Bloody Queen 10/11/2009

Portrait of Mary Tudor, 1516

Mary Tudor (1516-1558) was the main character of one of the bloodiest periods in English history. Hammer of heretics, she re-instated Catholicism in her kingdom, prosecuting Protestants mercilessly, filling the Tower of London with prisoners and ordering the execution of hundreds of Calvinists. The atmosphere of terror and fanaticism she created earned her the nickname of ‘Bloody Mary’.

Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary, Queen of England, was born in 1516. Her mother was Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish Catholic Kings’ daughter, and her father was the famous Henry VIII. In 1533 Henry managed to have the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declare his marriage to Catherine null and void, causing England to plunge into a break with Rome and the creation of an Anglican Church at the following year. Mary’s parents’ divorce had two direct consequences: she lost her place in the succession line, and the court increased the pressure for her to abandon Catholicism. The latter would mean that she had to accept the fact that her parents’ marriage had taken place against God’s law. As a result, she spent her youth as a recluse, under a permanent state of vigilance and threat, defending her mother’s memory. During this period she turned to Catholicism as her only salvation, in the middle of an environment of ever-growing heresy and hostility towards her person. Without a doubt, the only thing which saved her from a physical elimination (plotted more than once by her enemies) was the sympathy of some sectors of the English aristocracy. They were not inclined to the implementation of Protestantism, but they were also fearful of the reaction of Mary’s powerful cousin Charles V.

When Henry VIII died in 1547 the crown fell upon his son, Mary’s step-brother[sic], Edward VI, under whose ruling Protestantism kept on spreading, leading to the destruction of imagery and other repressive measures taken against Catholics. This earned the young ruler Calvin’s effusive congratulations. During his reign, Mary lived in a golden reclusive state but suffering from several illnesses, which eventually became chronic ailments. Despite having been dispossessed of the title of Princess of Wales, she occupied the second place in the succession line, something she had managed to achieve three years earlier, right after having been reconciled with her father, thanks to, in part, the intervention of one of his wives, Jane Seymour, who had been Catherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting. When tuberculosis killed the childless Edward VI, Mary gained access to the throne. She had to face a Protestant conspiracy, but she managed to suppress it due to the popular support London’s citizens gave her.

At long last, at 37, she became Queen of England. She felt that it was time to put things back the way they should, and this went through restoring Catholicism. To start with, she did not hesitate in executing the head of the Protestant conspiracy, the Duque of Northumberland, together with two of his accomplices. A few days later she restored Latin masses, and excluded married priests. Catholic bishops had their positions restored at the expense of their Protestant counterparts -several of them were actually sent to prison. Among the latter was Cranmer, who was interned in the Tower of London, accused of having participated in the conspiracy plot.

Despite being able to carry out these changes, Mary was aware of the fact that she had to get married urgently and provide offspring if she wanted to be successful in her implementation of Catholicism and to thwart her enemies’ plans. It was the only thing she could do in order to push her Protestant step-sister Elizabeth out of the accession line completely. Nevertheless, this was not an easy task. Mary was already of an age and she had lost her youth and the beauty which, according to some, she had had in the past. Apparently, and given her preference to sweets, she had barely any teeth, although without a doubt she was in possession of other positive aspects, like an exquisite formal education and an undoubtedly resilient character forged in the face of adversity.

Mary accepted Charles V’s proposal to marry his son Philip just a month after she was crowned. Philip was 11 years her junior and recently widowed. Her powerful cousin was evidently a good catch: a young and handsome man, a perfect support in her determination to defend the throne from Protestant ambitions. All of this also coincided with the Emperor’s interests, who aimed to unite the territories of Flanders, Bourgogne and England under a common flag, so as to be able to better defend his continental possessions from French coveting. On his part, though, the young Philip was in the least interested in marrying Mary, but he agreed to it as an order being given by his father, as well as a necessary state mission: to produce an heir for the crowns of Flanders and England.

As expected, the Protestant factions firmly opposed themselves to the wedding, encouraged and supported by the French agents who were weary of what the wedding might bring about. Especially fearful of the Spaniard were all those nobles who had enriched themselves with the expropriation of ecclesiastical properties. Having said that, all their attempts at dethroning Mary failed, and several noblemen, among them the Duque of Suffolk, ended up on the gallows of the sinister Tower of London. Undoubtedly, this managed to convince the English Parliament to finally approve the wedding. Despite their agreement, matrimonial surrenders were very strict and established, among other dispositions, that were Mary to die childless, her husband lose any right to the throne. While negotiations were taking place, the Queen requested a portrait of her future husband. She was sent one signed by Titian; legend says that she fell in love with Philip upon seeing it.

