mother of kings

Catherine’s wrists are slender and delicate-looking, a complement to her hands. She broke her left one once falling from a horse and thereafter suffered arthritis in it, which tends to act up during cold, wet weather.

“Merry Christmas, my dear Elizabeth,” Catherine replied with warmth, kissing the queen on both cheeks.

Catherine certainly doesn’t consider Cate a heathen. In fact, she was so lax when it came to matters of religion that the Huguenots at one time thought there was a chance of her converting. Her clinging to Catholicism is more related to her attachment to all things traditional than any strong beliefs. The fact that Elizabeth I was a Protestant certainly didn’t rule her out as the bride of choice for Catherine’s sons and that I think speaks volumes. She also married her youngest daughter to the Protestant prince of Navarre in hopes of smoothing things over between the warring factions. Of course that didn’t go as planned, but that’s for another tangent.

According to Christopher Hibbert, the balls themselves “represented pills or cupping-glasses, the Medici-as their name suggested-having originally been doctors or apothecaries.”

And Phillipe is the best son.