. She then tried to keep the peace between the Huguenots and Catholics by marrying Margot to Henri de Bourbon, whose family were the next heirs after the De Valois family. He was the leader of the Huguenots and was reluctant to marry Margot, but did it for the sake of peace. Margot did not like him, and she was strongly Catholic and she was all but forced to the altar. Margot's marriage was the occasion of the massacre of Huguenots by the Catholic faction. Margot, in spite of her own religious faith and her dislike of Henri, managed to save him and other Protestant gentlemen when the massacre happened.