The wedding finally took place in June 1554. A few weeks earlier Mary had had to suppress yet another Protestant revolt. People were not prepared to allow her to marry the ‘Demon of the South’, as the Spanish prince was known. She ordered the execution of all its leaders. It was becoming more and more obvious that as long as heresy had a place in England she would never be safe in the throne. For his part the groom, conscious both of his state role and of the hornets’ nest he was walking into, made efforts to please the English: he brought with him a million ducats in cash to give away, he drank stout, took part in a tournament in which he fell to the ground and he even managed to mumble a couple of sentences in English. His behaviour greatly pleased the English. He presented his bride with magnificent precious stones, which she wore on their wedding day. Mary was seen to be happy and the chronicles state that, after their wedding, both spouses devoted themselves intently to the task of producing the longed-for heir.

Catholicism was restored officially in November 1554. This meant going back to Roman obedience, which the English Parliament would endorse in January of the following year.  At the same time, and in order to pacify the nobility, it was announced that no expropriated lands would be reclaimed by the Catholic Church -only the assets which had gone to the Crown would be returned. Despite these concessions, Mary, feeling strengthened by her marriage, perhaps moved by revenge and determined to defend her throne, devoted herself in earnest to prosecute Protestants. After successfully achieving Parliament to restore anti-heresy laws in December of the same year, she devoted herself completely in her purifying task.

The few arrests were carried out in January 1555. The first person to be executed was canon John Rogers, a married priest, for not retracting his predicament. It was the 4th of February. John Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, followed him. Years before he had not avoided telling whoever he pleased that every single Catholic priest should be drowned. He was not drowned but burnt alive at the following month, right in front of his own Cathedral. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, followed next. He was an example of a convert and fanatic in any situation: years earlier, behaving as the perfect Catholic, he had not hesitated to send to the stake all of those who refused the dogma of transubstantiation. After converting to Protestantism, he had done the same to all of those who stood by it. Later on Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, bishops of Worcester and London respectively, were also sentenced for refusing to retract from their beliefs, despite being tortured. Another victim was John Philpott, archdeacon of Westminster. It goes without saying that several thousands more were imprisoned for having been found in possession of heretical writings. All of those who showed compassion or sympathy for the executed ones were arrested.

Curiously enough, Philip tried to placate the harshness of Mary’s prosecutions, in contrast to how, years later and once a king, he would behave in Flanders and Spain. Through his confessor he sent messages to Catholic bishops advising them benevolence and tolerance. His goal was to earn the sympathy of his new subjects, whether Catholic or Protestant, and an excessive repressive rigour was not in his best interests. Of all his arrangements, one was particularly significant: he managed to convince Mary to free his sister-in-law Elizabeth, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London accused of conspiracy. Months later, his pleas were decisive for her not to be imprisoned again, or for her to be pushed out of the succession line. The truth is that, despite the founded misgivings she felt towards her step-sister, Mary was incapable of refusing any petition coming from her husband, for whom she felt a blind love. Who was to tell the future Philip II that he had possibly saved the life and position in the throne of a woman who in time would become one of his most bitter enemies!

With retrospect, the Queen’s harsh treatment of Protestants cannot be understood without taking into account her enormous frustration for not being able to get pregnant. In a serious case of wishful thinking, at one point the miserable Mary was convinced that she was expecting a child: she did not menstruate, had a swollen belly, suffered from fainting spells, felt generally unwell and she could swear that she could feel the fetus move. It was even announced that the longed-for heir would be born in April 1555. She was so convinced of it that she used to spend hours sitting on the floor with her knees pressed against each other in order to help accelerate the birth, while at the same time she had her sister Elizabeth knit clothes for the future baby. But alas, the date arrived and the Queen’s belly deflated. Some Catholic fanatics, like Bonner, bishop of London, attributed the let down to a divine punishment for not having been more assertive against Protestants. Mary’s reaction to this was an immediate re-doubling of their prosecution. For years it was thought that she suffered psychological pregnancies caused by a presumed hysterical nature, but nowadays we know the true cause: she had an enormous tumor in her ovaries, which was slowly and painfully killing her. Meanwhile her husband, disillusioned by the lack of heirs and tired of a marriage of convenience, slowly started to get further away from her, finding shelter in the arms of young ladies-in-waiting. After a while, with the excuse of the Emperor’s abdication, he flew to Flanders in August 1555. This only increased the despair and sadness of a woman who found herself lonelier every day: her husband did not correspond her love, the son she so longed for did not arrive and she was surrounded by conspiratorial heretics.

