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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody, and welcome to twenty eighteens last Saturday

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Speaker 1: Classic after the new year, we have an episode coming

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Speaker 1: out that is going to reference Katherine de Medici and

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Speaker 1: back in previous hosts Sarah and Katie did what they

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Speaker 1: called a super series. It was a multi part series

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Speaker 1: that played out over several weeks and it touched on

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Speaker 1: multiple members of the Medici family in the world that

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Speaker 1: they lived in. Two of the installments were on Katherine

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Speaker 1: de Medici, and since she is coming up again in

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Speaker 1: early en we are rereleasing those two episodes from the

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Speaker 1: super series. One of the things that they talk about

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Speaker 1: today is Katherine's marriage at the age of fourteen, including

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Speaker 1: some of the more intimate details of that marriage. If

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Speaker 1: you're interested in hearing the other episodes that are referenced

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Speaker 1: in today's show, we will have a link to all

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Speaker 1: the Medici episodes, both from the super series and ones

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Speaker 1: from later on in the show notes for today's episode.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy and our Medici

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Speaker 1: Super Series isn't all about Italy. In this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: actually going to follow the most famous female member of

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Speaker 1: the Medici clan on her journey to France, where this

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Speaker 1: wealthy bourgeois family finally attains what it hasn't had, which

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Speaker 1: is royal standing. But it's not all happily ever after.

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Speaker 1: You have probably heard of Catherine as a poisoner or

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Speaker 1: an Italian spy, but we're saving that stuff the Catholic

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Speaker 1: Huguenot wars for later, and Catherine's Triple regency as well.

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Speaker 1: For this one. We're going to go back to her roots,

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Speaker 1: and that's because apparently we're really fascinated by stories about

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Speaker 1: sad royal children. I was thinking about all the episodes

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Speaker 1: where we've talked about them, Cleopatra's brood, here Rid's kids,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth the first when she was just Lady Elizabeth with

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Speaker 1: kind of an expendable head. So we're going to move

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Speaker 1: on to Florence and start with a really sad childhood.

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Speaker 1: In our michel Angelo episode, we talked about a Medici pope,

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Speaker 1: Pope Leo the Ax as our friend Molly from the

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Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You called him and his various

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Speaker 1: maneuvers in Florence for power. He assumed the papal throne

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Speaker 1: in fifteen thirteen and replaced his brother as nominal ruler

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Speaker 1: of Florence with his nephew, a puppet, Lorenzo the second

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Speaker 1: de Medici, and don't get him confused with Lorenzo the Magnificent,

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Speaker 1: because there's nothing like that about. And Leo arranges an

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Speaker 1: advantageous match for this young man with Madeleine de la

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Speaker 1: Tour d'Auvergne, who's a sixteen year old orphan and also

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Speaker 1: a Bourbon heiress. It's a deal struck up between the

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Speaker 1: pope and the Italian territory hungry French King Francis the First,

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Speaker 1: which suits both of their schemes and is a nice

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Speaker 1: little union of power in the marriage is a success.

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Speaker 1: The couple conceives a child within months, and Katerina de

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Speaker 1: Medici is born on April nineteen. But the sad thing

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Speaker 1: is she's orphaned within weeks of her birth because Laurenzo

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Speaker 1: the Second seems to have had a pretty bad case

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Speaker 1: of syphilis. Francis and Leo are, of course disappointed that

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Speaker 1: their plan hasn't come to fruition quite as they were

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Speaker 1: hoping um But once baby Catherine gets over in early illness,

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Speaker 1: she's healthy and actually turns out to be a very

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Speaker 1: valuable pawn to whoever possesses her. Pope Leo intends to

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Speaker 1: control her himself and refuses to send her to Francis's

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Speaker 1: court because basically she'd be a hostage. Francis would be

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Speaker 1: the one who could decide who to marry her too,

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Speaker 1: And so when Leo receives baby Catherine in Rome, he

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Speaker 1: says somewhat ominously, she comes bearing the calamities of the Greeks,

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Speaker 1: but he also says she's a fine and fat little baby,

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Speaker 1: so maybe things are going to come out okay. Leo

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Speaker 1: puts his full power behind Catherine and makes her Duchess

