#Ridolfi Plot

[tudorblogger]

Publication of ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’!

I’m absolutely delighted to be able to announce that my debut book ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ is available to order in the UK RIGHT NOW. You can order it direct from Pen and Sword here. If you have pre-ordered it from somewhere like Amazon, Waterstones, or Foyles, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the official release date of 30 January. But if you’ve been…

[scotianostra]

On August 11th 1586, Mary Queen of Scots was arrested near Chartley Manor, Staffordshire for her part in a plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth.

Like it or not, with or without her full knowledge Mary was involved in plots to remove Elizabeth as Queen of England, and place her on the throne. When Mary was displaced by rebellious nobles and fled south to England, she was imprisoned rather than hospitably received by her English cousin.

Unsurprisingly, this treatment and her strong and public faith made her a rallying point for various plots against Elizabeth during her 19-year imprisonment.

The most serious were the Ridolfi plot of 1571 – which threatened to replace the Queen with Mary with the help of Spanish troops, and the Throckmorton Plot of 1583, another plan to murder and replace Elizabeth.

By the mid 1580s it was clear that as long as Mary lived Catholics and Spanish-sympathisers would flock to her, and after her agent Thomas Morgan was implicated in yet another assassination attempt, The Babington Plot, in 1585, Elizabeth was persuaded by her advisers to put Mary on trial.

The Babington plot still baffles historians to this day, what we do know is from the start Elizabeth's spies had known about it, a certain Francis Walsingham principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth was intercepting letters, forging Mary's writing and substituting his own, and so basically orchestrated the whole thing.

Confidant of Mary, the Welsh catholic, Thomas Morgan recruited, among others Anthony Babington, what was happening, basically letters written by Walsingham, pretending to be Mary, encouraged an assassination of Elizabeth. It's all quite complicated, and everyone, who was anyone who has written about Mary and Elizabeth, has their own opinion on it. Me, Mary was writing to the main protagonists so was not faultless, but her level of complicity in these plots is still unclear, Mary was arrested while out riding in August 1586. She was put on trial in October and found guilty, on the 7th February, she was informed that she was to be executed the next morning.

She met her death with exemplary courage and publically forgave her executioners before being beheaded with three messy blows of an axe. Elizabeth then claimed that she had not authorised this, washing her hands of the death of her kinswoman.

[sforzesco]

hi <3 you are like the italian renaissance Guy to me, and i have been Trying to get into it for like a month or two now. i’m Slowly making my way through Poliziano's Coniurationis commentarium, and there’s this part where he says antonio ridolfi “sucked lorenzo’s wound” (Allora Antonio Ridolfi, figlio di Jacopo, giovane egregio, succhiò la ferita di Lorenzo.) and it literally. i can’t put together what it means for the LIFE of me because it sounds Absurd and a little gay out of context, but i can’t figure out what the context Is. it is like. eating me and has been for DAYS! do you have thoughts on this…. partially i just needed to share this with someone as it has been in my mind for Days <3

I am Honored to be considered this bc imo there are many other Italian Renaissance people around here who are much more well spoken/knowledgeable/coherent than I am, BUT regarding the wound sucking! I got you covered:

April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici, Lauro Martines

Poisoning during the Renaissance, F. Retief, L. Cilliers

Information on poisoned blades during the Renaissance is a less prolific area of study than poisons that can be ingested, but without getting into the history of Medieval and Renaissance medical schools (and medicine in general etc etc), Celsus in De Serum Medicina wrote on what to do about poisoned arrows, and Medieval and Renaissance physicians would have studied ancient medical texts, so Ridolfi was following the course of action most people would have when confronted with a poisoned blade scenario. I'm not a historian tho, so don't quote me on that, esp bc I mostly like reading.....about plagues.........

[fideidefenswhore]

thoughts on william latimer on a source on anne boleyn?

oooo, thanks <3

i think maria dowling has argued pretty convincingly that to dismiss his work as panegyric is fairly specious?

latimer did, for one, actually know anne pretty well (he was her chaplain), his sources are people that actually knew anne pretty well, too (one of them, mary fitzroy, likely her favorite lady-in-waiting).

now, does this preclude that it's a biased source, that latimer is probably putting the best spin on things his retelling, of course not, but none of the anecdotes he provides have been unequivocally disproved, if that makes sense? and many of them even have corroboration.

an excerpt/example from dowling:

Anne Boleyn's fondness for scripture was paralleled by her interest in scholarship. William Latimer states that she asked the King to excuse the universities from the payments of tenths and subsidies; that she gave substantial sums of money to Oxford and Cambridge for the maitenanceof poor scholars: and that she granted a student named Beckynsall [funds] for a year to study abroad

