Charles IX, King of France

CARLO IX, king of FRANCIA. - Third son of Enrico II and Caterina de' Medici, b. at St-Germain-en-Laye on 27 June 1550, d. at Vincennes on 30 May 1574. He initially bore the title of duke of Orléans. Ascending the throne in 1560 upon the death of his elder brother Francesco II, he reigned under the guardianship of his mother until 1563, the year in which he was declared of age; in fact, however, maternal guardianship continued even thereafter. Around 1570, under the influence of Coligny, who caused him to glimpse, in intervention on behalf of the Paesi Bassi, which had risen against Spagna, a future of glory and power, he for the first time pursued a personal policy. Caterina, feeling the influence she exercised over her son slipping away, attempted to regain it by removing her rival. But the attempt failed and provoked a chain of disastrous consequences, beginning with the night of St. Bartholomew, and with the two tremendous civil wars that resulted from that massacre. C., who had fully assumed responsibility for those events, died during the second war, after a rapid moral and physical decline.