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Speaker 1: of Urbino. He plans to eventually marry her off to

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Speaker 1: an illegitimate Medici son and set them up as the

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Speaker 1: new puppet rulers of Florence. But unfortunately things aren't so simple,

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Speaker 1: and in one Leo dies and the new Pope is

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Speaker 1: Adrian the Sixth, who's a reformist. We talked about him

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Speaker 1: in the Michelangelo episode two. He has little tolerance for

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Speaker 1: all things Medici and um it's not a good time

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Speaker 1: for the family. Adrian at first takes Catherine's duchy of

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Speaker 1: Urbino and gives it back to its original owners. But

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Speaker 1: even though the family is flailing a bit at this time,

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Speaker 1: Catherine's doing okay. She's moved back to Florence to live

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Speaker 1: under her relative, Cardinal Giulio's supervision. And you might remember

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Speaker 1: him from our Popsy Conspiracy podcast. He was the illegitimate

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Speaker 1: son of the Giuliano who was murdered in the Duomo.

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Speaker 1: But Adrian doesn't last long anyways, he dies, possibly being poisoned,

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Speaker 1: just two years after he comes into power, and so

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Speaker 1: Catherine's uncle, Cardinal Giulio becomes Pope Clement the Seventh, and

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Speaker 1: with the Medici back on top, back in power, Catherine

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Speaker 1: becomes good marriage bait again. She's valuable again, and so

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Speaker 1: Clement outfits her in style in the Medici Palace. You

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Speaker 1: know she's she's raised like a princess there. But as

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Speaker 1: we mentioned also in the Michelangelo podcast, Florentines are not

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Speaker 1: happy under this new form of Medici rule. Cardinal Giulio,

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Speaker 1: now Pope Clement, isn't willing to give up his day

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Speaker 1: job of micromanaging Florence, and the people in the city

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Speaker 1: aren't happy under this Medici control, and in fifteen twenty six,

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Speaker 1: when Catherine is just seven years old, Clement joins a

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Speaker 1: sort of league with France, England, Florence and Venice against

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Speaker 1: the eventual Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Five. But things

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Speaker 1: do not go well for the League of Kognac, and

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Speaker 1: soon enough Imperial troops are sacking Rome. The pope hass

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Speaker 1: to flee, hide and melt down his papal Tierras to

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Speaker 1: pay his own ransom, and, as of course we learned

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Speaker 1: in a previous podcast, while Rome is being sacked, the

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Speaker 1: Florentines take the opportunity to try to restore the republic,

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Speaker 1: and with the help of the imperial army, they overthrow

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Speaker 1: the Medici down with the Medici, and so this is

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Speaker 1: obviously scary times for Katherine. The Medici hold up in

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Speaker 1: the Medici palace and she's there with her guardian and

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Speaker 1: mother figure Clarice Strotsie, who the two of them are

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Speaker 1: left to face this angry anti Medici Florentine mob and

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Speaker 1: eventually they escape to a Medici country house, but an

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Speaker 1: armed escort comes to collect Catherine and takes her off

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Speaker 1: to the Santa Lucia Convent, which is not a pro

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Speaker 1: Medici convent, but still probably a relatively safe place to be,

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Speaker 1: and this begins poor Catherine's three years of danger and

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Speaker 1: shuffling about and from Santa Lucia, she's moved to Santa

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Speaker 1: Katarina of Siena, which is also in Florence, and it's

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Speaker 1: a plague ridden convent, so not the best place for

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Speaker 1: a young girl to be living. The French ambassador insists

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Speaker 1: that she'd be taken out of it, and the Republic's

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Speaker 1: council agreed for her to move to the convent of

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Speaker 1: Santa Maria and Nunziata deli Morat, which is a covert operation.

