Vulgar History - Women Trapped In Towers, part 5： Queen Margot's Wedding Massacre

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann

00:00:20.480 foster and i feel like this is going to be a major a major episode the longest one that i've done to

00:00:27.360 date was Catherine Gray which was like an hour and a half ish is like an hour 23 minutes or

00:00:32.600 something and given how many pages of notes I have which is um 11 and a half pages of notes

00:00:41.140 given that I usually have like six or seven I feel like this might be this might be a long one

00:00:49.040 I also feel pretty confident that this is also going to be a high one of among the highest

00:00:55.940 scoring-est episodes of vulgar history just based on i mean i've got that many pages because there's

00:01:02.940 that much stuff that happens it means there's that much stuff this woman did it's one of my

00:01:07.220 favorites this is a big deal for me we're getting into we've done lots of women who i feel very

00:01:14.960 strongly about historical figures francis howard carolyn of brunswick but we're really getting

00:01:21.380 into one of my personal favorites of all time i consider her a heavy hitter you may not because

00:01:29.840 have you heard of her i don't know but who we're talking about is marguerite of valois queen of

00:01:35.800 navarre aka queen margot which was a nickname one of her brothers gave her and we're going to just

00:01:42.900 call her margot because this is what like the fourth margaret so far this season and the last

00:01:49.360 one had like multiple margaret's in it she's margot just so we can tell her part from everybody else

00:01:54.380 and because that's what she went by and also because i first learned about her story from

00:01:59.400 the 1994 film the english language title of it is queen margot but it's a french film

00:02:05.800 and the original french title is lorraine margot it's by the director patrice chereau

00:02:11.520 it stars isabelle adjani it is oh my god verna lisi plays her mother catherine de medici it is

00:02:20.400 such a good movie the fashion amazing my favorite show of all time rain which was on the cw a few

00:02:30.080 years ago the costume designer for rain which i also love their costume design said that she was

00:02:35.760 largely inspired initially by by the movie Queen Margot because it has just the way it really

00:02:42.600 captured a timeless quality and also a fashionable quality while sort of nodding to the historical

00:02:48.960 time period without being like too um constrained by it anyway it's such a good movie I was just

00:02:56.880 checking I'm like well where is it streaming so that you guys can all watch it and I don't think

00:03:01.160 it is streaming anywhere that i could find but if you just look on youtube for queen margot or

00:03:06.700 lorraine margot and then full movie like it's you can you can pretty easily track it down or you can

00:03:11.600 purchase it on dvd or blu-ray disc it's so good and so that movie is based on a novel by alexandre

00:03:23.280 alexandra dumas the author of the three musketeers and other books like that so he had a whole kick

00:03:30.700 where he was just writing stories of French people so he is part of he kind of took he was

00:03:38.200 in a sense the Philippa Gregory of his time where he just really looked at kind of all the most

00:03:43.880 scandalous rumors about a person that wrote them up in a novel like hey this is what happened maybe

00:03:48.240 so the movie Queen Margot is based on his novel and his novel is based on accounts of the time

00:03:53.820 and accounts of the time are based on Margot's life and that's what we're going to be looking

00:03:59.440 at today another great source is a book called by nancy goldstone it's called the rival queens

00:04:06.760 catherine de medici her daughter marguerite de valois and the betrayal that ignited a kingdom

00:04:11.320 i mean what a title incredible it really gets into i think my trajectory was like i watched

00:04:17.980 rain and loved it so then i watched queen margot to see what the fashion was like and then i'm

00:04:22.880 just like who is this person so then i read the rival queens and then of course i got numerous

00:04:29.300 facts from wikipedia.com and this is i'm really excited i hope you are too so margot was born in

00:04:40.160 1553 she was the seventh child and the third daughter born to king henry ii of france

00:04:48.380 who i guess would be king henry and i guess you know warning this takes place in france so i'm

00:04:55.840 going to uncontrollably start pronouncing some things with a Lumiere Jerry Orbach has Lumiere

00:05:01.320 and Beauty and the Beast level French accent so if that's not your thing there's other podcasts

00:05:06.480 you can listen to because I can't help it so Margot's parents were King Henri the second of

00:05:12.720 France and his wife Catherine de Medici who is also one of my historical main I'm a huge fan of

00:05:23.000 her story and talking about her and that's going to be an episode for later and her episode will

00:05:27.040 probably be even longer than this anyway margo was the seventh child third daughter of these two

00:05:32.700 the king queen of friends so her older brothers and sisters were basically all sort of frail and

00:05:41.120 sort of ill and had various physical what were described then as like deformities so they just

00:05:48.320 had lots of physical issues including um just health things as well as just like i don't know

00:05:55.000 how to describe it basically nobody was talking about the great beauty of any of her older brothers

00:06:00.060 and sisters but then she by contrast it's like all the beauty was saved aside just to be all

00:06:06.960 given to her so she was apparently a great beauty with a wonderful sense of style um as a teen slash

00:06:14.900 adult foreign delegations wrote lengthy letters back to their home countries about how gorgeous

00:06:19.820 she was basically describing her as one of the seven wonders of the world so part of this for 0.93

00:06:24.980 sure would be how beautiful she was part of it might just be like how beautiful she was compared

00:06:30.100 to the siblings who were around her and part of it i think in a cleopatra like way was just her

00:06:35.620 charisma was so incredible that you just are blown away by her so but we're starting with childhood

00:06:41.880 her childhood was spent in a french royal nursery with her older sisters elizabeth

00:06:47.420 and claude claude by the way is a great name for a girl recommend that bring that back

00:06:54.880 and they're cared for by a woman oh my god my cat is gonna walk on my laptop

00:07:00.800 are you excited about this or do you just want water i don't know

00:07:05.080 so she and her sisters were raised under the care of charlotte de vienne the baron de courton

00:07:12.680 a wise and virtuous lady greatly attached to the catholic religion so side note france super

00:07:19.100 catholic country at this point at least the royal family was this is going to become quite important

00:07:24.420 as the story goes on and both of her older sisters got married they're quite a bit older than her

00:07:30.020 so after they married and they were sent off margot grew up in the chateau d'amboise with

00:07:36.900 her brothers henry and francis who were the ones closest to her age and as during her childhood

00:07:43.440 her brother charles charles gave her the nickname of margot so just she her siblings

00:07:50.140 hanging out being kids together when she was six her father henry the king died from a jousting

00:07:58.520 accident he got like a splinter in his eye or something like that and her oldest brother

00:08:04.000 francis became king aged 15. her brother francis fun fact was married to mary queen of scots who

00:08:12.580 is another heavy hitter who i'm going to talk about later so mary queen of scots though spent

00:08:18.640 most of her childhood in france even though she's the queen of scots for various reasons i'll explain

00:08:22.960 in a different episode but so mary queen of scots grew up with them all so almost like an honorary

00:08:28.500 sibling so she would have known margot quite well as well margot studied grammar classics history

00:08:35.940 the bible and learned to speak italian spanish latin and greek in addition to french obviously

00:08:40.600 because she was french she was competent in prose poetry horsemanship and dancing so just

00:08:46.500 well-rounded her brother francis or i guess he'd be called what francoise was only king for one

00:08:53.800 year before he died of an ear infection or possibly was poisoned by protestants because

00:09:00.640 i said france was a big catholic country and the royals were but there's a big amount of

00:09:05.080 protestants who wanted france to be a big protestant country he probably died of an

00:09:12.460 ear infection though he was like sick all the time france was so he died without an heir

00:09:17.900 mary queen of scots sent back to scotland and again that's a whole other episode

00:09:22.080 and the next king of france was the next oldest brother who was 10 year old charles

00:09:30.600 so at this point margot is like seven years old so it's a brother who's close in age to her the

00:09:36.820 one who called her margot because these were two boy kings in a row their mother catherine

00:09:42.000 de medici effectively controlled everything in their name because she was a very effective

00:09:48.700 controlling powerful person and yeah so it's that thing with the boy king where he's just kind of

00:09:54.640 like doesn't do much and people around him do lots of stuff what was it like growing up at this time

00:10:00.900 in french court so margot's future mother-in-law wrote about margot she is beautiful discreet and

00:10:08.920 graceful but she has grown up in the most vicious and corrupt atmosphere imaginable i cannot see

00:10:13.620 that anyone escapes its poison because basically during the time that margot is a young person

00:10:20.920 french royal court was a place of publicly performed religious devotion and privately 0.66

00:10:26.640 held licentious abandon so just like lots of sex going on and this is again getting back to the

00:10:32.260 movie queen margot there's just like margot is just kind of like wandering down the hallway 0.99

00:10:37.000 looking kind of bored and all around her there's just like people having an orgy and she's just 0.99

00:10:40.460 like meh i've seen it you know like whatever her mother catherine de medici kept a close eye on 0.96

00:10:48.720 everything with the assistance of her female servants who were called this is true the flying 1.00

00:10:56.240 squadron and they were courtesan slash spies so they were just kind of sexy spy ladies-in-waiting 1.00

