Henri IV of France and Navarre, His Wives and Mistresses. Part IV.

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Archduchess Joanna of Austria, Charlotte des Essarts, Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Henriette d'Entragues, Jacqueline de Bueil, King Felipe I of Castile, King Henri IV of France and Navarre, Marie de Medici of Florence, Queen Joanna of Castile, Queen of France and Navarre

By early 1599, Henri’s marriage to Margaret of Valois looked likely to be annulled at last. And so, at the age of forty-six and still without a legitimate heir, Henri felt free to propose to Gabrielle d’Estrées. On Mardi Gras, Henri placed on her finger the ring with which he had “married” France at his coronation in 1593.

During Holy Week, however, Gabrielle, who was pregnant at the time, fell ill; by Holy Saturday, to the relief of many in France, she was dead. Rumours flew that she had been poisoned, but in fact she died from eclampsia and a premature birth of a stillborn son.

Though grief-stricken, Henri grasped that his fiancée’s death had saved him from disaster: his plan to declare his two sons by d’Estrées heirs to the throne would have precipitated a major political crisis.

Henri IV, King of France and Navarre

Henri provided Gabrielle d’Estrées with a grandiose funeral and drowned his sorrows with a sustained spree of womanising. Sir Henry Neville, the English ambassador, reported that Henry was spending time “in secret manner at Zamet’s house”, where “la belle garce Claude” was known to entertain, and that he was fervently courting Henriette d’Entragues, the daughter of Charles IX’s former mistress, Marie Touchet.

Royal accounts record that Henri was soon making large payments to “Mademoiselle d’Entragues”, as well as to “Mademoiselle des Fossez”. D’Entragues quickly replaced d’Estrées as Henry’s principal mistress.

She extracted from him, in Neville’s words, “100,000 crowns in ready money and an yearly pension” as proof of his commitment. At about the same time, Henri began affairs with Marie Babou de la Bourdaisière and with two wives of Paris parlement members, madames Quélin and Potier.

Marie de’ Medici

In October 1599, the parlement of Paris officially petitioned that Henri marry a princess worthy of his dignity. Henri took note and began considering candidates from several foreign states. According to Sully, however, he ruled out a German wife, on the grounds that it would feel like going to bed with a wine-barrel.

Henri IV was keenest on Maria de’ Medici of Florence, the niece of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Maria was the sixth daughter of Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary.

She was a descendant of Lorenzo the Elder –a branch of the Medici family sometimes referred to as the ‘cadet’ branch– through his daughter Lucrezia de’ Medici, and was also a Habsburg through her mother, who was a direct descendant of Queen Joanna of Castile and King Felipe I of Castile.

Although Maria’s ancestry was impressive, what Henri found particularly attractive about Maria was her enormous wealth.

On December 17, 1599, the Archbishop of Arles pronounced the annulment of Henri’s marriage to Margaret of Valois. The Medici marriage contract was signed in April 1600, pledging a huge dowry of 600,000 écus, part of which was subtracted to pay Henry’s debts to Ferdinando.

Henri played his part by proclaiming undying devotion to Maria in a series of letters, though he was sending similar love letters to Henriette d’Entragues, telling her in one that he wanted to kiss her a million times.

Young Marie de’ Medici of Florence

A proxy marriage took place in Florence in October 1600, and then Maria—to be known in France as Marie—sailed in great pomp for Marseille, where she disembarked on November 3. Marie was 26 and King Henri was 47 at the time of thier marriage.

Henri on campaign in Savoy, rode to meet her at Lyon, where he found her at supper. He visited her afterwards in her chamber; according to Ralph Winwood, secretary to English ambassador Sir Henry Neville:

She met him at the door, and offered to kneel down, but he took her in his arms, where he held her embraced a long time … He doth profess to the World the great Contentment he finds in her, how that for her Beauty, her sweet and pleasing carriage, her gracious behaviour, she doth surpass the relation which hath been made of her, and the Expectation which he thereby conceived.

The couple underwent a second marriage ceremony in Lyon; and Marie finally reached Paris on February 7, already pregnant. She found her new home, the Louvre, so shabby that at first she thought Henri was playing a joke.

