CARLO IX, RE DI FRANCIA

CARLO IX, king of France. — Third son of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 27 June 1550, died at Vincennes on 30 May 1574. He first bore the title of Duke of Orléans. He ascended the throne in 1560 upon the death of his elder brother Francis II, and reigned under his mother’s tutelage until 1563, when he was declared of age; yet maternal control continued in fact even after that date. About 1570, under the influence of Coligny, who held out to him the prospect of glory and power in aiding the Netherlands against Spain, he first pursued a policy of his own. Catherine, sensing her hold over her son slipping away, sought to regain it by removing the rival; but the attempt failed and set in motion a chain of disastrous consequences that began with the St Bartholomew’s Night and the two terrible civil wars which sprang from that massacre. Carlo, who had fully assumed responsibility for these events, died during the second war, after a rapid moral and physical decline.