00:11:05.120 who kept an eye out on everything and slept with everybody all the important men so they could bring 0.97

00:11:08.840 let catherine know what was going on all the time and they all together helped cultivate an atmosphere

00:11:15.060 of corruption sexy times and ruthless ambition where everybody was spying for somebody nobody

00:11:20.120 could be trusted and everyone was having sex with everybody beauty was prized above all else

00:11:26.060 luckily for margo as you know the seventh wonder of the world so she and she was also a princess 1.00

00:11:32.480 so she was a beautiful princess and that was very valuable at the time when she was eight

00:11:40.060 because all this is how she's still a kid margot's role in royal court was defined by her engagement

00:11:46.900 to hen henry there is there's only one margaret in the story who's actually margot slash marguerite

00:11:55.080 but there are a lot of people named henry slash henry so as a eight-year-old she was engaged to

00:12:05.280 henry of navarre navarre was a nearby principality close to france like kind of is part of what

00:12:12.440 france is now and he was also sent to be raised with her at court like how mary queen of scots

00:12:17.720 was you're just like kids and you're raised alongside your siblings and also your future

00:12:22.160 spouse but what this leads to is she seemed to perhaps come to see her fiance as kind of an

00:12:29.600 just one more obnoxious brother because she had so many brothers we're just going to call her

00:12:34.020 boy fiance navarre he's henry of navarre but there's just like there's going to be a lot of

00:12:40.500 henries so he's navarre from now on like most royal princesses and girls at this time margot

00:12:50.220 is a pawn to be used by her family to cement political relations with other royal families 0.99

00:12:54.100 to provide heirs and to help maintain and expand her family's stronghold over france and the

00:12:59.740 nearby principalities like navarre but here's the thing margot wanted something more you know

00:13:06.660 beating the beast also takes place in france the disney film she wants much more than this

00:13:11.300 not provincial life but this licentious sex court life she wanted passion romance and adventure

00:13:19.460 she also was brought up in this place not unlike our culture where being beautiful and youthful

00:13:27.500 was kind of the most important thing so she wanted to marry someone super handsome the sort of man

00:13:33.800 who was her equivalent who would turn eyes every time he entered a room but who would also be

00:13:37.820 strong and manly and brave is that a lot to ask for regrettably she was engaged to navarre who was

00:13:45.700 basically nothing at all like that and as i said grew up with her and was kind of more like a pesky

00:13:51.260 younger brother figure than someone she would ever want as her lover so but also perhaps more

00:13:59.160 than navarre's apparently not amazingly attractive looks and his immature personality he and his

00:14:07.240 family were huguenots which is a french way of saying protestants and i do not know the details

00:14:17.040 of the catholic slash protestant divide in france other than what was on the tv show

00:14:23.600 rain but huguenots i think they're just basically protestants and there's this great religious

00:14:31.440 tension so navarre's mother was called jean del bret who was very cool also and she was not a fan

00:14:40.440 of margot's catholic royal family jean was especially not a fan of margot's mother catherine

00:14:47.880 de medici who was from italy and people thought poisoned people all the time slash also she did

00:14:55.580 poison people at the time so jean was maybe right to be suspicious i'm not sure if this is in my

00:15:02.500 notes but especially because later on jean would die because of allegedly poisoned gloves allegedly

00:15:08.620 given to her by catherine de medici so jean delbras saw her son being kept at french court

00:15:13.860 as something kind of like kidnapping because they were catholics and catherine was so whatever 0.57

00:15:18.040 italian which she didn't like so jean schemed to escape with her son back to their home

00:15:23.660 palace in navarre because i'm calling him navarre but he's henry of navarre navarre being the place

00:15:29.340 he's from so when navarre and margot were both about 14 jean successfully kidnapped him or just

00:15:37.840 kind of grabbed him and ran so not only that her plan counted on catherine not finding oh no her

00:15:44.240 plan counted on catherine unknowingly funding their flight so somehow she had tricked catherine

00:15:49.340 de medici to pay for this not sure what that was but like good scheminess there for jean

00:15:54.100 catherine de medici was really mad margot was probably secretly relieved because she didn't

00:16:01.380 really want to marry this guy and now there was seemingly no no way she'd ever be forced to marry

00:16:07.360 this annoying little brother type person because his navarro's family had just betrayed her family 0.92

00:16:13.360 so cruelly and as fate would have it the absence of one henry was filled with the arrival of

00:16:20.260 another in the form of henry the duke of guise who i'm just going to call de guise because

00:16:27.000 again there's a lot of henry's in the story so de guise the thing is was gorgeous he was three

00:16:34.760 years older than her she's 15 at this point he's 18 he was tall and blonde athletic charming and

00:16:41.060 valiant in the battlefield he was also well known for his skill at seduction and in a court obsessed

00:16:47.860 with physical beauty he rose to become margot's equal sort of a prom king and queen type scenario

00:16:53.980 and by now margot was 15 so she had been the prettiest girl and now she was the

00:16:59.180 loveliest woman at court and not just for her physical appearance but her sense of style her

00:17:06.180 gracefulness at dancing and her charming personality so she was just head and shoulders

00:17:09.800 above literally everybody else diggies was the same thing man version so they seemed like a

00:17:15.380 perfect match and politically it seemed like an appropriate setup because especially margot's

00:17:22.280 older sister claude had already married into the diggies family and his family had taken roles as

00:17:27.920 senior advisors to her brother king charles so it all seemed like everything's coming up margot

00:17:34.180 but this is i'm on page like two of 13 so buckle up what happened next is that the diggees family

00:17:42.840 got caught up in a conspiracy to kidnap king charles which destroyed friendly relations

00:17:48.200 between the two families as it does when someone conspires to kidnap someone who is the king

00:17:53.140 so up until now margot had somehow managed to avoid the cutthroat game of thrones type

00:18:00.480 situation constantly playing out among her siblings and her mother but her relationship

00:18:05.620 with diggy's kind of i don't know she was in a bubble of just like being gorgeous and liking 0.88

00:18:12.600 boys and then suddenly she's like oh shit now i have to start scheming too i guess and then

00:18:17.460 enter the story's third henry who is margot's brother prince henry duke of anjou who we're

00:18:24.680 gonna just call anjou for now margot and anjou were good friends growing up they're a similar

00:18:29.620 age i think anjou was catherine's favorite child and he hated his brother king charles

00:18:37.400 charles in return hated anjou for the way that catherine obviously liked him better

00:18:42.880 and he hated how anjou clearly wanted to be king instead of him

00:18:46.620 anjou also hated de guise because he was taller and more handsome and was better

00:18:54.220 is a soldier. So when Anjou learned that Margot had feelings for Diggies, Anjou saw a way to use 0.99

00:19:02.500 that to his advantage. So Anjou manipulated Margot to side with him against Charles by flattering her 1.00

00:19:08.740 and coerced her to advocate for his interests with their mother, getting closer to Catherine

00:19:14.800 so that Margot would be the first with her and the last to leave her. Catherine didn't know why

00:19:19.340 Margot was suddenly so close to her but with Anjou off fighting battles she began to shower

00:19:23.740 Margot with attention making her the favorite now opening up to her with her most private thoughts

00:19:28.840 so for four months which is June to October 1569 Margot did just what her brother had asked of her

00:19:37.180 because she trusted him and she liked him and then things got pretty weird I don't super understand

00:19:44.480 the precise betrayal that occurred but here is my best understanding of it Anjou um snitched to

00:19:54.360 Catherine that Margot wanted to marry De Geese Catherine of course hated De Geese at this point

00:19:59.320 because this is post the whole um betrayal situation Margot was close to Catherine

00:20:07.560 and that that made everything risky for her and for her brother Anjou because Margot knew some

00:20:15.560 of Catherine's secrets oh and then if she married Degeese then Margot potentially could tell Degeese

00:20:20.960 more of Catherine's secrets or something like that so Catherine's just like well we can't we

00:20:24.800 can't have this we can't have Margot marrying Degeese the main thing was that Anjou alleged

00:20:30.660 that not only did Margot want to marry Degeese she was trying to make it happen actively like

00:20:35.600 was she probably not Anjou's just a dick so and just like in England princesses can't just decide 0.69

00:20:43.640 who they're gonna marry it has to be approved by the king and in this case by Catherine de Medici 0.94

00:20:48.360 who is effectively the king's mother so Catherine if you followed all of that effectively Anjou just

00:21:01.460 fucked Margot over by blabbing on her to Catherine and making it all sound worse so Catherine

00:21:06.240 got so mad at Margot for going behind her back allegedly and Margot would never forgive Anjou 0.97

00:21:11.860 for setting her up and then selling her out so this is just a falling out between all three

00:21:15.280 people but Anjou is still Catherine's favorite but having said all that Margot and Diggy's

00:21:23.160 likely weren't even lovers they maybe maybe flirted or wanted to get married to each other

00:21:29.180 but they probably oh that's part of it Anjou told Catherine that Margot was lovers with Anjou