When, after having been away for a year, Philip, already King of Spain, went back to England in March 1557, he only did so in order to request men and money for his war against France. Mary waited for him by the Greenwich docks, carefully made up and wearing a brand new dress for the occasion. Contrary to what her husband felt, she still believed in the possibility of having a child. She devoted herself earnestly to the task of procreation.

After spending four months with her, and having secured the help of the English, Philip II returned to Flanders in order to direct the war against France. His wife, crying a river, kissed him farewell asking him to return soon. A song has survived from such an emotional moment: ‘Gentle Prince of Spain / Come, oh, come again…’ ^[1]

They never saw each other again. Either out of desperation or madness, a few weeks later Mary sent him a messenger reassuring him she was with child. Philip II did not believe it and sent the Duke of Feria^[2] to verify that claim. The latter denied the rumour explaining that it was caused by the fact that the Queen found herself sadder and sicker by the day. She spent all day praying for the son which would never arrive and for her husband’s health, to whom she sent love letters on a daily basis, and to which he replied using cold and formal sentences. Thus, month after month, barely leaving her chamber, Mary languished. The only thing helping her soothe the aches in her body and soul was laudanum, which she took while staring ceaselessly at her beloved’s portrait next to her bed. The upsetting news of the loss of Calais at the hands of the French, the last of England’s stands in the Continent, worsened her illness. She only recovered slightly weeks before her death, coinciding with the arrival of Philip II’s confessor. He was there in order to make sure that Mary would nominate her sister Elizabeth as heiress, since the king used saw his sister-in-law as the best of the worst, and even considered the possibility of marrying her. Poor Mary thought that her husband’s arrival would follow shortly the priest’s, going through a feeble recovery for a few days, but after a while, disillusioned, she broke down again. She died in November 1558, aged 42.

All in all, from January 1555 until right before her death Mary sent to the stake to 283 Protestants, 51 of which were women. Many others who died while imprisoned. A few thousands had to go on exile and despite the fact that initially the Queen let them be, her progressive radicalization took her to send spies overseas. The orders were to murder the most prominent dissidents. Interestingly, though, despite several prelates losing their lives, not a single nobleman was executed. In fact, the vast majority of her victims were humble people who had enthusiastically or fanatically devoted themselves to the new faith, which meant that her prosecution created a deep solidarity towards the victims. Both her cruel repression, and the loss of Calais had discredited Mary and provoked, after her death, the fall of the Catholic structure she had helped re-build. England was never to be Catholic again, but the horror of the religious prosecution she created left such a deep imprint in just four years that, when she died the opposite religious prosecution caused relatively few executions: under Protestant rule since 1535, including Henry VIII’s reign, until 1679, only 379 people were executed on religious grounds, a proportionately small number if we compare it to the amount of people Mary ordered to be executed. She was given the nickname of Bloody Mary, although nowadays it only remains as a reference to the delicious cocktail based on tomato juice.

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[1] ‘The Lamentable Complaint of Queen Mary for the Unkind Departure of King Philip, in Whose Absence She Fell Sick, and Died’
The tune is ‘Crimson Velvet’. Available in http://www.archive.org/stream/earlyenglishpoet15perc/earlyenglishpoet15perc_djvu.txt

Mary doth complain;

Ladies, be jou moved
With my lamentations

And my bitter moans:
Philip King of Spain,

Whom in heart I loved,
From his royal queen

Unkindly now is gone.
Upon my bed I lie,
Sick and like to die:

Help me, ladies, to lament!
For in heart I bear,
He loves a lady dear

Better can his love content.
Oh Philip! most unkind,
Bear not such a mind,

To leave the daughter of a king:
Gentle Prince of Spain,
Come, oh come again,

And sweet content to thee I’ll bring.

