Anonymous, Catherine de Medici, 1555

On Friday I blogged about a notorious mother, Agrippina, in honor of Mother’s Day. Today’s Evil-Mother-Blog is about Catherine de Medici (1519 -1589), the staunchly Catholic queen of France, who gets at least part of the blame for starting the French Wars of Religion.

Catherine was rumored to have dispatched quite a few of her enemies with poison. One of her favorite methods was poisoned gloves.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, perfumed gloves were all the rage in Europe. At a time when personal bathing was infrequent, they were an excellent form of aromatherapy, a way to mask one’s own smell, or the smells around one. And poisoned gloves became a popular murder weapon during the Renaissance.

In 1572, Catherine’s daughter, Margaret, was engaged to marry the King of Navarre, Henry of Bourbon (who would later become Henry IV of France). Henry’s mother, Jeanne de Navarre (1528 – 1572) was a Huguenot (Protestant). She died under suspicious circumstances two months before her son’s wedding. Rumors circulated that Jeanne had been poisoned by Catherine, who allegedly sent her a pair of perfumed, poisoned gloves. The rumors could not be confirmed, but Jeanne de Navarre’s death unleashed the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of the Huguenots just a few weeks later, on August 24, 1572.

Francois Dubois, Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 1572 - 1584