00:21:34.520 this was one of the rumors spread by her family's enemies later on to try and make her look like a

00:21:39.180 sex-mad nymphomaniac there's a lot of rumors about Margot and her alleged lovers and some of

00:21:47.180 them are true and some of them are not true but this one seems like the two of them weren't

00:21:49.940 actually together at any point so note at this point there are unsubstantiated rumors that Anjou

00:21:59.100 and potentially some of her other brothers sexually abused margot uh anjou definitely

00:22:07.120 seemed to psychologically manipulate her but he not to excuse him but he did seem to enjoy 0.84

00:22:15.440 manipulating anybody um for instance just for instance of anjou's fuckery so at one point 0.65

00:22:24.540 when de guise was recovering from an injury anjou arranged for de guise to return to french court 0.73

00:22:30.600 where margot happened to be also convalescing from an illness de guise visited her frequently

00:22:35.860 doing his best to assure her that his family was back in the royal family's good graces even though

00:22:39.620 that was not true um unclear did de guise want to marry her or was he just trying to seduce her

00:22:46.280 anyway this whole thing came to a head because one of margot's ladies in waiting who was secretly

00:22:52.060 the payroll for Anjou for one of Margot's letters to De Guise to the king and I think the lesson 0.96

00:22:59.300 we learned from that is just this family is fucked up and also you shouldn't um have letter-based 0.98

00:23:05.460 evidence of your secret sexy relationships with forbidden French dudes but also so Anjou just like 1.00

00:23:13.980 fucked around with her and did they also sexually abuse and assault her who knows um but that also 0.99

00:23:22.520 was a rumor that was spread because of people who were enemies of her and of her brothers 0.99

00:23:26.600 later on if you watch the movie queen margot it just seems like the whole family is having sex

00:23:33.300 with each other all the time as part of the just like licentiousness but again that is a movie 0.99

00:23:38.420 based on a book based on a lot of rumors oh my god so all this happened um Anjou fucked her over 0.70

00:23:47.460 and then Charles her brother was really upset by her apparent betrayal that he sent for Catherine 0.87

00:23:57.240 and then he and Catherine dragged Margot from her bed and beat her quote viciously and this

00:24:04.200 had the desired effect so so again the root cause of all of this was just 0.99

00:24:10.820 goddamn Anjou fucking things up just because he sucks um using the king to against Margot but 0.99

00:24:20.640 using Margot to make himself look better in front of his mother ultimately the goal of whoever 1.00

00:24:27.060 engineered this was achieved which is that Margot terrified of her family for obvious and 0.60

00:24:32.580 understandable reasons agreed to stay away from diggies she felt that she would not be safe from 1.00

00:24:38.760 rumors of their involvement which might lead to a bad reputation or maybe more beatings until she 1.00

00:24:44.480 was married she went to her sister claude hoping that claude could compel diggies to marry someone 0.81

00:24:51.080 else because remember claude was married to another one of the diggies family and claude

00:24:55.740 did her a solid in this family sisters are much better than brothers de guise was married very

00:25:02.780 quickly to another woman margo and her family attended the ceremony because this is all like a

00:25:07.980 very murdery high school where no one can ever avoid seeing each other at the big parties kind

00:25:12.660 of like on gossip girl but the lessons that she learned through this wild sequence of events was

00:25:18.920 one that would come to serve her for the rest of her life in order to survive within this royal

00:25:24.040 court and within this murderous family she needed to remain vigilant and careful and suspicious of

00:25:30.660 everybody constantly so a hard learned lesson by this point Catherine who had a very strong

00:25:39.240 and forceful personality had alienated a lot of other important families such that she was having 0.96

00:25:45.940 trouble finding people to like sons to marry Margot so despite her best efforts to try and 0.85

00:25:52.660 find literally anyone else she uh re-implemented the engagement of margot to henry of navarre

00:26:00.080 the annoying boy who she'd grown up with yes he was still a protestant and yes his mother was

00:26:06.900 still one of catherine's most hated enemies but a marriage between these two was seen as it would

00:26:13.880 be politically expedient because there were all these religious battles going like it was ripping

00:26:19.400 france apart the catholics versus the huguenots slash protestants but like the the catholic

00:26:28.360 slash protestant divide was pretty major so it was incomprehensible for a catholic and a protestant

00:26:35.380 to marry and so the assumption was that margot would ultimately convert to her husband's religion

00:26:40.120 and become protestant margot was very very very catholic and religious and she saw this as being

00:26:48.440 literally condemned to hell because she thought if she stopped being catholic she would go to hell

00:26:53.660 so the pamphlets or whatever that really liked to make margot this kind of like sensationalized 0.94

00:27:03.060 figure would claim that margot didn't want to marry navarre because he was ugly and had a super

00:27:10.040 unappealing personality both of which things were true but margot's own writings because yeah she

00:27:15.520 did write her memoirs at one point she emphasized that religion was the biggest motivating factor 0.72

00:27:20.820 behind her not wanting to marry him she was super catholic and also he sucked so she didn't want to

00:27:29.840 marry him um but what she wanted did not matter very much because marriage preparations began 0.92

00:27:34.440 right away and in fact it was during the planning of the wedding that navarre's mother jean collapsed

00:27:42.120 dead while out shopping for gloves physicians at the time claimed she died of natural causes but

00:27:47.900 rumors persisted that catherine had killed her with a set of poison gloves and frankly if that

00:27:53.520 was a possibility i would also subscribe to that theory because poison gloves is an amazing rumor

00:28:00.440 so this was also side note the preparation and the wedding itself occurred during a heat wave

00:28:06.180 and it can get really hot in france so just imagine that too everything is just really

00:28:14.100 hot and sweaty and they're all wearing you know lots of layers of oldie time clothes

00:28:17.980 it was just you know a powder keg ready to explode so everyone was sweaty and tired

00:28:24.520 and i'm sure all they ever drank in this time well i'm not sure but didn't they only drink

00:28:30.560 wine because the water was bad so they're all just like half like constantly drunk slash hungover

00:28:37.100 sun exhausted sweaty just it's not a pleasant time again you really get that sense in the film

00:28:45.400 queen margot so margot and henry both 19 years old were married on august 18 1572 at notre dame

00:28:53.140 cathedral in paris the marriage was controversial because of their different religions the pope

00:29:00.000 refused to grant a dispensation for the wedding and the different faiths of the bridal couple

00:29:05.100 made for an unusual wedding service such as um navarre had to remain outside the cathedral

00:29:11.680 during the mass where his place was taken by margot's brother who she hated anjou but he was

00:29:17.260 there for like the do you take this bride oldie time french vows part of it a 17th historian

00:29:26.240 named francois youde de miseré invented the anecdote that margot was forced to marry navarre

00:29:33.920 by charles who pushed down her head as though she were nodding her assent when she refused to

00:29:39.060 marry i think that happens in the movie but this was not true this was propaganda to justify

00:29:44.980 um some stuff that happened later on so margot has had like quite a she's been torn to shreds

00:29:53.000 a lot and a lot of it is based on this propaganda against her and against her family for later

00:29:57.880 reasons that i'll explain margot did not mention having to have her brother nod her head for her

00:30:03.380 in her memoirs and no one who was actually around wrote about it so it's just this guy francois

00:30:08.380 invented this story later on as was the custom for royal marriage the ceremony itself was followed

00:30:14.500 by four days of celebration which i am also in favor of as was not the custom at the end of

00:30:21.600 these four days catherine arranged for many of the visiting protestants to be assassinated

00:30:28.120 so here's what happened so after jean died of poison gloves navarre so when she was dead

00:30:36.540 margot's husband henry of navarre became the king of navarre and as such the effectively the leader

00:30:44.720 of the huguenots slash protestants so because he because of his high profile most of the prominent

00:30:53.680 french protestants came to paris to celebrate the marriage especially because they also assumed

00:30:59.340 margot was going to convert so there's a lot of backroom deals going on everybody was backstabbing

00:31:03.880 everybody just lots of shifty eyes and it wound up with catherine arranging an assassination

00:31:08.900 attempt on a leading protestant general and then she framed the huguenots for the crime

00:31:13.600 even though she had done it the night that this happened margot was sitting with huguenots all of

00:31:19.900 whom were surprised and confused by what was happening margot saw clearly none of them had

00:31:24.980 been involved because she was right there with them like they did not know that this assassination

00:31:29.160 was going to happen so the next day word began to spread that the huguenots had been behind this 0.71

00:31:34.560 attempt themselves in an attempt to try and make it look like the catholics had done it so like

00:31:40.600 the layers of this so catherine attempted to assassinate prominent huguenot and then she 0.79

00:31:47.680 framed the huguenots for it pretending it was like a false flag that they had done to frame her but

00:31:52.020 really she had done it to frame them just her mind um it was a mess and what happened is that

00:31:59.540 catholics started killing protestants and this became known as the saint bartholomew's day

00:32:05.620 massacre and lots and lots and lots of people were killed all over france not just in paris

