The Most Manipulative Mistress Of Henri IV Who NEVER Became Queen | Catherine Henriette de Balsac

some Royal Mistresses were kind some became queens and some were conniving and manipulative this mistress definitely fell into the last category Katherine hre Balzak Don she would become a mistress to a powerful King of France HRI IV but despite her best attempts would never quite managed to become queen born in 1579 cine was part of a noble French family that was deeply entwined with the royal family but in a very intimate way her parents were franois deak Senor De anag a prominent Noble and courtier and Marie touche a woman who had come originally from a wealthy Merchant family but had been a mistress of Charles the 9th of France before her marriage although francois's two brothers were both favorites of the king he was not and would would actually later join the faction against the king during the religious wars her parents had another daughter her sister Marie charotte and her father's first marriage had also produced two sons and a daughter some of Katherine's half siblings very little is known about Katherine's childhood but it's likely it would have been one filled with Whispers of intrigue from Court as well as stories about her mother it's known that her mother didn't hide the fact she had been a mistress to the previous King of France this was partially since she did have an illegitimate son with him Charles deala and this meant Marie remained a part of the intimate Royal circle at the French Court Charles was therefore also a half sibling of cine and so it's probable that she spent time at court learning how to behave as a courtier her father had enjoyed some favor with Charles the 9th during the late 1560s and early 1570s and this continued into the reign of hry III however he had been somewhat pressured to marry Marie as due to her position as mother to an illegitimate son of the previous King a safe Pair of Hands was needed to keep her from getting any ideas about the French throne franois was deemed to be this pair of hands in 1582 when Katherine was 3 years old her father was made coner da a position that gave him a leading role in state policy but 2 years later in June 1584 franois Duke of onju died at the young age of 29 as his older brother HRI III now had no direct living Heir the next senior agnatic descendant of King Louie VI 9th was on re of naar remembering that France's silly Sal law prevented the king's sisters from taking the throne this would have been fine except HRI of Navar was a Protestant at a time when most of France was Catholic by March 1585 franois de bazak had aligned himself with the Catholic League a group of nobles determined to stop a Protestant Monarch reaching the Throne of France and seemingly content to kill as many people as needed to get to that point the French Wars of religion had been bubbling on and off since 1562 and yet again conflict kicked off oron became a part of the Catholic League's safe spaces as franois was Lieutenant General of the city on the 21st of April the city was attacked by royalist forces led by the Duke deont pener which franois met with cannon fire repelling them from the citad as the League's Army grew it forced hre's hand and eventually he had to negotiate with the Nobles involved he had to Outlaw protestantism and also declare he would go to war with his now former a hry of naar by May 1586 francois's brother had come to speak with him on behalf of the king and franois conceded oon and rejoined the royalist writing to the king and ensuring him he would never again be part of a league against Royal Authority however franois would remain somewhat Under Suspicion over the years even though he did not publicly Rise Against hry III ever again by now Katherine would have been around 7 years old and likely had begun her education as a young Noble lady she would have been taught practical courtly skills such as dancing and music alongside household management running an estate and sewing and weaving but at the time young French Noble women were also usually taught Reading Writing and philosophy politics would almost certainly have been something Catherine learned much of this probably coming from growing to understand her father's position and her mother's her family's closeness to their Catholic faith would also no doubt have colored much of her belief system but it's also possible that her mother Marie taught her daughters a few things about flirting and catching the attention of royal men as both would grow up to become the Mistress of one a few years later in 1589 HRI the third was assassinated by a monk on the 2nd of August while he was camped out near Paris during yet another conflict the war of the three Henry's by this point however he had reconciled with his his Kinsman hry of Novar and the two men had paired up with their forces to win France back from the Catholic League which this time Katherine's father wasn't involved in HRI of Navar now became king of France as HRI IV but it would be a couple more years before he truly got control of France eventually having to agreed to become Catholic in order to regain Paris in 1593 under the gu of his mistress Gabrielle destre cine was now a 14-year-old old enough in the 16th century to be considered for marriage and it's highly likely that she now accompanied her mother to court in order to catch someone's eye it was here she was likely to have made the acquaintance of Henri IV and must have made a good impression few descriptions go into details of Katherine's appearance but she is described as pretty and her surviving portrait show her to be a woman with blonde hair light blue or gray eyes and fashionably dressed sometime in her late teens she became as her mother had mistress to the king of France by all accounts HRI was very taken with her but she wouldn't occupy the main place in his heart just yet Gabrielle destre was hre's official Royal mistress or mat but he was still technically married to Margaret of valir their marriage had been an unhappy one and before he even became king they had separated and HRI and Gabrielle were openly affectionate with one another in public when the marriage to Margaret was annuled in 1599 hry asked the pope for authority to remarry and assumed he would be able to marry Gabrielle as his next wife and queen she was pregnant with their fourth child and in March he gave her his coronation ring as a symbol of his promise to marry her many of his courtiers were not happy about the proposal but fate intervened anyway and on the 9th of April poor Gabrielle suffered eclampsia and gave birth to a stillborn son onri was on his way to her in Paris when he learned she had died the following day on the 10th of April Katherine saw this as her moment to strike by this point she had been a mistress of the king for a few years but obviously he was taken with Gabrielle with her out of the picture and HRI now