Are you wondering why it took so long for the Serpent Queen to get pregnant and bear
an heir for Henry II of France? Doesn't it seem incredulous that she was barren for
10 long years and then, all of a sudden, popped out 10 children in a 10 year span?
It did to me, so I went digging for the answer. What I found was pretty shocking
given that I had never heard of such a thing, yet it is seemingly pretty common.
Let's begin this story when a young Catherine de' Medici had been wed to Henry,
the future king of France in the 16th century, for over five years.
Despite the fact that the husband and wife were both young and healthy,
Catherine was unable to fulfill her most important responsibility, producing an heir to the throne.
This caused great anguish for Catherine and put her in mortal danger.
But why couldn't she conceive? Be sure to stay to the end to find what it was all about.
Gossip around court revolved around Catherine's not so pleasant appearance (meaning that Henry
found her unappealing) and the fact that Catherine had a rival for Henry's affections.
Her name was Diane de Poitiers and Henry was madly in love with her. He had been since he
was a young child and Diane, who was serving as a lady in waiting to his grandmother,
kissed him tenderly on the cheek as he was being sent off to Spain as a diplomatic hostage.
When Henry's father, King Francis I of France, found himself a prisoner
in Spain during a battle there, he was captured and imprisoned by his enemies.
Desperate to be free and return to France,
Francis made a truly heartless deal with his captors and negotiated his own release
in return for his two sons to be held in his stead, Henry and Henry’s older brother.
Henry was only seven years old when Diane gave him that motherly kiss which Henry never forgot
so much so that Diane became, in Henry's mind, both a replacement for the mother
he lost at age five and a lover who he yearned for throughout his years of captivity in Spain.
When Henry was released from captivity a few years later as a young teenager,
he returned to court and was married to Catherine soon after. And not long after that,
he and Diane de Poitier became lovers even as she was a good 20 years older than the teen.
After a time, rumors began to spread throughout the French
court that Catherine was incapable of conceiving.
Some said that their love affair kept Catherine from Henry's bed,
but that is not really why the royal couple could not conceive.
There was talk of divorce, both because of Catherine's apparent infertility and
because her opulent dowry had never been completely paid for.
It seems that when Catherine's marriage had been arranged by her Medici uncle,
Pope Clement VII as a means to secure the authority of the Catholic church in France,
Clement had promised an exorbitant amount of money and gold to be paid in installments.
But the Pope died in Rome a year after the wedding and
the payments to Catherine's dowry came to a halt.
Then there was the presumed bastard child of Henry's.
Back in 1537, during the Italian Wars in which Henry took part at the urging of his father;
Henry took up lodging with an Italian squire named Gian Antonio Duci.
While there, Henry was seduced by Gian Antonio's sister Filippa,
and she became his mistress. Word got out that Filippa was pregnant
and that Henry was the father, all of which played well in Henry's favor.
Filippa gave birth to a girl who was named after Henry's mistress,
Diane and Filippa benefited with a handsome sum paid by King Francis I.
The young child became known as Diane de France and was brought
to the French court to be raised by none other than Diane de Poitoirs.
In the eyes of the court and the court gossips, this earlier escapade of Henry's
proved that Henry was not sterile and therefore it must be that Catherine was the one at fault.
So it was that Catherine found herself in a dangerous political position.
A rival noble family called the Guise's were plotting to replace
her with a queen of their own on the basis that she was deemed infertile.
Catherine had to act fast so she strategically put
aside her pride and launched a calculated preemptive strike.
The young Catherine, poised hopelessly at the King Francis I (Henry's father's) feet,
proclaiming that she adored Henry more than anything and only desired for him
to have a bride who could bear him an heir.
All she wanted, Catherine claimed, was that she be allowed to remain
in France so that she may kindly serve her beloved's new spouse.
Catherine was betting on the king's inability to stand the sight of a young lady in tears.
Francis, was moved to tears himself and proclaimed that it was God's will that Catherine
was the wife of his son and that the issue of replacing her with anyone else was settled.
Once she was secure again in her position at court,
Catherine knew she had to attack this problem of her infertility from every, and any direction.
She set out to pursue multiple interventions including surrounding herself with doctors,
astrologers, magicians, alchemists, and seers.
She made use of tarot cards and charms and resorted to medieval remedies.
She drank the urine of pregnant animals, consumed the powdered
sexual organs of boars and cats, and mixed many different herbs in her food and wine.
Another remedy was to consume the left hind paw of a weasel mixed with vinegar.
Someone (god knows who) went so far as to tell her that during coitus she must wear over her “source
of life” organ a soft, warm, extremely smelly poultice made of ground stag antlers and cow dung.
It seems incredible that Henry would want to get close enough to even attempt conceiving
offspring but they both were required to make a concerted effort to get the job done.
Eventually, Catherine had to turn to other measures which involved Henry's mistress,
Diane de Poitiers. The story goes that Catherine had a hole made into
the floor above Diane's chambers so the she could peek through in an effort to
see if there was something that she was missing about how to make a baby.
It is also said that Catherine went so far
as to demean herself and stoop to asking Diane for conjugal advice.
At her wits end, Catherine had a doctor by the name of Jean Fernel,
do a thorough physical examination on both her and Henri. According to the anatomy of
their individual reproductive organs, the doctor came up with a solution.
Because the specifics of the doctor's examination and his subsequent advice is not recorded in the
annals of history, we cannot be entirely be sure of what was the problem; but I did find an article
on the web that has a suggestion (or two) as to what may have been going on with the young royals.
It seems that it may be possible that Henry had a condition related to his, shall we say, manhood.
This might be atonishing, and even shocking,
but it could be that Henry had a mild penile deformity that had caused their childlessness.
Called hypospadias with chordee, it's a physical malformation that makes it difficult for a man
to impregnate a woman because, of all things, the opening is not where it is supposed to be.
The abnormal opening can form anywhere from just below where it is supposed to be,
to other locations. There are different degrees of hypospadias;
some can be minor and some more severe.
Surprisingly, researchers today estimate that about 1 in every 200 babies is born with this
abnormality in the United States, making it one of the most common birth defects.
So if Henry was born with this birth defect, then some historical accounts suggesting that the good
Dr. Fenel's solution was to find a coital position to assist with the problem, seems plausible.
Others allude to the fact that Diane also had input to the situation since
she had intimate knowledge of Henry's anatomy;
and she too had some ideas on how to take certain positions to remedy the situation.
Whatever the good doctor or Diane had to suggest,
Catherine was finally able to conceive and she delivered her first child, Francis,
named after grandpapa ( of course); who would become King Francis II of France.
Now that they had the method down, Catherine quickly conceived again and on April 2nd,
1545 she bore a daughter, Elisabeth, who would become a Queen of Spain,
as the third spouse of Philip II of Spain.
She went on to bear Henry a further eight children, five of whom survived infancy,
including the future Charles IX of France, (born June 27th,
1550); the future Henry III (born September 19th, 1551); Margaret of Valois, (born May 14th, 1553),
Francis, Duke of Anjou (born March 18th, 1555) and Claude of France (born 12 November,1547).
By the time she was done with childbearing, Catherine de' Midici was ready to take on
the position of Queen Regent which she would hold till her death thanks to the
three future kings of France she was able to conceive in spite of Henry's, uh, problem.
Thanks for watching and be sure to check out my other
videos on Catherine de' Medici, The Serpent Queen.