00:32:11.720 this happened over a period of i feel like days or weeks it was an extreme this is you might imagine

00:32:20.940 uh one of the climactic events in the movie the night that this slaughter began margot was woken

00:32:27.240 from her sleep um she had been sleeping by herself not with navarre by a huguenot stranger

00:32:32.880 stumbling through her door grievously injured in this um slaughter this guy was pursued by

00:32:39.380 armed guards including four archers which i just know it is interesting just archers like disguised

00:32:45.820 with bows and arrows just running from the hallway pursuing you would be pretty scary and also pretty

00:32:49.340 awesome looking margot acting apparently entirely on instinct and this is the first major moment

00:32:56.060 that truly defined what she was like as a person threw herself between the stranger and the palace

00:33:01.100 guards determined to kill him the guards were ordered away and margot was permitted to tend

00:33:05.760 to the wounded man saving his life she then set out to see what she could do because she was now

00:33:11.580 the queen of navarre she wanted to help protect other huguenots who were under threat including

00:33:15.580 her new husband in her memoirs margot remembered that she saved the lives of several prominent

00:33:21.400 protestants during the massacre by keeping them in her rooms and refusing to admit the assassins

00:33:25.880 her eyewitness account of this massacre is one of the is the only one from the whole royal family

00:33:33.120 of what things were like for them so her husband Henri Navarre had been forced to convert to

00:33:39.740 Catholicism to save his life for the time being this was really major he probably also felt like

00:33:47.660 he was going to go to hell for switching religions so this is very humiliating for him

00:33:51.340 um and then catherine forced him to parade into a catholic mass being like look who's catholic now

00:33:57.460 this guy and then she set out to have the marriage annulled because they had done their

00:34:03.560 work in her master plan to make a whole religious massacre happen uh given that they had only just

00:34:12.340 gotten married and they almost definitely had not yet consummated their union this probably 1.00

00:34:16.920 could have been done pretty quickly this annulment and catherine probably was planning once margo was

00:34:22.820 freed of her husband she could probably have navar killed but the thing is margo knew that this was

00:34:29.900 the plan and as much as she probably wanted to be freed of marriage to a man who she did not want 0.97

00:34:34.880 to be married to she already felt guilty for her complicity in the massacre which is like girl it 0.85

00:34:39.460 wasn't your fault like how could you have known well i don't know she probably knew her mother

00:34:44.440 was up to something but how could she have known her mother was up to this let me just look this up

00:34:48.420 one sec i'm just looking at more about the saint bartholomew's day massacre so just to really come

00:34:56.820 across the massiveness of this so as per wikipedia uh this was a targeted group of assassinations

00:35:07.240 and a wave of catholic mob violence directed against the huguenots french calvinist protestants

00:35:12.580 um the massacre took place a few days after the wedding of margot to navarre uh the massacre

00:35:21.080 began the night of the 23rd to the 24th of august 1572 the feast of bartholomew which is why it's

00:35:28.460 bartholomew's day that's two days after catherine's alleged attempted assassination okay so the

00:35:36.380 slaughter spread throughout paris lasting several weeks the massacre expanded outward to the

00:35:40.860 countryside and other urban centers modern estimates for the number of dead across france

00:35:44.780 vary widely from 5 000 to 30 000 the massacre also marked a turning point in the french wars

00:35:51.480 of religion the huguenot political movement was crippled by the loss of so many of its prominent

00:35:56.360 aristocratic leaders because they were all in paris for the wedding they were just lured in

00:36:01.160 um as well as many reconversions a bunch of people stopped went back to being catholics again

00:36:06.680 uh it was the worst of the centuries religious massacres quote somebody on wikipedia

00:36:13.940 um throughout europe it printed on protestant minds the indelible conviction that catholicism

00:36:20.740 was a bloody and treacherous religion so this all happened just after her wedding to which

00:36:27.360 margot i can see where she would have felt guilty for her part in this but like it was 0.99

00:36:33.220 not her fault i don't think effectively she didn't want her husband's blood on her hands too

00:36:40.220 after she felt like she had the blood of like 30 000 french protestants so

00:36:47.120 sort of like like first she saved the stranger's life which if you watch the movie he turns into

00:36:54.740 her lover and it gets very sexy but in real life it was just a stranger who she saved because she

00:36:59.260 like a good person and then what she did in a similar way she refused the annulment she said

00:37:07.200 that annulment was impossible because she had already had sexual relations with henry and was

00:37:11.980 in every sense his wife later she wrote in her memoirs i suspected the design of separating me

00:37:16.760 from my husband was in order to work some mischief against him so she saved his life

00:37:20.980 by claiming that they had had sex already when they probably hadn't and she totally could have

00:37:26.200 lied about it so in so doing she so her husband now is sort of in her protection meaning her

00:37:34.980 family could never kill him because it was her husband in a brutal twist Henri of Navarre never

00:37:42.220 learned that she had done this for him he assumed incorrectly that Margot had been involved in her

00:37:47.080 family's treachery and the night she spent chatting with the Huguenots she had known what

00:37:50.940 was to come her true motivations were never revealed until her memoirs were published long

00:37:55.360 after both of them had died so that's just hashtag tragique so the way that life always does even

00:38:04.340 after a life-altering horrifying thing happens is that life just returns pretty much back to normal

00:38:09.780 in a weird way Henri of Navarre was now a tentative ally to Margot's family and he was

00:38:17.520 invited along with Anjou and others to help quell an uprising in the countryside because he was

00:38:22.060 quote-unquote catholic at this point in his absence marco was left alone a married woman of

00:38:27.400 19 a much freer and more enjoyable status than she'd enjoyed as a single unmarried teenager 0.97

00:38:34.780 so while he was away she joined up with the most fabulous girl squad a court led by henriette

00:38:41.100 de cleves and catherine de clermont d'ampierre attending all of their soirees and parties

00:38:46.160 socializing with artists and writers and great thinkers of the age due to their beauty and 0.92

00:38:51.180 proximity to creative minds and artists this group of noble women became known as the muses

00:38:56.820 of paris and i have to say i know i keep talking about the movie you can watch it or not

00:39:01.680 but henriette is in the movie and she is amazing she's the coolest coolest person in the movie

00:39:09.680 there's a part during i think it's during the massacre she's just like like she's just like

00:39:13.340 loves the chaos she's so cool so at one of these soirees being hosted by the muses of paris

00:39:22.240 margot met joseph de boniface known as la mole la mole was an infamous ladies man 20 years older

00:39:30.720 than her a sort of cooler more grown-up version of her younger her first love diggies i picture

00:39:37.900 him as sort of uh i picture him sort of like george clooney circa the first oceans 11 movie

00:39:45.700 just sort of like an adult man just very dapper and charming with like a roguish glint in the eye

00:39:51.860 apparently la mole was so skilled at wooing women he had been sent as francis representative

00:39:58.120 when catherine was trying to convince queen elizabeth the first to marry one of her sons

00:40:03.560 so she didn't send her notably she didn't send her sons she sent this sexy guy to try and be like 0.98

00:40:08.700 hey ooh la la like marry one of these french guys maybe he'll be as handsome as me

00:40:12.840 he was also a friend to margot's other brother whose name was hercules but then he changed his

00:40:24.080 name to francois after the death of their older brother francois and he was the duke of alencon

00:40:30.520 and so i'm gonna call him alenon or maybe francoise apparently the fact he was called

00:40:37.140 hercules or i guess hercule was when he was like small and like not particularly hercules looking

00:40:45.180 made him sort of the butt of jokes which is why partially also why he changed his name

00:40:49.440 meanwhile margot's other brother charles was still king he had a fragile you know what how

00:40:58.460 many times this has happened this season just like what's his face in the isabel portugal story

00:41:03.480 henry vi the mark of anjou story charles was a boy king who just like could not deal

00:41:08.040 which is fine if you're a person but when you're the king it's just a sucky way to be

00:41:13.840 he had a fragile mental state and he was often ill like all of the siblings were

00:41:19.660 his younger brother anjou was elected king of poland i'm not sure what that is about but just

00:41:27.020 note that um oh my god i only vaguely understand this i'll just read to you what it says and

00:41:33.360 hopefully you will get the gist so anjou elected king of poland anjou was also a big fan of

00:41:41.940 suppressing protestants so a group of moderate catholics called the malcontents supported a

00:41:47.460 plan to get rid of charles and anjou and in their place elect the third brother francoise

00:41:55.320 as the new king instead because he was more moderate and less of a religious fanatic

00:42:00.540 because margot hated her other two brothers she helped francoise with his coup along with her

00:42:06.820 fellow muses henriette of henriette and uh catherine of clermont but then the conspiracy

00:42:14.040 was exposed the leaders of the plot were arrested and decapitated francoise begged for forgiveness

00:42:21.400 and he was granted it from the king but la mole became the fall guy for the plot he was found

00:42:26.600 guilty largely due to the existence of a wax figurine pricked with needles found in his room