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Speaker 1: They leave in the dead of night. Catherine is wearing

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Speaker 1: several veils, and this is in fifteen twenty seven, just

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Speaker 1: to give you an idea of where we are in

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Speaker 1: the time. People people sometimes ask for more dates and

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Speaker 1: ages and um. But this convent is much nicer than

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Speaker 1: the other two. It's set up to educate young aristocratic

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Speaker 1: women and they also taken retired noble women. And since

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Speaker 1: the convent has been well supported by the Medici, they're

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Speaker 1: very welcoming to Catherine. The abbess is even her godmother,

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Speaker 1: so it's comparatively nice. She learns a lot from these educated,

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Speaker 1: aristocratic nuns, and uh picks up a lot of the

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Speaker 1: things that make her eventually so successful in court. You know,

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Speaker 1: her nice manners, her beautiful bearing, her charm. And one

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Speaker 1: of the nuns notes that she was so gentle and

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Speaker 1: pleasant that the sisters did all they could to ease

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Speaker 1: her sorrows and difficulty. So this is a um, a

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Speaker 1: calmer time in her imprisonment, essentially, And in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: Clement and Charles are hammering out a piece. But new

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Speaker 1: extremists in Florence fear that the Medici will come back

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Speaker 1: into power. Of course, of clementon Charles are together on this,

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Speaker 1: so they consider eliminating the main marriage pawn, who of

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Speaker 1: course is little Catherine, precious to the papacy and the Medici.

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Speaker 1: And in fine with imperial troops arriving in Florence, these

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Speaker 1: new extremists meet them with a fierce defense. Um. This

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Speaker 1: is when Michelangelo is setting up the fortification, designing fortifications

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Speaker 1: and all that, and these extremists are very anti eleven

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Speaker 1: year old Catherine, and they have some terrible ideas about

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Speaker 1: what to do with her. One plan is to lower

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Speaker 1: her naked in a basket over the city walls, where

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Speaker 1: her imperial allies might accidentally kill her. Another is to

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Speaker 1: ditch her in a military brothel so that she's not

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Speaker 1: a very desirable marriage pond anymore. They don't accomplish any

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Speaker 1: of these, but regardless, the plan is to take her

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Speaker 1: out of the Murat Convent and the poor nuns have

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Speaker 1: to give her up. Catherine thinks that the troops are

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Speaker 1: coming to kill her, so she shaves her head and

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Speaker 1: puts on a habit and yells, Holy Mother, I am yours.

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Speaker 1: Let us now see what excommunicated wretch will dare to

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Speaker 1: drag a spouse of Christ from her monastery and she

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Speaker 1: will not take her habit off. Yeah, I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of remarkable though, that she's not harmed when she's

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Speaker 1: taken from the co event. She's kept safe by her escort,

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Speaker 1: who behaves quite honorably. But she has to ride through

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Speaker 1: the city of Florence in her habit on a donkey,

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Speaker 1: and it's a scary, terrible ride. She can hear the

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Speaker 1: anti Medici people yelling at her on the street, but

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Speaker 1: she's not harmed. She's dropped off at Saint Lucia convent again,

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Speaker 1: the place where she she started this whole odyssey, And

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Speaker 1: soon enough Clement has Florence again and Catherine is safe.

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Speaker 1: So Catherine is shipped off to Rome to live with

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Speaker 1: her great aunt Lucrezia Salviata, who is Lorenzo the Magnificence daughter.

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Speaker 1: And with the Medici back on top, it is time

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Speaker 1: to make a marriage match, perhaps one with France. So

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Speaker 1: now we're going to take you over to another country

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Speaker 1: in another sad childhood. So Catherine's intended Henry is born

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Speaker 1: two weeks before her, and his mother dies when he's

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Speaker 1: five years old, but the worst childhood trauma comes a

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Speaker 1: year later. And to understand that, we're going to have

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Speaker 1: to go a little bit back into his father's life.

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Speaker 1: So his father, Francis, was obsessed with Italian conquests as

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Speaker 1: a young man, and this earned him the hostility of

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Speaker 1: Charles the First of Spain, who later became our old friend,

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Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Emperor Charles five. And in fifty five

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Speaker 1: Francis had a stupendous loss against the imperial troops in Pavia, Italy.