She gave birth to a son, Louis, at the Palace of Fontainebleau on September 27, 1601, to the delight of Henri IV, who had rushed from military duties to her bedside to serve, he joked, as one of her midwives. The moment Henri was told that the child was a boy, he ushered two hundred courtiers into the chamber to share the euphoria.

The baby was fed a spoonful of wine and handed over to a governess, Baroness Robert de Harlay, baron de Monglat [fr], and to the physician Jean Héroard [fr], an expert on the bone structure of horses. According to Winwood, the baby was a “strong and a goodly prince, and doth promise long life”. The birth of a dauphin, as the first son of a French king was known, inspired rejoicing and bonfires throughout France.

Marie believed that after bearing a son, she “would begin to be a Queen ueen”. However, a few weeks later, Henriette d’Entragues also produced another son (Gaston Henri, Duc de Verneuil) and Henri not only made just as much fuss over this son but declared that he was better-looking, not fat and dark like Louis and the Medici.

In the words of biographer David Buisseret, “the royal couple was well embarked upon nine years of mutual recrimination and misunderstandings, in which the fault plainly lay with the king”.

Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France and Navarre

Henri had made Marie’s position clear to her from the first. When she began by pressing him to accept the decrees of the Council of Trent, he told her to keep her nose out of state business and look after herself. Shortly after Marie’s arrival in Paris, Henri had introduced Henriette d’Entragues to her, reportedly pushing Henriette further towards the ground when her curtsey was not low enough.

He housed his senior mistress close to the Louvre and was seen dining with the queen and d’Entragues together. Marie also had to cope with a second public mistress, La Bourdaisière, as well as with Henry’s continued visits to Zamet’s house for services provided by “la belle garce Claude”.

In the next nine years, Marie bore Henri six children; but he also sired five more by d’Entragues, Jacqueline de Bueil, and Charlotte des Essarts. Nonetheless, Henri often wrote affectionate letters to Marie and in other ways treated her with respect.

September 27, 1590: Death of Pope Urban VII after a 12 day reign

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Bishop of Rome, Ferdinando I de' Medici, Giovanni Battista Castagna, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Pope Gregory XIII, Pope Sixtus V, Pope Urban VII, Roman Curia, Sovereign of the Papal States

Pope Urban VII (August 4, 1521 – September 27, 1590), born Giovanni Battista Castagna, was Bishop of Rome Pope of the Catholic Church, and sovereign ruler of the Papal States from September 15 to 27, 1590. His thirteen-day papacy was the shortest in history.

Giovanni Battista Castagna was born in Rome in 1521 to a noble family as the son of Cosimo Castagna of Genoa and Costanza Ricci Giacobazzi of Rome.

Castagna studied in universities all across Italy and obtained a doctorate in civil law and canon law when he finished his studies at the University of Bologna. Soon after he became auditor of his uncle, Cardinal Girolamo Verallo, whom he accompanied as datary on a papal legation to France.

He served as a constitutional lawyer and entered the Roman Curia during the pontificate of Pope Julius III as the Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura. Castagna was chosen to be the new Archbishop of Rossano on 1 March 1, 1553, and he would quickly receive all the minor and major orders culminating in his ordination to the priesthood on March 30, 1553 in Rome. He then received episcopal consecration a month after at the home of Cardinal Verallo.

He served as the Governor of Fano from 1555 to 1559 and later served as the Governor of Perugia and Umbria from 1559 to 1560. During the reign of Pius IV, he settled satisfactorily a long-standing boundary dispute between the inhabitants of Terni and Spoleto. Castagna would later participate in the Council of Trent from 1562 to 1563 and served as the president of several conciliar congregations.

He was appointed as the Apostolic Nuncio to Spain in 1565 and served there until 1572, resigning his post from his archdiocese a year later. He also served as the Governor of Bologna from 1576 to 1577. Among other positions, he was the Apostolic Nuncio to Venice from 1573 to 1577 and served also as the Papal Legate to Flanders and Cologne from 1578 to 1580.

Pope Gregory XIII elevated him to the cardinalate on December 12, 1583 and he was appointed as the Cardinal-Priest of San Marcello.