00:42:32.740 in which was thought to be a threat to the king which is the wildest twist since poison gloves

00:42:40.020 in the story but guess what story's not done la mole was put to death and in one of those rumors

00:42:46.060 that is so great i really hope it's true margot was said to have had his head preserved for her

00:42:50.640 to keep with her always in the book by alexander dumas and in the movie she does this she just 0.94

00:42:57.820 takes his head and pieces the fuck out of there so what's up so her brother francoise

00:43:05.540 and her husband henry of navarre were being held as prisoners at this point because of just all 0.94

00:43:11.340 this infighting between all the dudes then charles died without an heir meaning the new king was

00:43:18.620 margot's brother anjou who became king henry the third i think at this point so when he became the

00:43:27.840 king francoise and henry of navarre were freed but kept under surveillance and allowed to return to

00:43:33.200 royal court but anjou still hated margot from that whole betrayal thing from when they were

00:43:39.340 teenagers and didn't let her return meanwhile guess who doesn't get along margot and her husband

00:43:44.720 they things deteriorated because this is just a lot of stuff to go through and they're what

00:43:51.300 in their like early 20s like in a marriage how much has happened between them and they didn't

00:43:56.040 even like each other to begin with Anjou was suspicious of Margot and threatened by her

00:44:02.380 especially um oh I wrote this backwards Anjou was suspicious of and threatened by his sister Margot

00:44:11.320 especially because she and navarre seemed to be getting along better so anjou was like i need to 0.99

00:44:15.920 fuck this shit up and make their marriage deteriorate because a happy king and queen 0.98

00:44:21.160 of navarre were a threat to the king of france so anjou pulled some more classic that's so anjou 1.00

00:44:26.160 schemes for instance he set up navarre with a new mistress who happened to be also one of

00:44:34.060 catherine de medici who's still around puppet mastering everybody she's one of the flying

00:44:39.440 squadron of courtesan spies so navarre has a new mistress who is spying on him for catherine and

00:44:47.760 anjou because remember anjou is catherine's favorite son um anjou also arranged for margot

00:44:52.400 to be caught in a compromising position to further alienate her from the rest of the family so he is

00:44:58.780 just the worst even amidst some truly terrible people so this all worked um navarre and margot

00:45:08.960 were not getting along very well they didn't even see each other very much he only approached his

00:45:13.400 wife when it served his interests and did not hesitate to abandon her if it did not for her

00:45:18.880 part margot perhaps took advantage of the absence of her husband to take a lover and the next person

00:45:26.780 in the was he her lover or not is the famous bussy d'amboise that is spelled first name b-u-s-s-y

00:45:35.620 Bousset d'Amboise. Bousset was a gentleman, a swordsman, a dandy, and a lover of all genders.

00:45:45.180 He was also potentially a lover of Margot's brother Anjou, because this is just a really 0.98

00:45:52.060 fucked up story. So through all of this lover taking husband, wife arguing, Francoise, Margot's 0.97

00:46:02.100 brother and navarre were still under surveillance from their past coup attempt they both eventually

00:46:07.360 fled uh navarre did not even warn margot he was leaving he just was gone one day margot 0.98

00:46:15.000 fucked over again by useless men in her life found herself confined to her chambers in the louvre 0.98

00:46:20.760 which was not a museum at that point i had to look that up it was a castle she was not confined 0.95

00:46:26.020 to uh art museum but she's confined under suspicion as her husband's accomplice for his escape even

00:46:33.120 though she had nothing to do with it in fact she wrote in her memoirs that actually she had an okay 0.98

00:46:39.560 time in confinement and guess what the season is women trapped in towers and the assholes who sent 0.82

00:46:43.800 them there this is not even the trapped in towers moment the biggest one in the story she'll be 0.81

00:46:50.420 trapped in other towers she wrote i found a secret pleasure during my confinement from the perusal of

00:46:56.520 good books to which i had given myself up with a delight i never before experienced my captivity

00:47:01.640 and its consequent solitude afforded me the double advantage of exciting a passion for study

00:47:07.020 and an inclination for devotion advantages i had never experienced during the vanities and splendor

00:47:12.680 of my prosperity so just like the people who did okay slash thrived during COVID quarantine she

00:47:21.300 was just like you know what I liked having this time by myself to just read books and learn new

00:47:24.860 skills this is resiliency so but meanwhile everybody else she you know what considering

00:47:32.680 everything that happened to her it's like yeah you know what just like read your books like just

00:47:36.140 be away from all your awful brothers your awful husband and just like do you so meanwhile her 0.51

00:47:43.180 brother francoise who by now was allied with the huguenots took up arms and refused to negotiate 0.86

00:47:50.840 until his sister was set free even though she was like thriving and didn't mind but because of that

00:47:57.240 margot was released and then assisted her mother in some peace talks which is like an interesting

00:48:03.140 it reminds me of isabella the first she had some peace talk moments wasn't she he's like a teen

00:48:10.440 mediator avi keeping track so navarre was protestant again he had been catholic to

00:48:18.660 save his life but now he's like really protestant again and he tried to get margot to join him in

00:48:23.820 his kingdom of navarre uh they reconciled to the point that she was returning his letters and

00:48:31.820 telling him some the court gossip but Catherine de' Medici and Anjou refused to release her to

00:48:38.000 her husband fearing that Margot would become a hostage in the hands of the Huguenots or she would

00:48:42.140 act to strengthen the alliance between Francois and Navarre because she probably would because

00:48:47.680 that was those are the people she supported because Catherine and Anjou were terrible to her

00:48:51.940 constantly in 1577 margot is given permission to go on a mission in the south of the netherlands

00:49:02.500 on behalf of her younger brother francoise anjou let her do this because it meant he could maybe

00:49:07.360 get rid of francoise by making him the new king of the netherlands i don't okay just like oh my

00:49:15.580 brother's bothering me it'd be great to get him out of town could we make him king of the netherlands

00:49:20.120 i feel like maybe that's how anjou became king of what was it poland anyway this is just there

00:49:28.480 it's just like a normal life but just like exploded on this international scale so margot

00:49:34.920 was like cool i'm on it so she pretended to be going to to take the spa waters she left paris

00:49:42.460 with her court and then devoted two months to her mission at every stage of the journey during

00:49:47.480 brilliant receptions the queen of navarre aka margot was entertained with gentlemen who were

00:49:52.340 potential allies and while praising his brother praising her brother she tried to persuade them

00:49:58.880 to join francoise was that it god i don't even know what her mission is but i'm sure she's doing

00:50:03.940 amazing at it uh she met the governor of the netherlands don juan of austria um almost one

00:50:11.400 quarter of her memoirs are devoted to this mission i'm so sorry margot i did not read your memoirs

00:50:16.160 and I don't understand this mission.

00:50:19.100 Sounds like she did a great job, charmed everybody.

00:50:21.680 But at the end, Françoise was incapable of defeating the Spanish army.

00:50:26.420 So it didn't work out, whatever she's trying to do.

00:50:29.820 I don't know.

00:50:31.140 So Margot returned to royal court, where Anjou and Françoise

00:50:36.580 were still fighting constantly.

00:50:38.700 Margot's perhaps lover, Bousset, got in the middle of it.

00:50:42.900 um Anjou eventually had Francoise arrested uh Bousset was also taken to the Bastille

00:50:50.780 and fled I guess he escaped in a very dramatic way I picture like Bousset I just picture him

00:50:57.340 with a cloak just like running around sort of like tuxedo mask on Sailor Moon Margot helped

00:51:04.620 Francoise escape by throwing a rope out of her window she later denied helping with his escape

00:51:09.940 and was believed this i'm just giving you a list of wild facts that all put together

00:51:17.920 is this woman's life story at this point they believed that she didn't help him escape and

00:51:24.160 she was finally given permission to join her husband in navarre so she did they let's see

00:51:32.000 they settled in nirak capital of navarre which was part of the kingdom of france and where the

00:51:40.200 religious regulations and intolerance did not apply so she was allowed to be catholic still

00:51:45.300 while her husband was protestant still this is like very revolutionary for the age to be a catholic

00:51:50.200 married to a protestant whilst there margot worked to create a refined court that would be a true

00:51:57.360 literary academy that welcomed poets and thinkers and this is where i'm just like is she belle from

00:52:01.580 meeting the beast but just raised wildly differently she just loves learning and books

00:52:07.180 the court of nerac became especially famous for the amorous adventures that occurred there aka

00:52:12.720 sexy times to the point of apparently shakespeare's play love's labor's lost was inspired by this

00:52:20.480 margot allegedly had an affair with a man who is one of her friend her husband's companions

00:52:29.400 the vicomte de turenne her husband navarre uh endeavored to conquer all the maids of honored 0.87

00:52:36.620 who accompanied his wife so it's just like sex happened kind of like when she was a kid but this

00:52:41.520 feels like she's more in control of the situation and maybe less murderousness um in 1579 a religious

00:52:50.680 war called the lovers war broke out between the huguenots and navarre himself during this conflict

