Elizabeth I vs. Catherine de Medici: Great Rivalries in History

Omg the last time I was this early Henry Viii was still married to Cathrine of Aragon

I heard about these queens from the history books before, but I didn't even know that there was a rivalry between these two. Thank you Lindsay for the forgotten history

@4:59 I don't know which is crazier, two 14-year-olds getting married while his father watched them consummate or the fact that the 14-year-old groom fell in love with a 38-year-old woman.

Imagine, being 14 years old and just got married to a man you never met before, and then your father-in-law watches the night you are lose your virginity. A nightmare!

*Mary Queen of Scots was not the granddaughter of Henry VII, but his great granddaughter. Elizabeth I was his granddaughter and 1st cousin of James V of Scotland (Mary's Dad) even though she was young enough to be his daughter (Henry VIII had his younger kids late in life & was old enough to their grandpa).

Are these great rivalries gonna become a series? That would be so cool.

I know her channel focuses on women in history but i hope she makes a video on francois 1 vs charles 5. Their rivalry was so interesting

I would argue that Catherine and Elizabeth weren’t rivals at all. Elizabeth wanted to concentrate on ruling England and fixing the economic problems that she inherited from both her brother and sister: she had no interest in wars. And while Catherine might have preferred a Catholic on the English throne, France had enough problems with internal strife and an adversarial relationship with Spain to deal with. In fact, it was Mary, Queen of Scots, her husband Francois II and her Guise relatives that had the most adversarial relationship with Elizabeth, and the relationship with France definitely improved with Francois’ death and Mary returning to Scotland. Overall, I would consider Elizabeth and Catherine to be uneasy allies more than rivals.

Please do make a video on Rajiya sultan of Delhi and Rani Lakshmi Bai of jhansi, the warrior queens of India, among many ......❤

So excited to learn more about the de Medici family!

Please do video about Great Dutchy of Lithuania royals.

I can’t wait to see if Lindsey will cover the Pazzi conspiracy.

I have the same birthday as Catherine de Medici (April 13)! I knew a bit about her already, but I never knew about her frenemy relationship with Elizabeth I.

Last time I was this early, Anne Boleyn still had her head.

Wow brilliant i knew most of Elizabeth's story, but nothing about the Medici queen thank you.. I love the way you narrate easy to understand ehat you are saying . And you make it so interesting 😉. Keep up the good work

I cannot express how excited I am to watch this video! I've been binging your content about Elizabeth and Cathrine and was so excited when I saw this!!

I am a proud Catherine de Medici apologist.

Honestly, just how much of Catherine's actions were because she was a mother trying to protect her children? I've wondered this for so long, especially as I learned more about her and looked deeper. After Henri II of France died, Catherine was a widow in a foreign court with several underage children, seven to be exact, and with all the pains in the back that she faced from the beginning of her widowhood until her death, protecting her family was probably one of the biggest priorities if not the biggest priority on her mind when dealing with said pains in the back. Henri IV of France even said this quote about her: "I ask you, what could a woman do, left by the death of her husband with five little children on her arms, and two families of France who were thinking of grasping the crown—our own [the Bourbons] and the Guises? Was she not compelled to play strange parts to deceive first one and then the other, in order to guard, as she did, her sons, who successively reigned through the wise conduct of that shrewd woman? I am surprised that she never did worse." If even he of all people was willing to admit that one of the biggest reasons (if not the sole reason) Catherine did what she did was to ensure the safety of her children, especially the sons who ruled while they were still underage, then I can definitely believe that one of her primary reasons for her actions if not the primary reason was her children. She may have been queen mother of France after being widowed and was regent for two of her sons due to their youth, but she was also a mother. No doubt she was very aware that her children, especially her sons, were underage even for the time and therefore needed all the support and protection they could get, so it's really no surprise that she devoted everything she had and did all she could so that they had that support and protection, even if she was the sole source of both. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she was the sole source of support and protection for them at times. There's a very good reason why the Mama Bear trope exists on TV Tropes when describing mothers, and I definitely count Catherine as one with all that she did. She went to a lot of lengths to ensure her sons would remain on the throne of France despite the many threats to their reigns, and many of those lengths if not all of them were to ensure that those threats would not get to them in any shape or form. She, in my eyes, did this not just as a queen mother and queen regent, but as a mother to ensure the safety and security of her children, even if all of them predeceased her except for Henri III of France and Margaret of Valois. She may have also never done worse things than what she did, but I'm willing to bet that she was at least willing to do worse if the situation ever called for it, because from what I've seen and heard in both real life and in popular culture, the wrath of a mother is truly something to behold. Catherine is far from the only woman in history vilified for this though: how many women in history, such as Agrippina the Younger, Hurrem Sultan, and many others, have been vilified for so long for actions they committed that, when looked at in a different lens, could have at least been rooted from the fact that they were mothers wanting to protect their children and ensure that they would have secure lives? I think that far too many, including Catherine, have suffered vilification just because they dared to claim power when maybe, just maybe, a far stronger motivation if not their sole one was the next generation and ensuring that they had at least some form of security in their lives long after those before them had passed on. I hope that as women in history who held power are reevaluated and reexamined, or at least looked at again and are learned about by more and more people, that the fact that some of these women if not all of them were mothers and therefore may have been simply trying to protect their children is taken into account more frequently and that it's used as a lens to examine certain historical events and actions where it might apply.

Lindsay: I’m gonna be discussing the Medici family Me: YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

I love your voice and delivery!