Papacy
Election

After the death of Pope Sixtus V, a conclave was convoked to elect a successor. Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany had been appointed a cardinal at the age of fourteen but was never ordained to the priesthood.

At the age of thirty-eight, he resigned from the cardinalate upon the death of his older brother, Francesco in 1587, to succeed to the title. (There were suspicions that Francesco and his wife died of arsenic poisoning after having dined at Ferdinando’s Villa Medici, although one story has Ferdinando as the intended target of his sister-in-law.) Ferdinando’s foreign policy attempted to free Tuscany from Spanish domination.

He was consequently opposed to the election of any candidate supported by Spain. He persuaded Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, grand-nephew of Sixtus V, to switch his support from Cardinal Marco Antonio Colonna, which brought the support of the younger cardinals appointed by the late Sixtus.

Castagna, a seasoned diplomat of moderation and proven rectitude was elected as pope on September 15, 1590 and selected the pontifical name of “Urban VII”.

Activities

Urban VII’s short passage in the office gave rise to the world’s first known public smoking ban, as he threatened to excommunicate anyone who “took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose”.

Urban VII was known for his charity to the poor. He subsidized Roman bakers so they could sell bread under cost, and restricted the spending on luxury items for members of his court. He also subsidized public works projects throughout the Papal States. Urban VII was strictly against nepotism and he forbade it within the Roman Curia.

Death

Urban VII died in Rome on September 27, 1590, shortly before midnight, of malaria. He had reigned for 13 days. He was buried in the Vatican. The funeral oration was delivered by Pompeo Ugonio. His remains were later transferred to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, on September 21, 1606.

His estate, valued at 30,000 scudi, was bequeathed to the Archconfraternity of the Annunciation, for use as dowries for poor young girls.

May 5, 1747: Birth of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Empress Maria Theresa, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King Carlos III of Spain, Louis XVI of France and Navarre

Leopold II (Peter Leopold Josef Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard; May 5, 1747 – March 1, 1792) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790.

He was a son of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria in her own right and her husband, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I.

Leopold was also and the brother of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre as the wife of King Louis XVI of France and Navarre; Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies; Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma by her marriage to Ferdinand, Duke of Parma; and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (left) with his brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. He granted the Academy of Georgofili his protection. Despite his brief reign, he is highly regarded. The historian Paul W. Schroeder called him “one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown”.

Unusually for his time, he opposed capital punishment and abolished it in Tuscany in 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to do so.

As his parents’ third son, he was initially selected for a clerical career, he received education with focus on theology.

In 1753, he was engaged to Maria Beatrice d’Este, heiress to the Duchy of Modena and the eldest child of two monarchs, Ercole III d’Este, Duke of Modena and Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, reigning duchess of Massa and princess of Carrara.

As heiress to four states (Modena, Reggio, Massa and Carrara), she was a very attractive wedding partner. Empress Maria Theresa sought to arrange a marriage between Maria Beatrice and Archduke Leopold, but this never materialised. Instead she married Leopold’s brother, Archduke Ferdinand Charles bof Austria, in a union through which the Austrians aimed to expand their influence in Italy.

Upon the early death of his older brother Archduke Charles in 1761, the family decided that Leopold was going to succeed his father as Duke of Tuscany. Tuscany had been envisioned and designated as a Secundogeniture, a territory and title bestowed upon the second born son, which was greater than an Appanage.

Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain

On August 5, 1765 Leopold married the Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, daughter of Carlos III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Upon the death of his father, Franz on August 18, 1765, he became Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother’s innovations.

He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as “the pillars of the monarchy”, pacified the Hungarians and Bohemians, and divided the insurgents in the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium) by means of concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into the country and re-established his own authority, and at the same time the historic franchises of the Flemings.

Young Leopold as the Grand Duke of Tuscany

Yet he did not surrender any part that could be retained of what Maria Theresa and Joseph had done to strengthen the hands of the state. He continued, for instance, to insist that no papal bull could be published in his dominions without his consent (placetum regium).

One of the harshest actions Leopold took to placate the noble communities of the various Habsburg domains was to issue a decree on May 9, 1790 that forced thousands of Bohemian serfs freed by his brother Joseph back into servitude.