00:52:57.500 margot took the side of her husband this lasted about a year thanks in part to margot's idea to

00:53:04.700 get her brother francoise to lead negotiations which were rapid and culminated in peace so

00:53:09.360 he was good at that so ellen or francoise came in peace negotiations peaced out and then margot's

00:53:19.080 marriage to henry of navarre deteriorated yet more um potentially because they're both constantly 0.63

00:53:26.240 sleeping with other people margot fell in love with her brother's senior attendant jacques de

00:53:32.060 harley lord of chambelan navarre was involved um i found it described as an affair but i feel like

00:53:41.620 because he was a fully adult man and the person he's involved with is a 14 year old girl but so

00:53:49.480 he became involved with a 14-year-old lady-in-waiting named Françoise de Montmorency-Fosseau,

00:53:56.140 known as La Belle Fosseuse, who became pregnant. Margot proposed banishing her from court

00:54:03.760 out of jealousy because she, if you hadn't noticed, has not had any children at this point. 1.00

00:54:09.320 But La Belle Fosseuse screamed that she would refuse to cooperate if she was banished. 0.99

00:54:13.180 um la belle fausse um really worked against margot tried to incite henry to hate margot

00:54:20.940 hoping that maybe she could be married to him francoise gave birth to a daughter but the child

00:54:25.900 was stillborn margot wrote in her memoirs about this it pleased god that she should bring forth

00:54:33.340 a daughter since dead which is like very cold margot 1582 margot returned to paris she was

00:54:43.100 initially well received by her brother the king king henry iii aka anjou uh she wrote to her

00:54:50.520 husband to try and convince him to join her in paris but he refused um margot oh my god la belle

00:54:56.560 Fausseuse was still her lady in waiting. Margot was finally able to fire her with help of her 1.00

00:55:03.420 mother Catherine de Medici. This made her husband really mad because he loved being involved with

00:55:10.000 this 14 year old person. So then in retaliation I guess Margot resumed her relationship with

00:55:17.340 Jean Valon who is in Paris now as well. Meanwhile Margot's relationship with her brother Anjou was

00:55:24.420 also strained which when was it not so Anjou Francis King Henry III alternated between a life

00:55:33.760 of just like debauchery and like sexiness and crises of mysticism and just like religious

00:55:40.260 obsession Margot mocked him and made enemies of two of his chief supporters who retaliated

00:55:49.120 by circulating very injurious reports about her private life so this is where all of the 0.95

00:55:54.280 like margot's such a big slut uh pamphlets came about from um let's see in addition margot 0.72

00:56:02.060 encouraged francoise to continue his expedition into the netherlands this is still happening i 0.98

00:56:06.360 don't understand entirely um anjou didn't want him to do that because he was afraid there'd be

00:56:12.360 war with spain i sure uh let's see margot fell sick in june 1583 rumors claim that she was

00:56:22.140 pregnant by her lover champillon angie was displeased by her reputation and behavior which

00:56:28.020 like side note the reputation that she had developed because of his friends who wrote

00:56:35.160 pamphlets about how she's this nymphomaniac or whatever so this is again like he set her up to 1.00

00:56:40.040 look like a slut and then was like oh my god you're a slut um so he expelled her from royal 1.00

00:56:44.800 court an unprecedented and humiliating measure that scandalized europe the queen's court so her 1.00

00:56:53.320 court margot's squad was stopped by the king's guards and some of her servants were arrested

00:56:58.160 and interrogated by the king himself personally um and part of what their question about was

00:57:03.420 did margot have a bastard child or an abortion where it seems pretty clear that she just either

00:57:09.340 was real good at birth control or was infertile because she had been married a long time and had

00:57:16.560 several lovers and no pregnancies that we know of navarre heard about these rumors that anjou had

00:57:22.860 invented and he refused to receive his wife because she's so scandalous of a person so margot

00:57:28.800 remained for eight months in uncertainty i don't even know couch surfing like waiting for

00:57:34.320 france didn't want her and navarre didn't want her and they were had to negotiate with each other

00:57:39.980 like who would be stuck with her because neither of them wanted her after long negotiations

00:57:45.020 margaret was finally allowed to return to her husband's court in navarre where she received an

00:57:49.760 icy reception in june 1584 so she arrived there in april two months later in june her brother

00:57:57.320 francois died and so that was the loss of her most valuable ally with his death so this is wild

00:58:06.140 so her brother anjou had not had any children none of her brothers had any children francois

00:58:11.740 just died so catherine de minucci had so many children but none of them had heirs so it's just 0.97

00:58:18.780 like well who the fuck is going to be king of france next uh the next heir to the throne of 0.96

00:58:25.060 france became plot twist margot's husband henry of navarre not because of his own bloodline but 0.97

00:58:31.000 because i believe he was married to her so this is super unexpected to me but to them they're like

00:58:38.620 okay sure um but this made he also didn't have any children with her remember so no one's having

00:58:44.780 any children it's like we need a king and the king needs to have heirs because then if you don't

00:58:48.440 there's religious wars so lots of pressure on Henri of Navarre to have children with her or

00:58:55.820 just with someone so 1585 he had a new lover hopefully an adult named Diane Dandoise and she

00:59:03.500 just because everyone in this story has a nickname she was called La Belle Coruscant

00:59:08.720 she pressured him to ditch Margot and marry her instead because she was like I can have babies

00:59:13.320 margot can't and then that same year in an unprecedented gesture for a queen of the 16th 0.99

00:59:20.960 century margot fully abandoned her husband just like fuck you i'm out she rallied the catholic 0.99

00:59:28.080 league which are just powerful catholics in various countries i guess uh they united oh 0.99

00:59:35.780 she rallied the catholic league which united as well the intransigent catholics

00:59:41.100 um so she just got a whole bunch of catholics together and masterminded a coup d'etat and

00:59:47.980 seized power over engin one of her appendages not sure where that is but it's somewhere that

00:59:53.620 she ruled because she is queen of noir remember she spent several months fortifying the city

00:59:58.660 recruiting troops she sent them to the assault of the cities around engin but then eventually

01:00:05.240 the people of engen got tired of her demands i don't know they're tired of being in this battle

01:00:11.580 they revolted against her side to take the side of her brother anjou so margot had to flee

01:00:17.600 refusing her mother's pleas that she moved to a royal manor she instead retreated to

01:00:22.620 the fortress of carla with a new maybe lover who is jean de lard de gallard seigneur d'aviac

01:00:32.080 and she appointed him captain of her guards so she just hung out in a fortress for a year

01:00:38.820 um and after that year because royal troops are coming to try and take over margot took

01:00:45.820 refuge in the castle of ibwa a little to the north of auvergne as proposed to her by her mother

01:00:52.740 can't believe the mother's still around um but when margot got there she found herself besieged

01:00:58.480 by the royal troops who seized the fortress she waited nearly a month for a decision on her fate

01:01:03.180 it finally came um margaret was imprisoned by her brother anjou in the castle of uson

01:01:09.640 her maybe lover um jean de lard de galard seigneur d'abiac was executed in front of her

01:01:17.520 so it's just like i don't know she's not having good luck with lovers margot assumed she was going

01:01:24.900 to be put to death as well and in a farewell letter to her mother she asked that after her

01:01:28.600 execution a post-mortem be held to prove that she was not despite gossip pregnant with her lover's

01:01:33.840 child but suddenly can you believe this story is not like it's still going i've got pages left

01:01:40.380 suddenly her jailer the marquis de caniac switched from the royal side so he'd been supporting anjou

01:01:47.820 but suddenly he switched over to the catholic league side and then he just like on his own

01:01:53.800 just released her he's just like you're free to go um rumors at the court of france reported 1.00

01:02:00.160 because she had this wild reputation as this like nymphomaniac there were rumors that she

01:02:04.760 had maybe seduced him but more likely she probably bribed him and then she was free and this was

01:02:12.640 helpful to the catholic insurgents because as long as she's still alive henry of navarre would not

01:02:20.300 have an heir and they wanted him to not be king so this was good for them despite obtaining her

01:02:27.080 freedom margot decided to stay in the castle of uson and she just like stayed there for 18 years 0.97

01:02:33.600 she just was like you know and you know what she did she read goddamn books because that was her 0.87

01:02:39.480 thing so she also trained up a new court of intellectuals musicians and writers she restored 1.00

01:02:46.540 the castle so just doing some home renovations as well committed her time to reading many works

01:02:51.600 um even her financial condition improved when her sister-in-law elizabeth of austria

01:03:00.000 began sending her half of her income so she's still here so in 1589 her mother died january

01:03:09.680 1589 from pleurisy and then that same year her brother anjou aka henry iii died that august

01:03:19.640 of being assassinated um as he was dead and there were no more brothers to inherit and no more heirs

01:03:26.940 the new king was her husband henry of navarre he was not a popular king um for various reasons

01:03:37.900 he suggested to margot that they try to annul their marriage so she was like should we i'm sure

01:03:46.320 she'd read lots of books about like we we annulment i don't know so she resumed contact

