The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

AFTERWORD

Henri of Navarre-better known to us as Henri IV, or Henri the Great to his countrymen-was the first of the Bourbon monarchs and certainly the most beloved. His marriage to Margot was eventually annulled, and he remarried Maria de’ Medici, who gave him several children.

Catherine de’ Medici lived to the venerable age of sixty-nine. She was an assiduous astrologer, a mathematical prodigy, and-according to many French historians-the most intelligent individual ever to sit on France’s throne. The details of her horoscope as presented here are, to my feeble knowledge, accurate. She met twice with Nostradamus and eventually named him Physician of the Realm, although their conversations were never recorded. Her prophetic dreams are a matter of record; her daughter Margot wrote that her mother dreamt of King Henri’s death as well as Edouard’s victory at Jarnac.

The young Dauphine Catherine was indeed in danger of repudiation, and for the first ten years of her marriage was childless-after which she gave birth to ten children in as many years. Rumors began that she had relied on the talents of her court magician, Cosimo Ruggieri, to whom she was devoted. Catherine’s collection of talismans and interest in magic were legendary; after her husband’s death, she gave Diane de Poitiers the property at Chaumont in exchange for Chenonceaux. When Diane moved to Chaumont, she was alarmed to discover pentacles painted on the floor and abandoned magical implements, with the result that she abandoned the property.

The star Algol-also known as the Head of the Gorgon-is still considered the most evil star by astrologers. It opposed Mars on the twenty-fourth of August, 1572, at roughly 4:00 a.m.-an hour after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre began, as Mars passed through Catherine’s ascendant, Taurus. Mars transits through an individual’s ascendant augur periods of extreme crisis, possibly resulting in death.