Leopold lived for barely two years after his accession as Holy Roman Emperor, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI, and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of subversive agitation. His sister sent him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist émigrés, who were intriguing to bring about armed intervention in France.

From the east he was threatened by the aggressive ambition of Empress Catherine II of Russia and by the unscrupulous policy of Prussia. Catherine would have been delighted to see Austria and Prussia embark on a crusade in the cause of kings against the French Revolution.

While they were busy beyond the Rhine, she would have annexed what remained of Poland and made conquests against the Ottoman Empire. Leopold II had no difficulty in seeing through the rather transparent cunning of the Russian empress, and he refused to be misled.

To his sister, he gave good advice and promises of help if she and her husband could escape from Paris. The émigrés who followed him pertinaciously were refused audience, or when they forced themselves on him, were peremptorily denied all help.

Leopold was too purely a politician not to be secretly pleased at the destruction of the power of France and of her influence in Europe by her internal disorders. Within six weeks of his accession, he displayed his contempt for France’s weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with Great Britain to impose a check on Russia and Prussia.

Leopold put pressure on Great Britain by threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France. Then, when sure of British support, he was in a position to baffle the intrigues of Prussia. A personal appeal to King Friedrich Wilhelm II led to a conference between them at Reichenbach in July 1790, and to an arrangement which was in fact a defeat for Prussia: Leopold’s coronation as king of Hungary on November 11, 1790, preceded by a settlement with the Diet in which he recognized the dominant position of the Magyars.

Leopold II. Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria, and Grand Duke of Tuscany

He had already made an eight months’ truce with the Turks in September, which prepared the way for the termination of the war begun by Joseph II. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with Britain and the Netherlands.

During 1791, the emperor remained increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January, he had to dismiss the Count of Artois (afterwards Charles X of France) in a very peremptory way. His good sense was revolted by the folly of the French émigrés, and he did his utmost to avoid being entangled in the affairs of that country.

The insults inflicted on Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, however, at the time of their attempted flight to Varennes in June, stirred his indignation, and he made a general appeal in the Padua Circular to the sovereigns of Europe to take common measures in view of events which “immediately compromised the honour of all sovereigns, and the security of all governments.” Yet he was most directly interested in negotiations with Turkey, which in June led to a final peace, the Treaty of Sistova being signed in August 1791.

On August 25, 1791, he met King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia at Pillnitz Castle, near Dresden, and they drew up the Declaration of Pillnitz, stating their readiness to intervene in France if and when their assistance was called for by the other powers.

The declaration was a mere formality, for, as Leopold knew, neither Russia nor Britain was prepared to act, and he endeavored to guard against the use which he foresaw the émigrés would try to make of it. In face of the reaction in France to the Declaration of Pillnitz, the intrigues of the émigrés, and attacks made by the French revolutionists on the rights of the German princes in Alsace, Leopold continued to hope that intervention might not be required.

When Louis XVI swore to observe the constitution of September 1791, the emperor professed to think that a settlement had been reached in France. The attacks on the rights of the German princes on the left bank of the Rhine, and the increasing violence of the parties in Paris which were agitating to bring about war, soon showed, however, that this hope was vain.

Leopold meant to meet the challenge of the revolutionists in France with dignity and temper, however the effect of the Declaration of Pillnitz was to contribute to the radicalization of their political movement.

Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito was commissioned by the Estates of Bohemia for the festivities that accompanied Leopold’s coronation as king of Bohemia in Prague on September 6, 1791.

Leopold died suddenly in Vienna, in March 1792.

His mother Empress Maria Theresa was the last Habsburg. His brother Joseph II died without any surviving children, but Leopold in turn had also 16 children, just like his mother, and became the founder of the main line of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

The eldest of Leopold II’s eight sons being his successor, Emperor Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor and first Emperor of Austria. Some of his other sons were prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany; Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, a celebrated soldier; Archduke Johann of Austria, also a soldier; Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary; and Archduke Rainer, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.

Friedrich August III of Saxony: King, Scandal and Abdication

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Abdication, Archduchess Louise of Tuscany, crown princess of Saxony, Dresden, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, German Empire, Grand Duke of Tuscany, King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony, King George of Saxony, Kingdom of Saxony

Friedrich August III (May 25, 1865 – February 18, 1932) was the last King of Saxony(1904–1918) and a member of the House of Wettin.