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Speaker 1: He was overly brave on the field, his nobles were

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Speaker 1: cut down around him, and he manages to get himself

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Speaker 1: captured and take him to Barcelona. Francis is treated well

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Speaker 1: by Charles, but he gets depressed, you know, not being

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Speaker 1: able to do the things he's used to doing as

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Speaker 1: King of France. He stops eating, he gets sick, and

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Speaker 1: Charles is terrified that this priceless captive he has, this

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Speaker 1: bargaining chip, is going to die on him, and dances

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Speaker 1: fortunately starts to get a little better. The two monarchs

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Speaker 1: start to work out the Treaty of Madrid in and

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Speaker 1: this results in a huge sacrifices of territory from Francis deal.

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Speaker 1: It's a very bad deal, but of course he's not

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Speaker 1: in a position to bargain here he's held prisoner um. Also,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna result in a royal marriage. The widower Francis

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Speaker 1: is going to marry Charles's widowed sister. But to be

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Speaker 1: sure that Francis goes out and actually fills these territory

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Speaker 1: handovers and and keeps up his end of the deal,

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Speaker 1: Charles is gonna need a little collateral, and so they

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Speaker 1: work out a deal where in Francis instead Charles will

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Speaker 1: hold the Dauphin Francois and Henry eight and six year

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Speaker 1: old boys. Yeah, kids for collateral. That's a that's very nice.

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Speaker 1: The boys are brought by their grandmother to the borderlands

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Speaker 1: and the exchange takes place on a raft in a river,

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Speaker 1: which is very strange. It's like two rafts coming from

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Speaker 1: the coming out to the raft and then there's the

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Speaker 1: switch um And as a note, this will come up

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Speaker 1: a bit later. One woman in the boy's departing group

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Speaker 1: is twenty five year old Dian de Poitier, who gives

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Speaker 1: Henry a kiss and later she becomes his mistress for

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Speaker 1: the rest of his life and kind of the bane

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Speaker 1: of Catherine de Medici's existence. So Francis is really upset

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Speaker 1: at the hand off. He's sad to be giving his

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Speaker 1: sons up his prisoners. He promises them that he'll try

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Speaker 1: to bring them home soon, but really he has no

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Speaker 1: intention of fulfilling the terms of this treaty. So the

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Speaker 1: likelihood that the boys are going to come home anytime

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Speaker 1: soon is slim to none. Their initial captivity is fine.

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Speaker 1: They're staying with their future stepmother Eleanor, and they have

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Speaker 1: this large French household. But as Francis becomes more rebellious,

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Speaker 1: you know, starting the League of Kognac, for instance, the

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Speaker 1: kids are basically put on lockdown and moved deeper and

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Speaker 1: deeper into Spain. And just to compare this again to

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Speaker 1: Catherine's childhood, since it is so interesting that this future

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Speaker 1: couple is in captivity at the same time. This is

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Speaker 1: around the same time that imperial forces are sacking Rome

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Speaker 1: and Catherine's hiding in the convent. But by fift twenty

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Speaker 1: nine things have gotten worse for the prisoners and a

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Speaker 1: French spy is found near where they're being kept, so

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Speaker 1: they're moved even deeper into Spain to Padraza, and the

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Speaker 1: only member of their once enormous suite of tutors and

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Speaker 1: maids and valets and friends that's left is a single

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Speaker 1: French dwarf who's there to entertain them. Ultimately, they're moved

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Speaker 1: to a cell with ten foot thick walls, bars, and

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Speaker 1: straw mattresses. They have no companions, no education, and no exercise.

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Speaker 1: But in the meantime, the years of war have made

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Speaker 1: France and Spain very ready for peace, even if their

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Speaker 1: actual rulers are not, and the ladies have to be

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Speaker 1: brought in to work it out since Francis and Charles

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Speaker 1: can't seem to do it, so La Pex des Dame,

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Speaker 1: with Francis's mom and Charles's aunt, secures the boy's release

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Speaker 1: for quite a bit of money instead of territory, and

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Speaker 1: Francis sets to raising it and getting his boys back,

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Speaker 1: and surprisingly, the boys are in pretty good shape considering

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Speaker 1: the severity of their final time in prison. Henry's eleven

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Speaker 1: now the Dauphin is twelve. But they're different kids. They're

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Speaker 1: not these happy go lucky French princes that left their

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Speaker 1: gloomy Spanish kids who have grown up in prison, and

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Speaker 1: to make matters worse, their father doesn't even like them

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Speaker 1: very much anymore, and he definitely favors his younger son,

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Speaker 1: who's gotten to still have his happy French prince childhood.

