Catherine’s reign coincided with one of the most turbulent periods in French history: the Wars of Religion. Protestant ideas, especially Calvinism, had taken deep root among segments of the French nobility, who became known as Huguenots. The Catholic majority viewed these Protestants as heretics and threats to social order. Catherine’s overr

At first, Catherine was a minor figure. Her husband, the future Henry II, showed little interest in her, lavishing his attention instead on his older mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who dominated court life. Catherine endured years of humiliation, overshadowed and childless. Her position seemed tenuous, as royal marriages were expected to produce heir

Few figures in European history have been as simultaneously reviled and admired as Catherine de’ Medici. The Italian-born queen consort of France, mother to three French kings, and de facto ruler of the realm for nearly three decades, Catherine is one of the most controversial women of the Renaissance. To her detractors, especially among Prote

Sugar was an imported luxury in Tudor England. It came from cane plantations in places like Madeira or Sicily, later from the Caribbean, and was sold at astonishing prices. A pound of sugar could cost the equivalent of several days’ wages for a skilled laborer. In wealthier households, sugar was often used more as a display of status than as a