The Sunday Telegraph London, January 11th, 2004
UNHAPPY THE land that is torn apart by religion. In the 100 years from 1560, the Reformation plunged first France and the Netherlands, then Germany and Britain, into a long succession of civil wars. The French wars of religion, which lasted nearly four decades, were the most murderous of them. As the Crown's authority and the nation's economy collapsed, massacre and assassination became a way of life. The most notorious episode, the Massacre of St Bartholomew of 1572, was the one with which posterity identifies Catherine de Medici, the Queen Mother of France who lived from 1519 to 1589 and is...
HighBeam Research, Free Preview: 'The queen mother who really ruled Catherine de Medici was mother to three kings of France, and exercised more power than any of them in the religious turmoil of the 16th century, says Blair Worden Catherine de Medici by Leonie Frieda Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pounds 20, 440 pp pounds 18 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222'... Full Membership required for unlimited access. Free 7-day trial.
Subscribers: HighBeam content is only available to HighBeam subscribers. Click the link above for more information.