(Translator’s note).

[2] Gomes III Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba was at the time V Count of Feria (1552–1567); it was not until 1567 that he was created Duke of Feria by King Philip II of Spain (1567–1571). (T.’s note)

———- Translated from “La reina sanguinaria”, by Juan Carlos Losada. Published in El País on 16.10.2005. Available in http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/reina/sanguinaria/elpeputec/20051016elpepspor_9/Tes (last accessed 10.11.2009)

Belladona’s Poison 26/04/2009

Catherine was originally from Florence, a daughter of Lorenzo II. She entered history at 14 in 1533 when she married 15-year-old Henry, second son of King Francis I of France. She had been brought up quite strictly -they say that once, when she was six, she was forced to witness the agony of her dogs, which had been poisoned, as a punishment. After her wedding, and as per tradition, bride and groom were accompanied to the nuptial bed by several members of the Royal entourage (including the King and Pope Clement VII, a Medici himself and uncle and tutor of Catherine since her own father’s death years ago. They were the pleased to witness the sexual union between the two youngsters.

Problems between the couple arose soon after. The reason was the affair that Henry still had with his lover Diane of Poitiers, a courtesan 20 years older than him who had also been Henry’s father’s concubine, and who had him completely subdued. To make matters worse, Diane  was much more accepted both by the court and by the population than Catherine, a foreigner, something which could be seen in all protocol events, where the position and influence of the royal lover was much more relevant than that of the legitimate wife. All that placed Catherine in a significantly lower position, which became a constant source of public humiliations for years. Nevertheless, it was here where Catherine’s true character surfaced. Conscious as she was of the enormous power of her rival and her own weak position, Catherine never confronted Diane, pretending to accept the subordinate place in which her husband had placed her. In the meantime, she earned the trust of both her father-in-law and Diane herself, with whom she acted affectionately and submissively –Catherine wasn’t a consummated reader of  Machiavelli for nothing, stating frequently that one had but to smile to a rival. Thus, in the shadow, pretending to be friends with her rival and accept the ménage à trois, she earned a formidable influence that would give her later on the access to power.

Her precocious ability to scheme was one of the causes for everybody to suspect her when her brother-in-law the Dauphin Francis (the heir apparent to the throne of France) died. He had officially died after drinking a glass of iced water following a stifling ball game. But the fact that the person who served him the glass was an Italian waiter and that Catherine’s husband, Henry, automatically became the successor to the throne gave rise to the suspicion that he had been poisoned. Such rumor was not gratuitous. Catherine was extremely refined in many areas, and besides importing the fork from Italy (to which she added a long handle in case the fellow dinner wanted to use it to scratch his back) she had also introduced an Italian fashion for perfumes, which made many popular perfumists (like Renate of Florence) travel to France and open up a store in Paris. Back then the alchemy used to make good perfumes was extremely linked to the alchemy for making poisonous substances, and Catherine was known to profess a strange keenness towards both chemical practices.

Certainly, in 16^th century Europe poisonous substances were very fashionable, being used frequently in political murders due to the difficulty of proving their presence. Even Shakespeare makes references to poisonings in many of his works, which shows how commonly poison was used in certain circles. Specifically, the rumor around Catherine was that she had spread the use in France of the mysterious “poison of the Medici”.

But what is certain is that Catherine had imported from Italy the belladonna (beautiful woman in Italian), a plant that dilates pupils, making for a more attractive gaze, and which contains atropine, a drug that accelerates cardiac rhythm and which is fatal in high doses.

It was also known to the Court that Catherine was keen on trying out her potions, together with their possible antidotes, with those sentenced to death, carefully writing down their effects. Such eagerness to experiment was extended to a plant newly brought from America, the tobacco, which the French Ambassador in Lisbon, Jean Nicot, sent her in order to fight severe headaches. This way she transmitted the habit of smoking to the entire French Court. Tobacco was also called back then as “Nicot’s herbs”, and its main alkaloid was called “nicotine”, still its name nowadays.