The first claim is confirmed by a letter of thanks to her from Cambridge university, and the second is supported by William Barker. In the dedication of his Nobility of Women to Elizabeth I in 1559, the latter recalled the Anne had 'employed her bountiful benevolence upon sundry students that were placed at Cambridge, among the which it please Her Highness to appoint me." Further, when Barker was forced to beg for Elizabeth's mercy in 1571 for his involvement in the Ridolfi plot, he again harked back to Anne's generosity, and asked that 'as by Her Majesty's noble mother I first began at Cambridge tasting of her munificence, so by Her Majesty's clemency I may end the rest of my sorrowful days there."

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.7 (before 1930)

70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem. 878 – Louis the Stammerer is crowned as king of West Francia by Pope John VIII. 1159 – Pope Alexander III is chosen. 1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf: Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf. 1228 – Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II lands in Acre, Israel, and starts the Sixth Crusade, which results in a peaceful restoration of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1303 – Guillaume de Nogaret takes Pope Boniface VIII prisoner on behalf of Philip IV of France. 1571 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, is arrested for his role in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. 1620 – The town of Kokkola (Swedish: Karleby) is founded by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. 1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts, is founded in North America. 1652 – Around 15,000 Han farmers and militia rebel against Dutch rule on Taiwan. 1695 – Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India. 1706 – War of the Spanish Succession: Siege of Turin ends, leading to the withdrawal of French forces from North Italy. 1764 – Election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the last ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1776 – According to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee makes the world's first submarine attack in the Turtle, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor (no British records of this attack exist). 1812 – French invasion of Russia: The Battle of Borodino, the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, is fought near Moscow and results in a French victory. 1818 – Carl III of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim. 1822 – Dom Pedro I declares Brazil independent from Portugal on the shores of the Ipiranga Brook in São Paulo. 1856 – The Saimaa Canal is inaugurated. 1857 – Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers slaughter most members of peaceful, emigrant wagon train. 1860 – Unification of Italy: Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Naples. 1863 – American Civil War: Union troops under Quincy A. Gillmore capture Fort Wagner in Morris Island after a seven-week siege. 1864 – American Civil War: Atlanta is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. 1901 – The Boxer Rebellion in Qing dynasty (modern-day China) officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol. 1903 – The Ottoman Empire launches a counter-offensive against the Strandzha Commune, which dissolves. 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France successfully for the first time. 1907 – Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City. 1909 – Eugène Lefebvre crashes a new French-built Wright biplane during a test flight at Juvisy, south of Paris, becoming the first aviator in the world to lose his life piloting a powered heavier-than-air craft. 1911 – French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum. 1916 – US federal employees win the right to Workers' compensation by Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751) 1920 – Two newly purchased Savoia flying boats crash in the Swiss Alps en route to Finland where they were to serve with the Finnish Air Force, killing both crews. 1921 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held. 1921 – The Legion of Mary, the largest apostolic organization of lay people in the Catholic Church, is founded in Dublin, Ireland. 1923 – The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) is formed. 1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth. 1929 – Steamer Kuru capsizes and sinks on Lake Näsijärvi near Tampere in Finland. One hundred thirty-six lives are lost.

[outrowingss]

Good to see the Howard’s are still menaces to society.

[moonahstone]

Theory based on spoilers!

Beware!

So now my GCSE topic of Elizabethan England is coming into play because all I can think off are some of the few rebellions against Elizabeth. Let’s talk about the 4 we had too know, the Northern rebellion, the Babington plot, the Ridolfi plot and the Throckmorten plot. The Northern rebellion doesn’t play much into this but Babington? Ridolfi? Throckmorten? What do they have in similar besides being Catholic plots? Well they were all tied to and sort of initiated by either Anthony Babington, Roberto Ridolfi or Francis Throckmorten. I think you can tell which one to which. So basically all the plots I learnt about were named after key people involved with the plot.

What I’m trying to say is I now believe Humphrey helped in initiating a Catholic plot to try and dethrone Elizabeth.

He was not assassinated, he was in fact the instigator of the plot

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

What do you think that would happen in an AU where the Ridolfi Plot is succesful?

Elizabeth being killed or captured? No, thank you, I don't want to imagine that. :)

[thebritishmonarchycouk]

#otd 16 January 1572 . Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. . He participated in the Ridolfi plot with King Philip II of Spain to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne & restore Catholicism in England. . The plot was revealed to the queen’s minister Lord Burghley, & after a trial in January 1572, in which he was found guilty unanimously, Norfolk was executed for treason in Tower Hill, London, in June. He is buried at the Church of St Peter ad Vincula within the walls of the Tower of London.