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Speaker 1: He says that the mark of a Frenchman was to

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Speaker 1: be always gay and lively, and he also says that

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Speaker 1: he has no time for dreamy, sullence weepy children. I

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Speaker 1: just want to be like France. They've been in prison

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Speaker 1: for four and a half years, my darling. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it's time to start looking for a bride for Henry,

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Speaker 1: regardless of his dreamy sullenness. A match with Mary Tudor

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Speaker 1: falls through, so Francis goes to his friend Clement the

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Speaker 1: Pope and enter Catherine in Henry's life. And this is

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Speaker 1: to be a triumphant marriage for for Clement and for Francis,

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Speaker 1: who have both been pretty disgraced recently. This is their

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Speaker 1: chance to show the world that they're back on top

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Speaker 1: and they're making this great alliance. The marriage between these

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Speaker 1: two prison raised kids is going to be pretty impressive too.

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Speaker 1: Isabella Destay helps prepare Catherine just to get an idea

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Speaker 1: of her trousseau. Isabella requires three pounds of gold, two

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Speaker 1: pounds of silver, two pounds of silk. All of that

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Speaker 1: is just for gowns. She also gets pearls, and these

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Speaker 1: pearls turn out to be pretty notable because um Catherine

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Speaker 1: gives them to her future daughter in law Mary Stewart, who,

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Speaker 1: when she's beheaded Elizabeth the First, ends up with them.

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Speaker 1: Apparently that's that's how you get pearls. She also has

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Speaker 1: a crystal casket, enormous diamonds, emeralds, rubies. Catherine is set

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Speaker 1: as far as trousseau go, and she starts her journey

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Speaker 1: to Marseille in fifteen thirty three. There are, of course

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Speaker 1: very elaborate marriage festivities that go on for days and days,

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Speaker 1: but they're finally married by contract October thirty three, and

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Speaker 1: they have their religious ceremony the next day. Catherine is

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Speaker 1: dressed in gold brocade with a velvet corsage covered in

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Speaker 1: gems and edged in ermine. She has jewels in her

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Speaker 1: hair and a crown on her head, so quite the

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Speaker 1: lovely bride and the Pope in Frances really want to

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Speaker 1: make sure that these two fourteen year olds consummate their marriage,

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Speaker 1: and consequently they're really creepy about it. They might even

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Speaker 1: stay in the room to make sure that everything happens

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Speaker 1: as it should. Um. But after that's done, everybody is

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Speaker 1: free to go home and they exchange some parting gifts

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Speaker 1: and um. One of the special gifts the Pope gives

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Speaker 1: the king is a unicorn tusk, which Katie was really

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Speaker 1: excited about because it is, of course actually a normal tusk,

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Speaker 1: and anyone at Hell Stuff works in the editorial department,

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Speaker 1: I think knows how obsessed with them I am. I

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Speaker 1: wrote an article if you want to go, look for

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Speaker 1: it on our homepage. So Catherine's a duchess now she's

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Speaker 1: gone from this sort of derogatory term a merchant's daughter.

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Speaker 1: She's clearly no merchant's daughter, but you know, the medic

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Speaker 1: cheese have their have their reputations. But regardless, she is

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Speaker 1: a duchess now and it seems like things are going

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Speaker 1: to be pretty great for her, except that the first

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Speaker 1: major blow to her to her married life comes less

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Speaker 1: than a year after the wedding when Clement dies and

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Speaker 1: he hasn't fully paid her dowry, and he hasn't fulfilled

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Speaker 1: all his promises to King Francis, and so consequently Francis

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Speaker 1: feels like he's gotten a pretty bum deal with marrying

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Speaker 1: his son to to Catherine, and he says that the

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Speaker 1: girl has come to me stark naked. Another big problem

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Speaker 1: is that Catherine can't seem to conceive, and this is

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Speaker 1: a major issue when Henry's brother, the Dauphin, dies, apparently

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Speaker 1: after an exhausting game of tennis an embarrassing way to go.