Years went by without the Royal couple having children -Catherine running the risk of being repudiated. In order to solve this problem, she acted in two fronts. First of all, she made sure that the conjugal visits took place more often, and thus she looked after her beauty like never before: she plucked her eyebrows, she used belladonna to dilate her pupils, she applied rice powder on her face and she put on lipstick. She also devoted some time to spy on her husband’s sexual encounters with Diane in order to study her sexual techniques –which apparently made her so irresistible, and, pretending friendship, she even went as far as asking her for help so that, for the good of France, Diane pushed Henry to the marital bed. On the other hand, she turned to every doctor, magician and sorcerer, who provided her with all kinds of potions and recipies.

They finally had their first child in 1543, to whom another nine followed. Such miracle was attributed to doctor and futurologist Nostradamus, an astrologist and charlatan who Catherine incorporated into her closest circle, for she had realised that Nostradamus exerted a strong suggestion power over a large sector of the Court with his popular and ambiguous star sign predictions. Nevertheless, it is more likely that the actual source of her cure  was the surgeon Ambroise Paré, who operated her of a vaginal malformation. Catherine, needless to say, was extremely careful to place her children out of Diane’s influence, despite the latter’s appointment as “tutor of France’s children”.

Without a doubt, her capacity as instigator leaped forward when,in 1547 and following her father-in-law’s death, she became Queen of France. The truth is that Catherine had become a skilled politician, with a great capacity to dominate her husband and thus be able to control, largely, French politics –although all her actions were presided by a single obsession: to preserve the throne for her children.

While her husband lived Catherine played an active role in foreign affairs, which was centered especicially in the wars against [Spains' King] Charles V and later against Philip II, even sending the latter Nostradamus’ star sign prediction, which the Spanish King rightly burnt before opening. Nevertheless, everything changed after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, which established, among other things, the wedding between Philip II (by then already widower of Mary Tudor) and the eldest daughter of the Kings of France, Elizabeth of Valois. During the cellebrations Henry II suffered a fatal accident: a spear broke and a piece went through his helmet, lodging itself in the King’s brain. Catherine took charge of the situation quickly. After the emergency cure, the King’s health did not improve, and it was established that a splinter had stayed in his head. Not knowing how to proceed, Catherine ordered for the wound to be replicated in 10 convicts sentenced to death, to whom a splinter was inserted into an eye. Doctors treated them, albeit unsuccessfully. When they all died soon after, they were decapitated in order to study them and try to find a solution, but to no avail. Henry died in 1559 at 52. The only consolation for Catherine, in mourning clothes for life, was that a few days later she could perpetrate her much-longed-for revenge: after her husband’s death, Diane of Poitiers was made to return all the jewels that both Catherine’s father-in-law and her husband had given her, and was forever confined to the countryside, far away from the Court.

Catherine’s son Frances ascended the throne at 16. He was sickly and weak, for which his mother, her mind made up to keep the throne for him, took the reins of government. Back then France was threatened by the tensions between the Catholics, headed by the Duke of Guise, and the Huguenots, whose leader was Gaspard of Coligny. Both were more powerful than the King, and they aspired to control and manipulate him. Catherine understood that the only thing that could save the throne for her son was the balance between both sides, and in order not to fall under the influence of Catholics, who were initially more powerful, she gave more power to Protestants, which gave rise to the religious division of the country, and with it, civil war.

But Francis II died in December 1560, amid powerful earaches apparently caused by tuberculous meningitis. His brother Charles IX became his successor, barely 10, and given his young age, Catherine officially took up the Regency. In order keep a tight hold on power se reverted to what she knew best: espionage and intrigue. She established a network of spies and informers in which many ladies in waiting had prominent places, who became lovers of potential adversaries. They duly informed Catherine of all their lovers’ plans. She did not hesitate to even make two nobles share the same courtesan, seeking confrontation. Word has it that her circle of young ladies grew to as many as 150, and the worst rumor suggests that even the Regent herself participated many a time in lesbic sexual encounters with her own pupils.

Although she managed to keep the throne for her son, her ploys could not prevent the violent outburst of a civil war, plunging France into social chaos and bankruptcy. During the war Catherine saw how the Huguenot leader Coligny dangerously increased his influence over her son the King. When the latter became of age, the Protestant leader proposed him to restart an aggressive political attitude towards Spain, something that Catherine perceived as a suicide action, given the ruinous situation of the kingdom. Getting rid of the Huguenots became a matter of urgency for her.