Born in Dresden, Friedrich August was the first son of King Georg and his wife, Maria Anna of Portugal. Friedrich August served in the Royal Saxon Army before becoming king, He remained in command of the corps until October 1904, when he became king. His military career effectively ended with his accession to the throne, but he was promoted subsequently to Generaloberst and then to Generalfeldmarschall (on September 9, 1912). Following his father’s accession, he was in July 1902 appointed à la suite of the German Marine Infantry by German Emperor Wilhelm II during a visit to Kiel.

Friedrich August married Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany, in Vienna on November 21, 1891. Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany was the second child of Ferdinand IV, the last Grand Duke of Tuscany and his second wife, Princess Alice of Bourbon-Parma. Through her mother, she was a great-great-granddaughter of Charles X of France.

Luise fulfilled her royal duties, however, she did not follow etiquette at the strict Dresden court, which resulted in arguments with her father-in-law, King Georg of Saxony, the Interior Minister Georg von Metzsch-Reichenbach and especially with her sister-in-law Princess Mathilde.

They had six children, possibly seven children. Their two eldest sons, Friedrich August and Friedrich Christian were born in the same year, 1893, but were not twins. Friedrich August was born in January 15, while Friedrich Christian was born in December 31.

Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany

Threatened by her father-in-law, King Georg of Saxony, to being interned at Sonnestein Mental Asylum for life, on December 9, 1902 and with the help of two of her maids, sisters Sidonie and Maria Beeger –daughters of the royal court architect Eduard Beeger–, Louise (pregnant with her seventh child) fled from Dresden towards Lake Geneva, where André Giron, her lover, was waiting for her. Crown Princess Luise was supported in her fleeing Saxony by her brother Archduke Leopold Ferdinand of Austria who had fallen in love with a prostitute, Wilhelmine Adamovicz.

The escape of the Crown Princess of Saxony was the first scandal of the German nobility in the 20th century, especially hurtful for the Saxon Royal Family, who were deeply Catholic.

Without consulting his son, King Georg of Saxony officially declared the civil divorce of the Crown Princely couple on February 11, 1903 by a special court, which he had set up on December 31, 1902. One year later, on October 15, 1904, King Georg of Saxony died after demanding his son and new King Friedrich August III to forbade the return of Luise to the Dresden court. In Geneva, the former Crown Princess led a happy life and even dared to show up with her lover in public, but unexpectedly a few days before the divorce was declared she separated from Giron for unknown reasons. Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary refused to recognize the divorce.

Princess Anna Monika Pia of Saxony and her first husband Joseph Franz of Austria

However, the paternity of her daughter Anna Monika Pia, born on May 4, 1903 at Lindau remained unclear. The Saxon court sent the director of the Dresden maternity hospital, Dr. Leopold, to Lindau to examine the newborn and establish her true parentage. Due to her physical appearance and the bright color of eyes and hair, he declared that the Crown Prince was the father of the child. The doctor, however, refused to admit further medical opinions.

In consequence, Anna Monika Pia was recognized by Friedrich August as his own. King Georg gave Luise an allowance and granted her the title of Countess of Montignoso (in allusion of her Tuscan ascendancy) on July 13, 1903; in turn, he demanded that Anna Monika Pia must be returned Dresden to be raised with the other royal children, but Luise adamantly refused. In 1908 King Friedrich August III finally located Anna Monika Pia, and was sent to Dresden to live with her siblings and be raised as a member of the Saxon royal house.

When the German Republic was proclaimed in November of 1918, King Friedrich August III was asked by telephone whether he would abdicate willingly. He said: “Oh, well, I suppose I’d better.” Though well-loved by his subjects, King Friedrich August III voluntarily abdicated as king on November 13, 1918, after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. When cheered by a crowd in a railroad station several years after his abdication, he stuck his head out of the train’s window and shouted “Ihr seid mer ja scheene Demogradn!” (German for “You’re a fine lot of republicans, I’ll say!”)

King Friedrich August III died in Sibyllenort (now Szczodre) in Lower Silesia on February 18, 1932 aged 66 and was buried in Dresden.