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Speaker 1: It really is. Seventeen year old Henry has a daughter

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Speaker 1: by an Italian woman, so it seems that the problem

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Speaker 1: isn't him, and he's urged to repudiate Catherine, but Francis

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Speaker 1: likes her a lot. She's smart, she's sporting. She may

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Speaker 1: have brought side saddle to France in fact, and she

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Speaker 1: can handle his body jokes. She's a good match for him,

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Speaker 1: and so he becomes her ally her father in law.

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Speaker 1: So Catherine steps up her attempts to conceive a notch

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Speaker 1: and she gets these weird medicines, tries all sorts of

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Speaker 1: strange potions out and um she watches Henry and his

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Speaker 1: mistress Dionne through a hole drilled on the floor to

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Speaker 1: see what they're doing, maybe find out if she's doing

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Speaker 1: something wrong, although apparently she's so sad watching this that

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Speaker 1: the tears blur her vision. Eventually, the couple gets a

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Speaker 1: medical examination, which shows that both of them are slightly abnormal,

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Speaker 1: which we have to wonder what happened detailed me, but

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Speaker 1: they're regardless. They're given some instruction. It seems to work

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Speaker 1: because she's soon pregnant and she has a boy, Francis,

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Speaker 1: followed by nine more children, so whatever they learn certainly

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Speaker 1: works for them, and an important note for our next episode.

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Speaker 1: Catherine is a two parter. The survivors except for one,

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Speaker 1: are sickly children. They've got week long. The boys have

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Speaker 1: sores and fits of dementia that may have been from

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Speaker 1: congenital syphilis, so file that one away. But while marriage

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Speaker 1: isn't easy, neither is jousting, and at twenty eight Henry

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Speaker 1: and Catherine become King and Queen of France. When Francis dies,

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Speaker 1: Catherine sincerely mourned the old king. He taught her a

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Speaker 1: lot about regal style and helped inspire her love of

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Speaker 1: architecture and art, and for the next decade or so

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Speaker 1: she absorbed herself in her family life, although she had

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Speaker 1: to contend with a very pushy third party in her marriage,

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Speaker 1: dionda Poitier. But the king grows to respect his wife

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Speaker 1: more and more, to pay more attention to her, probably

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Speaker 1: because he is grateful she's born him so many children um,

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Speaker 1: and he starts to trust her too. He gives her

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Speaker 1: the regencies several times when he's away on campaigns um.

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Speaker 1: But still her role is mostly being a mother and

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Speaker 1: being a lady of the court. By the time she's forty,

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Speaker 1: life seems to be going fairly well. After all these

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Speaker 1: years of expensive wars with um France and Spain over Italy.

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Speaker 1: There's gonna be peace finally, and it's going to be

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Speaker 1: marked by two royal marriages. And to celebrate, Henry is

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Speaker 1: going to host festivities. He his sons, and his court

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Speaker 1: will joust despite Catherine's fears and her foreboding sense of doom,

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Speaker 1: and she thinks she has a second sight, so this

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Speaker 1: is a big deal. Her astrologers have warned her that

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Speaker 1: there's going to be trouble and no Stredamas has predicted disaster.

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Speaker 1: She's dreamed of blood and gore. There is no good

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Speaker 1: that will come out of this particular jousting tournament, and

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Speaker 1: so on Friday, June fifty nine, after several successful runs,

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Speaker 1: Henry the Second is struck down with a lance through

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Speaker 1: the eye and brain. It takes him ten agonizing days

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Speaker 1: to die, and he leaves his fifteen year old son Francis,

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Speaker 1: who is weak in mind and body, as King of France,

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Speaker 1: and the grieving widow Catherine turns out to be willing

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Speaker 1: to do anything to protect her children's birthright. But that's

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Speaker 1: going to be the subject for our next episode. Thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for joining us on this Saturday. If

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Speaker 1: you have heard an email address or a Facebook you

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Speaker 1: are l or something similar over the course of today's episode,

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Speaker 1: Since it is from the archive that might be out

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Speaker 1: of date, now you can email us at History podcast

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, and you can find

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Speaker 1: us all over social media at missed in History. And

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Speaker 1: to podcasts. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com