She found the opportunity in August 1572, when Paris welcomed the thousands that were going to attend the wedding of Henry of Navarre with Marguerite, daughter of Catherine and the King. Days earlier Coligny had been slightly wounded in an assassination attempt also instigated by the Queen Mother. Without letting herself to be discouraged by the failure, she convinced her son of the existence of a conspiracy on the part of Huguenots to avenge the Coligny’s assassination attempt, which would come in the shape of an uprising that would kill the King after the wedding. Thus, she suggested her son the need to advance themselves, eliminating the main leaders. Accordingly, and with the support of Charles IX, right after the bell tolls of Saint-Germain’s Church the new Duke of Guise, Henry the   Scarred, headed the mob, which killed 4,000 Protestants in Paris. Coligny was taken in bed, and after being speared he was thrown to the backyard through the window, where de Guise cut him up. Henry, Catherine’s new son-in-law, saved his life by suddenly converting to Catholicism. The massacre extended to other French cities with similar results. They say that Philip II, back then also a son-in-law of the instigating French Queen Mother, broke out in laughter when he found out about the massacre, while in the Vatican Pope Gregory XIII ordered to conduct a Te Deum [Latin hymn to God], make a commemorative coin and have the painter Giorgio Vasari paint several massacre scenes for his own personal delight.

Catherine had thus managed to expunge the threat posed by the Huguenots, but her son the King was still incapable of producing an heir. That is the reason why she assigned him a lover –to awaken the sexual appetite necessary to procreate, which he apparently lacked. Despite all these efforts, though, Charles IX died childless at 24. He officially died of tuberculosis, but many chronicles insist on stating that he was poisoned. The perpetrator would not have been any other than his own mother, who had seemingly impregnated a falconry book with poison. The book was destined to her son-in-law Henry, who she feared could end up occupying the throne in detriment of her sons (as it did happen in the end) and who was extremely fond of such books. Nevertheless, the one to accidentally take the book and leaf through was it her son Charles, who perished a few days later. Catherine’s possible responsibility is well founded, for it was well-known that she still used her poisoning skills against her rivals, like she did with Joan Queen of Navarre –Henry’s mother and therefore Catherine’s sister-in-law, a Huguenot fan who mysteriously found death after receiving a present from Catherine, a pair of beautiful perfumed gloves, made by a prestigious Italian artisan. The official statement was that the demise had been caused by a deadly pleurisy.

In order to succeed to Charles IX, Catherine ordered the return of his eccentric son from Poland, who would reign as Henry III. He was her favourite –she usually referred to him as “the apple of my eye”. Nevertheless, his openly homosexual behavior would soon make her realise that she could not obtain offspring from him either. All her attempts to separate him from his male friends and to tempt him with young girls were in vain. Moreover, it was established that the King had caught syphilis, which made a possible paternity even more difficult. To top it all, Henry’s almost absolute lack of interest on government tasks made his mother to keep the reigns of power. In the meantime, another of her sons also died in a militar incursion.

During the last years of Catherine’s life, France got involved in the War of the Three Henrys, which confronted the King, the Duke Henry of Guise and Henry of Navarre. When Henry III managed to kill his rival the Duke he euphorically ran towards his dying mother’s bed to give her the news. Catherine, sceptical and let down, replied: ‘It is not all about cutting, my son, it is also necessary to sew’. Finally, Catherine died in early 1589, and only three months later the King was murdered.

It was obvious that her efforts to keep the throne for her sons had been in vain. She was a King’s wife and mother of three Kings, but none of them had produced heirs. Moreover, she saw all of them die except Henry. It was as if fate had mocked her: not only her manoeuvres, spionage and schemes had been useless, but the problems she once had to conceive had been passed on to her own offspring like a witch’s curse. To top it all, the one she had tried to eliminate, Henry of Navarre, was made heir to the throne after the death and lack of offspring of all her male children. Henry of Navarre would become the future Henry IV. Without a doubt it was a cruel mock of destiny, the perfect punishment for a cold and calculating woman who had not hesitated to use the most criminal means in order to achieve her goals –but who in the end could not prevent the extinction of the House of Valois.

Translated from “El veneno de la Belladonna”, by Juan Carlos Losada in El País Semanal, published on the 27^th November 2005 ( available in http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/veneno/Belladona/elpeputec/20051127elpepspor_16/Tes)

By JUAN CARLOS LOSADA

EL PAÍS SEMANAL – 27-11-2005