01:03:51.200 with him like they had just not been in touch at all to try and improve her financial situation

01:03:55.800 let's see

01:03:58.300 navarre became catholic again to try and make france like him better

01:04:05.040 and i guess she was like cool with the potential annulment um because she knew that to be a good

01:04:13.640 king of france he needed to have a child and like she clearly she i think knew about herself that

01:04:18.940 she was sterile so she supported the annulment i guess so the two of them applied to the pope for

01:04:26.860 an annulment and they said that the reasons for the annulment were they she was sterile um they

01:04:33.840 were closely related as cousins or whatever and so this there's more talks between i guess their

01:04:41.360 representatives and the pope's representatives her financial situation improved because i guess

01:04:46.920 she was just like should i end all this marriage i don't know if you give me money maybe i will

01:04:50.280 but she was displeased with who

01:04:53.540 henry of navarre wanted to marry which was his latest mistress gabrielle d'estres who doesn't

01:05:01.840 seemed to have a fun nickname or she does i don't know it she was the mother of his son cesar who

01:05:07.960 had been legitimate legitimized um but margot considered this a dishonorable remarriage and i

01:05:15.400 don't think this is her being petty i think this is just her like real religiousness coming up 1.00

01:05:19.420 remember how she's always been like so like serious about stuff um but also she was a petty 1.00

01:05:25.320 bitch who loved drama she wrote it is repugnant to me to put in my place a woman of such low 1.00

01:05:31.500 extraction and of so impure life as the one about whom rumor speaks so she did not want that person 1.00

01:05:37.840 so she stopped the annulment negotiation she's like i'm not gonna know the marriage if you're 1.00

01:05:41.160 just gonna marry that whore over there but then gabrielle the mistress died from exclampsia 1.00

01:05:48.100 and negotiations were back on i feel like at this point you'd say like did gabrielle die of poison 0.99

01:05:54.360 in gloves but whatever gabrielle conveniently died margot demanded in exchange for the 0.98

01:06:01.140 annulment strong financial compensation and the right to retain use of her royal title queen of

01:06:05.560 navarre so there was a trial as part of this situation um witnesses reported that margot

01:06:16.720 had been forced by her mother and brother to marry henry and eventually the two were granted

01:06:23.060 an annulment from the pope a year later guess who Henri of Navarre married Marie de Medici

01:06:28.900 a relative a much younger relative of Margot's from the Medici side of her mother nine months

01:06:34.180 later Marie de Medici had a son she was also cool Marie de Medici definitely possible future

01:06:40.780 podcast subject um once they were annulled guess what happened the relationship improved

01:06:47.840 um margot had been in exile for 20 years but finally entered the good graces of the king

01:06:55.320 of france who was her husband who i guess now is henry the fourth but let's see but she was

01:07:02.460 super smart she could spot a scheme from far off based on her entire life experience 0.68

01:07:08.380 let's see so her brother charles who had been the king before had a bastard son called the

01:07:16.760 count of Auvergne whose mother had been a mistress of Navarre's so basically she found 0.67

01:07:30.420 out that her bastard nephew was going to try and usurp the throne I guess so she told her

01:07:37.360 ex-husband um and then the count of Auvergne was caught and all of his property was confiscated 0.91

01:07:45.320 margot thought that as a result of this she herself would then inherit from elverne

01:07:53.580 the property that he had from his father but this is a lot of disinheritances

01:07:59.260 and margot initiated a long trial to try and get this land the king allowed her to return

01:08:05.740 to paris to manage her legal case to try and get this land in 1594 margot learned about a published

01:08:12.300 work a book that included several mistakes and false rumors about her and she's like i think

01:08:16.900 not and that was when to set the record straight she wrote her own memoirs and she was allegedly

01:08:26.440 the first woman maybe the first royal woman to have written memoirs the memoirs were not published

01:08:32.200 so she wrote them 1594 but they were not published until 1680 1628 well after her death and the death

01:08:38.980 of most of the people she had written about and then so after 19 years in usan margaret finally

01:08:47.300 returned to paris apparently i don't know if this is for the trial i guess so anyway she finally

01:08:57.000 returned she looked a mess her skin was red and raw she wore an extravagant blonde wig 0.90

01:09:01.520 and her clothes were 20 years out of fashion but because of this charisma thing she won the 0.96

01:09:07.560 affection of the people in paris she established herself as a mentor of the arts and benefactress

01:09:13.680 of the poor um she had become increasingly religious and she was already pretty religious

01:09:19.340 so now she's like xx religious yeah so she went there for the trial and then 0.85

01:09:28.160 a year later she won the lawsuit against her bastard nephew and gained her entire 1.00

01:09:33.600 inheritance from her mother after this so because she had no children of her own she named

01:09:39.860 esser air the son of her ex-husband henry of navarre and marie de medici who is the crown

01:09:46.340 prince louis this was an extremely important political move for her because so it had been

01:09:53.160 the valois dynasty were in charge of france until henry of navarre took over and then it became the

01:09:59.900 bourbon dynasty and that's where all the louis come from so her naming louis as her heir

01:10:09.260 basically made official the dynastic transition from the valois family to the bourbon dynasty

01:10:15.600 so there wouldn't be as much um confusion over who was in charge margot in fact often helped 0.99

01:10:24.500 plan events at court and nurture the children of her ex-husband and marie like their cool aunt 1.00

01:10:30.360 in 1608 in fact margot is named godmother of prince gaston so she settled her household on

01:10:39.980 the left bank of the seine in a place called the hostel de la reine marguerite so basically the

01:10:46.700 queen margot's place this palace became a parisian political and intellectual center 0.97

01:10:54.260 because she's this big book nerd she gave brilliant receptions with theatrical performances 0.82

01:10:59.980 and ballets that lasted until late at night and had great patrons she also opened a literary

01:11:05.280 lounge where she organized a company of philosophers poets and scholars

01:11:09.400 um margot oh wow okay on may 13th 1610 queen margot attended marie's coronation at saint denis

01:11:23.960 i'm not sure why marie was not coronated until then she had been married to henry of navarre for

01:11:28.480 a while the following day henry of navarre uh francis king henry the fourth was assassinated

01:11:36.220 by a fanatic monk and marie his widow obtained the regency for the minor child louis so in 16

01:11:47.760 that's just like a quick little paragraph where it's like so much has happened it's like that's

01:11:51.700 just a couple sentences sure fanatic monk okay in 1614 marco wrote a book called the learned and

01:12:01.800 settled discourse in which she affirmed the superiority of women over men arguing the god 0.99

01:12:07.300 and the creation of the world started from the lower creatures up to the superiors and the woman

01:12:12.080 is the last created creature not even from the mud like adam but from a rib furthermore the

01:12:17.060 delicacy of the aesthetic forms of women reflects their perfection she wrote the world is not made 0.74

01:12:22.960 for man and man for god but rather the world is made for man man for woman and woman made for god

01:12:28.520 so some cool writing there from her um and then in early in march 1615 so a year after she wrote

01:12:39.740 this thing about like women are the best she became ill she died in queen margot's place

01:12:46.080 on march 27 1615 like every french royal person who died before the french revolution um at some

01:12:56.860 point her tomb was sacked um her casket disappeared and nobody knows where it is anymore the end um

01:13:03.680 but not really so the thing is that queen margot's life is obscured by the legend of the 0.89

01:13:10.020 sexy nymphomaniac queen margot uh the myth of a nymphomaniac and incestuous woman in a damned 0.99

01:13:18.320 family so these stories began partially because her brother was an asshole and got people to start 0.99

01:13:24.980 these rumors um but then also there was a lot of anti-valoir propaganda created by the bourbon 0.96

01:13:32.440 dynasty so the descendants of henry of navarre and court historians just trying to be like the

01:13:38.260 bourbons are great but before them the valois were just like so gross and awful and margot 0.92

01:13:42.300 just became sort of a scapegoat for all of that um many slanders were spread throughout her life 0.92

01:13:50.460 but there's one pamphlet um written by theodore agrippa del bignet were very successful in the

01:13:59.600 sense that they really caught on and subsequently these facts were handed down as if they were

01:14:03.440 as if they were facts even though they were just made up slanders and i already mentioned

01:14:10.780 shakespeare's comedy loves labors lost is possibly based on the attempt at reconciliation between

01:14:16.780 margot and henry um in 1630 cardinal richelieu and his historians initiated a campaign against

01:14:27.240 marie de medici henry navarre's second wife um and in so doing they systematically discredited 0.95

01:14:34.420 all women and their political role and this revived the legend of margot the like crazy 0.79

01:14:41.820 sex queen and then well i don't know say right in one place that her brother charles had invented

01:14:49.140 her nickname queen margot but then here it says that alexander dumas is the one who invented

01:14:54.280 i don't know if he invented calling her queen margot but he definitely popularized

01:14:59.540 for a new generation what was the the deal with her and that was his novel which the movie that

01:15:06.540 i love is based on and let's see between the 19th and 20th centuries some historians such as count