free to marry Katherine saw no reason it couldn't be her after all other Mistresses had famously coerced a king into making them Queen while he was still deep in mourning Kine was moved up to be his new met onra a position which allowed her exclusive access to the king's ear but she also managed to convince him to make a written agreement stating he would marry her fair enough except that in March 1600 it was revealed that HRI had signed a marriage contract between himself a Maria de Michi a member of the powerful Michi family though her father as Grand Duke of Tuscany the marriage was purely economical France was financially crippled by the last few Decades of war and enri owed money everywhere including to the father of his new bride Francesco the first dimichi Grand Duke of Tuscany in return for making his daughter the queen of France Francesco agreed to give 600,000 U or around 3 million leave in order to cancel out hre's debt and turn his debt into a bank Ledger the French King might have been boted with Katherine but she had no lands or money to bring to the table on the 17th of December that year hre married Maria officially in the Cathedral of St Jean Baptist de Leon and Maria took on her French name of Marie katarin was Furious when she found out the agreement between her herself and HRI had been broken and she took it out on poor Marie she nicknamed the new queen lross bankier or the big Banker or perhaps even the fat Banker indicating she had only being chosen for the cash her father gave and nothing more it would become an uncomfortable Dynamic Marie was very jealous understandably at the attention her new husband gave his mistresses she and Catherine would publicly argue in court Marie apparently using language that shocked those present and to make this worse the king always took the side of Katherine not Marie to counteract this Marie showed great sympathy and warmth towards the King's first wife Margaret of Vala HRI finally relenting and allowing Margaret to return to Paris catarine fell pregnant with her first child in the following year a son born on the 3rd of November 1601 called Gaston on two years later she would then give birth to a daughter named Gabrielle angelikque born in 16003 both children were legitimized in the same year but just before this in 16002 Katherine would be involved in a Revolt Charles dugon the Duke de biron and Katherine's half brother Charles de valir comped the oan were part of a plot with Spain to go to war with France and overthrow Henry IV along with a host of other Nobles still grinding their teeth over the fact their King wasn't a proper Catholic and you might think this would compromise karine's position except actually it saved her brother using her influence over the king she managed to get him to forgive Charles and release him despite the jke Deon being executed for his part in the plot but in 16004 there would be yet another conspiracy against the King Charles Katherine and her father franois were all implicated in talks with Philip III of Spain Again franois Properties were searched and papers were found confirming the fact all three were involved in December franois and Charles were condemned to death and Katherine was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in a Convent it probably won't surprise you to hear that wasn't actually what happened at all both Katherine and her father pleaded only that they were sore about Henry IV going back on his promise of marriage and franois said he simply wanted the best for his daughter she must have worked her charms once again on the king as the death sentence for both men was commuted to Mere imprisonment the basti for Charles and house arrest for franois Charles was supposed to spend the rest of his life in the bastile but in fact he would be there only until 1616 as for Catherine she didn't even step foot in a Convent and instead was allowed to Simply retire to her estate at ver a by 16008 hry had once again taken her as a mistress but it couldn't last forever marid deich hadn't yet been crowned but it would finally happen on the 13th of May 1610 hre hadn't yet allowed his Queen to be crowned but he was temporarily going to leave the country to take part in the war of the ulik succession his Parliament and the King himself were anxious there should be a Regal and adult hand to be regen if the worse should happen as his son the Doan Louie was still only a child of 9 years old hry basically wanted Marie to be able to wield a bit more clout politically for him while he was gone but it would prove to be a grave error the very next day on the 14th while HRI was on his way in his Carriage it was stopped on rud deeron a Catholic Zealot by the name of franois ravak stabbed the king and killed him hre had survived 11 other assassination attempts but not this one rayak was grabbed and executed but the real plotters behind the murder were not found equal suspicion fell on Marie as the timing was incredibly suspicious considering she had been crowned as Queen just the day before and she was part of the powerful medich family who had probably had to listen to her complaints about her useless husband for the last decade the suspicion also fell on Katherine and her father franois but there wasn't any evidence either way and so Queen Marie became Regent for her young son wasting no time in taking charge unsurprisingly one of her first acts was to banish cine from court and the King's mistress disappeared into one of her properties never to darken the doors of the French court again dying over 20 years later in 1633 Katherine had certainly tried her best to become queen of France she was a young woman who had been groomed seemingly not for the best marriage she could get but to be the best mistress possible as a teen succeeding in her plan to seduce the French King came against the background of her father's political intrigues but despite this whether through her looks or charms cin managed to wrap HRI somewhat around her little finger whether to release her loved ones or herself from prison or to extract a written agreement for marriage which never happened in this one important Point she would be unsuccessful instead having an intense and jealous rivalry for hre's affections with his new wife Marita Michi once the King was dead her days at court were over Katherine was a royal mistress who aimed for the highest position position possible but unlike some of the other Mistresses in this series she never Managed IT cine could be a mother of beautiful mistress and influence in the king's ear but Henri's financial problems ensured she would never be Queen whereas some Mistresses hid a heart of gold it's obvious cine hid a heart of ice and was prepared to do whatever she could to gain what she wanted even if it wasn't possible possible if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like And subscribe so you don't miss any new [Music] documentaries