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 CATHERINE

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CATHERINE

According to legend her body was transported thither by the hands of angels. The name, however, does not appear in literature before the tenth century. To protect the monks and pilgrims against the Saracens the monastery was fortified like a castle, the exterior wall of which forms a quadrangle resting on solid rock. The fact that a castle presupposes a military force accounts for the mention some authors make of a military order of »St. Catherine, founded in 1063, which would thus antedate any other military order. No trace has been found, however, of the ride of any such order, or of a list of its grand masters. From the Crusades the monastery of St. Catherine attracted many Latin pilgrims, who gradually formed a brother- hood, the members of which pretended to the knight- hood. In return for a vague promise to protect sacred shrines and pilgrims, they were granted the coveted St. Catherine's Cross, a cross inserted in the wheel of St. Catherine. See Catherine of Alexan- dria; Sinai; MSS. of the Bible.

Palmer, Sinai to the Present Day (London, 1S78); Wilson and Palmkk, Ordnance Survey of Sinai (London. 1S7_o; Rokhrioits and Mosnkr. Deutsche PUqerreUe nach dem )i,i!,,i,n 1. fin,!. (Berlin, lSslV; Sivmiv. Sinni atid Palestine (London, 1882) ; Julian, Sinai el Syrie (Lille, 1903).

Ch. Moeller.

Catherine de' Medici, b. 13 April, 1519; d. 5 Jan., 1589; she was the daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici (II), Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne who. by her mother, Catherine of Bour- bon, was related to the royal house of France. Left an orphan when only a few weeks old, Catherine had barely reached the age of thirteen when Francis I, King of France, eager to thwart the projects of the 1 mperoi Charles V and to court the friendship of Clement VII, Catherine's uncle, arranged a marriage between ( 'atherine and his second son Henry, Clement Vll coming to Marseilles in October, 1533, for the cere- mony. The death, however, of the pontiff during the ensuing year prevented Francis I from realizing the political advantages he had hoped for from this union. Having brought to the French court only 100,000 ecus and a few poor appanages, Catherine was relegated to tin' background, where she remained even when. on the death of her husband's elder brother, she at- tained the dignity of Dauphiness. Obliged to con- tinue in this comparative obscurity for ten years be- cause of being childless, her entire policy meanwhile consisted in trying to retain the favour of Diane de 1'nit iiis. her husband's mistress, and of the Duchesse d'Etampes. mistress of Francis I. On the accession of I bury 11.31 March, 1547, Catherine became Queen of France, but she still remained inconspicuous, except during Henry's short campaign in Lorraine, when she acted 08 regent, and even then showed her political

abilities.

It was only on Henry IPs death. 10 July, 1559, 1 1 1 : 1 1 Catherine's political career really began. Her son Francis II. husband of Mary Stuart, was king, and the Guises, Mary Stuart 's uncles, were in power, a con- dition that overtaxed Catherine's patience. The Huguenots relied on her because everyone knew that the psalms of Maroi had always delighted her, and that she had recently promised the Prince de and the Vdmiral de Coligny, who were Hugue- not leaders, liberty and security for their followers. But tin intriguing Huguenots developed a State within the State in France, and Castelnau tells us that

at their synods they were urged t" adopt "all means

of aelf-defence and attack, of furnishing money to

military men and making attempts upon cities and fortresses". Catherine was obliged to allow the Guises to quell the conspiracy oi Amboise, March. 1500, and for a few months to exercise a sort of Cath- olic dictatorship. Then, to check and paralyze their power, she appointed Michel de l'Hopital chancellor, a man whose wife and children were Calvinists, and

convoked an assembly of notables at Fontainebleau (August, 1.560) at which it was decided that the pun- ishment of heretics should be suspended, and that the States-General, from which religious peace was looked for, were to meet at Orleans in December. Mean- while Francis II died, 5 December, 1560.

Catherine's policy remained just what it had been during Francis' brief reign. She continued to oscil- late between the Catholics and Protestants in order to establish the dominion of the royal family, and was forever manoeuvring between Protestant England, whose queen, Elizabeth, site sought at certain times as a daughter-in-law, and Catholic Spain, whose king, Philip II, was her son-in-law. Thus did Catherine strive to insure the independence and political self- government of French royalty. As Charles IX. Catherine's second son and the successor of Francis II, was scarcely ten years old, Catherine was regent and virtually sovereign. She named Anthony of Bour- bon, King of Navarre and a Protestant, lieutenant- general of the kingdom, increased l'Hopital's power, inflicted upon the Guises a sort of political defeat by imposing an obstacle to the marriage of Mary Stuart with Don Carlos, son of Philip II, and convoked the conference of Poissy in an endeavour to bring about a theological understanding between Catholics and Huguenots. "It is impossible", she wrote to Rome, "to reduce either by arms or law those who are sepa- rated from the Roman Church, so large is their num- ber". She also opposed her son-in-law, Philip II of Spain, who demanded severity against the Huguenots, and the edict of January, 1562, insured them tolera- tion. The political interests that helped to set the religious factions at variance did not abate: the arro- gance of the Huguenots exasperated the Catholics, and the Vassy massacre (March, 1562) opened the first religious war, which fact alone was a victory for the Guise policy and a defeat for that of the regent. At one time Catherine thought of taking sides with Cond£ against the Guises, and accordingly wrote him four letters, which the Huguenots subsequently claimed to have contained her orders to Conde to take up anus, but which Catherine declared had been altered. Events then occurred in rapid succession, and she had the humiliation of seeing Guise bring Charles IX back to Paris.

Thenceforth Catherine fluctuated between the Catholic and Huguenot forces. She negotiated and watched the intrigues of Spain when it would interfere in behalf of the Catholics ; of England when it would interest itself in the Huguenots ; and of the emperor who took advantage of French anarchy to reclaim the three bishoprics recently conquered by Henry II. The assassination of Guise by the Huguenot, Poltrot de Mere' (18 February, 1563), hastened the hour of peace, and when the treaty of Amboise (12 March, 1563) had granted certain liberties to Protestants, Catherine, to show Europe that discord no longer ex- isted in France, sent, both Catholics and Protestants to recover Le Havre (28 July, 1563), which Admiral de Coligny had yielded to the English. It was indeed a great period in Catherine's life: Charles IX who had attained his majority on the 27th of June solemnly declared to her that she should govern more than ever; the treaty with England, 11 April. 1564, assured Calais to France; and Catherine and the young king made a tour of the provinces, The Bayonne inter- view between Catherine and the Duke of Alba (.Line, 1565) caused a renewal of trouble; the Protestants spread the rumour that the queen-mother had con- spired against them with the King of Spain, and a serious resort to arms was under way. For Cath- erine's growing hatred of Coligny; her fear lest Charles IX, susceptible to certain Huguenot influence, should ally himself with the Prince of Orange and wage war against Spain; her order for the murder of Coligny that she might regain her control over Charles IX;