01:15:15.080 leo de saint-pensy sought to rehabilitate the figure of queen margot but these studies did not

01:15:21.360 affect the narrative but only since the 1990s have some historians contributed to rehabilitating

01:15:31.760 the image of margot and distinguishing between the historical figure marguerite of valois and

01:15:38.680 the legend of queen margot but um this says however literary works and cinematographic works

01:15:49.340 such as the 1994 movie continued to perpetuate the image of an obscene and lustful woman and i

01:15:56.100 would say it does to a point because it the film really shows her as being sort of trapped

01:16:02.340 in this sort of sexy thing but then becoming her own person i will say the movie does not include

01:16:09.140 her reading a lot of books which apparently was a big part of the real margot's life but i also

01:16:13.580 say this movie ends after la mole is beheaded so there's a lot that's not in there i mean scoring

01:16:20.180 come on scandalousness is uh i was gonna say 10 then i was gonna say like some of the stuff

01:16:28.880 was alleged and made up did she have all these lovers i don't know but the fact that there are 0.52

01:16:35.480 all these scandals about her i'm gonna give her a nine not a 10 just because it's not 100 how much

01:16:42.460 of this stuff is true and how much of it was lies but there's like a lot of juicy stuff there 0.97

01:16:46.240 uh scheminess is a straight up 10 just because after a slow beginning of her accidentally

01:16:55.740 trusting her family and then she learned not to so this isn't like a scheme but like when she

01:17:04.640 stepped up to save that huguenot who was injured when she saved her husband's life when she and 0.71

01:17:10.000 then i mean she like what she like usurped power over this like town and castle for a year like

01:17:17.580 she just like got it done excellence and scheminess i think her significance is as per so many of 0.99

01:17:27.140 these interesting because she was not personally she was queen of navarre but like she didn't do

01:17:34.220 a lot as queen of navarre but i don't know like her significance i think is

01:17:37.560 encouraging and mentoring all of these you know artists and writers and having the plays and

01:17:45.560 being a patron of the arts and stuff like that would have not so i think the significance is

01:17:50.380 like artistically speaking not so much of like the course of world events like if she had not

01:17:57.020 been sterile then maybe someone else would have wound up being the king of france but i think

01:18:02.520 i feel like her significance because she did so much and affected some people's lives and it said

01:18:09.080 she was also patroness to the poor which is cool of her i'm gonna give her an 8.5 for significance

01:18:16.820 sexism bonus straight up 10 just because she didn't want like her brother so awful to her 1.00

01:18:25.500 her mother so awful to her like she just wanted to marry a guy and they made her marry some other 1.00

01:18:30.180 guy and then if it wasn't for the patriarchy like she could have been queen and probably would have

01:18:38.240 been better than any of her brothers so that's a 10 so this is quite a score oh my goodness 20

01:18:45.020 37.5 i thought this was gonna be a big deal and then this is the biggest of deals because

01:19:00.160 Because Queen Margot is now far and above the champion of this Gandalicious scale. 0.70

01:19:11.020 I'm sure someone else will one day emerge to challenge her for this.

01:19:16.040 Potentially even her mother, Catherine Dimitri.

01:19:18.580 But yeah, 37.5.

01:19:24.000 Like, the next closest to her is Joanna of Naples, 33.

01:19:29.580 Agrippina 31 like legendary I knew she would be I hope she would be I don't plan the scores

01:19:40.400 beforehand I just I truly just do it as I think of them and that wow I mean super congratulations

01:19:48.980 to queen margot for life well lived and so i've been giving a little recommendation at the end

01:20:00.440 of everything and i feel like i already have mentioned it 7 000 times to you but my recommendation

01:20:07.760 today can only be the 1994 film queen margot aka lorraine margot which it's not super easy to

01:20:18.800 find i don't know maybe in some other countries it's streaming in canada it is not streaming

01:20:22.940 anywhere but you can find it if you search on youtube for the full movie or you can get it

01:20:29.800 on disc maybe your local public library has it on disc it's just a really good time um

01:20:38.460 and that's i'm just in the afterglow of like telling i mean i'm gonna put a quiz or a poll

01:20:48.200 up on instagram tomorrow the day after about this but just like you know from the poison gloves

01:20:53.760 to the fanatic monk like what what does this story the beheadings the lovers the massacre like

01:21:03.280 what does this story not contain it's legendary and i think this is part of why i'm being careful

01:21:13.520 about when i unleash a story of this magnitude because otherwise it'll just sort of subsume

01:21:19.660 everybody else's stories with how much stuff they do so i mean this is a vulgar history podcast

01:21:27.100 my name is ann foster and things for you to know so i'm on instagram uh vulgar history pod on

01:21:37.280 twitter at vulgar history on my patreon which is patreon.com slash ann foster writer i've been

01:21:44.860 doing one extra episode for patreons only every month so this for may i did one about archibald

01:21:53.880 douglas the father of margaret douglas which is like quite a saga in and of itself um for june

01:22:00.620 lots of good candidates and if you join the patreon you can vote on who you want me to do

01:22:04.200 that episode four and all the money from the patreon just so you know goes towards me being

01:22:12.340 able to do this podcast and which takes time and effort and money and so that helps me pay

01:22:21.560 it back uh there's also i've got new merch finally for the season in the oh i think the address

01:22:28.280 changed for the merch store no it still works it's all the same so if you go to the link is in

01:22:38.440 the show notes but it's teespring.com slash stores slash vulgar history so what we have on offer at

01:22:44.020 this point is we have a shirt that gives the definition of the word defenestration which

01:22:50.200 means the action of throwing someone out of a window we have a she-wolf shirt um tutor era

01:22:56.000 howard boy fan club and margaret pole's tower of london frequent visitor punch card margaret

01:23:02.500 pole's tower of london frequent visitor punch card they're all text-based this season because

01:23:09.280 that's what i'm feeling right now and i'll put something super hilarious and cute for

01:23:12.580 queen margot because she's just like literally a legend bow down to queen margot

01:23:17.240 and oh yeah and then i super also will re-recommend the book that i got a lot of this

01:23:28.300 research from the rival queens by nancy goldstone so i mentioned that like starting in the 1990s

01:23:34.300 people started revisiting queen margot what her deal was but nancy goldstone does a great job

01:23:39.200 of really making it a readable and exciting story about everything that she was up to as well as a

01:23:44.740 lot about her mother catherine de medici so you can find that book and other books that i've

01:23:49.580 mentioned in this podcast on the newly revamped uh bookshop area so that's the link is in the

01:23:58.940 notes as well but it's bookshop.org slash lists slash vulgar dash history dash recommends and

01:24:03.940 i've got a book list for each season and i'm kind of dragging this out because i want to make sure

01:24:10.800 this episode is longer than the katherine howard one because that is what queen margot deserves but

01:24:16.580 i mean honestly like our whole thing is like living the tits out life and queen margot i mean bravo

01:24:23.880 like the tits could not have been more out oh and also here i'll put this picture in the instagram 0.85

01:24:30.780 when i post about this but uh there's a scene in the movie where i think it's where she and her 0.97

01:24:37.960 amazing bff henriette are going down the street and there's just like corpses just dead bodies

01:24:42.840 everywhere from the massacre and she's trying to find i think la mole who in the movie is her lover

01:24:48.800 and they both have masks like fabric wrapped around their faces i guess to keep up the smell

01:24:55.180 of the dead bodies i think i don't think it's like a plague aerosols thing anyway it's just

01:25:01.820 very on trend for uh 2021 with the masks in that scene i'll show you that because you know what 0.81

01:25:07.420 she's just a trendsetter ahead of her time queen margot the as of now ultimate champion of the 0.95

01:25:18.480 vulgar history scandalousness scale so have a good one take care everybody keep your 1.00

01:25:25.360 masks on and keep your tits out 0.99

01:25:37.420 The war is over, and both sides lost. 0.99

01:25:50.080 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

01:25:55.120 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

01:26:03.040 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

01:26:06.760 this is old school adventuring

01:26:09.200 at it's most cruel

01:26:10.540 your torch ticks down in real time

01:26:12.960 and when that flame dies

01:26:14.340 something else rises to finish the job

01:26:16.620 this is a brutal rules light nightmare

01:26:18.920 with a story that emerges organically

01:26:21.620 based on the decisions that the characters make

01:26:24.240 this is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s

01:26:26.660 and man, it is so good to be back

01:26:28.940 join the Glass Cannon podcast

01:26:30.240 as we plunge into the shadow dark

01:26:32.000 every Thursday night at 8pm Eastern

01:26:34.060 on youtube.com slash the glass cannon

01:26:36.340 with the podcast version dropping the next day.

01:26:39.720 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

01:26:46.740 Now, before you go hunting for something else to listen to, let me make it easy.

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01:27:24.300 Could we get something a little bit lighter, some lighter music here?

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Vulgar History - June 02, 2021

Women Trapped In Towers, part 5： Queen Margot's Wedding Massacre

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