Norfolk’s lands & titles were forfeit, although much of the estate was later restored to his sons. The title of Duke of Norfolk was restored, four generations later, to his great-great-grandson Thomas Howard.

He was a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth I through her maternal grandmother, & held many high offices during her reign. . . . #history #EnglishMonarchy #Englishhistory #TudorHistory #ElizabethI #Britishhistory #Britishmonarchy #Historic #DukeofNorfolk #Treason #RoyalHistory #TudorEngland #Tudors #Tudor #TowerofLondon #QueenElizabeth #queenelizabethi #MaryQueenofScots (at London, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKG4WoSj96p/?igshid=1do02aro0em3m

[racefortheironthrone]

The head spy in Westeros has an official title, his identity is publically known, and he's a member of the Small Council. How does this compare to real medieval spymasters?

This is more Early Modern than medieval, but the historical parallel you’re looking for is Sir Francis Walsingham.

Francis was born into a family of extremely well-connected London lawyers: his father married the sister of Henry VIII’s principal gentlemen and became one of the commissioners who investigated Wolsey’s estates, after his father’s death his mother remarried Sir John Carey who was the brother of Mary Boleyn’s husband, his uncle was the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, his sister was married to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of London. 

An extremely well-educated gentleman, Francis attended Cambridge and then Gray’s Inn to become a lawyer like his father. Because he was a ride-or-die Protestant, Walsingham went into exile when Mary I came to the throne, and he took the opportunity to study law at Padua and Basel. 

When Elizabeth came to the throne, he became a Member of Parliament for several years, married once into a London merchant house and for a second time to a well-landed lady of the court, and became a close ally of William Cecil, Elizabeth’s chief advisor. Walsingham showed a keen interest in foreign policy, where he was a strong advocate for the Huguenots and the Protestant Cause more broadly, and (more importantly for this ask) an especially strong gift for counter-espionage. He was instrumental in foiling the Ridolfi plot to assassinate the queen and replace her with Mary, who would marry the Duke of Norfolk.

After a stint as an ambassador in France (where he witnessed the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre), he was made Principal Secretary (later “Secretary of State”) of the Privy Council, but even at the time he was better known as Elizabeth’s “Spymaster.” In this position, he advanced the craft of espionage from merely paying off informants (although he did this quite impressively, creating a network that stretched from Scotland to Constantinople), by assembling a permanent staff for more specialized tasks, such as cryptography and the covert interception of correspondence. Using these methods (and a liberal amount of torture), he foiled the Throckmorton plot and the Babington plot, engineered the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and uncovered the preparations for the Spanish Armada, which gave England the time and opportunity to prepare for the invasion. 

I would regard Walsingham as a very close historical parallel for Varys, not merely in his position and methods, but also in their shared ideology of ultra-consequentialist idealism. Walsingham was not a hired gun or a self-interested office-seeker, he was a true believer in the Protestant Cause and willing to do absolutely anything no matter how immoral in service to that end.

[frimleyblogger]

The Streets Of London – Part Eighty One

The Streets Of London – Part Eighty One

Sugar Bakers Court, EC3

As I was winding down towards retirement, I found I had more time to look at the streets down which I used to scurry in a mad dash from one meeting to another. The area around Creechurch Lane with its warren of little ginnels and lanes used to fascinate me and caused me to ponder what went on there in days of yore.

One such is Sugar Bakers Court which you will find if you…

[tudorblogger]

Book Review - ‘The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I’ by John Cooper

Book Review – ‘The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I’ by John Cooper

This was a really interesting book. It’s the first book I’ve read with Francis Walsingham at the centre, though I do also have the biography of Francis Walsingham by Robert Hutchinson. If you’re interested in the secret life of Elizabethan England and how the fairly new idea of a spy network came into being and developed, then this is the book for you. This book is also very good at discussing…

[scotianostra]

What more can we say about Mary that has not been said already? Well I have dug up a few little known facts about the lady.

Mary used to wash her face with white wine; it helped keep her alabaster complexion, which was the height of fashion at the times, in perfect order. The use of such fine tipple to keep the wrinkles at bay was a source of constant consternation to her English keepers the Earl of Shrewsbury and his overbearing wife, Bess of Hardwick, who were forced to foot the bill for most of the upkeep of their ‘guest’ while she resided in England at Elizabeth’s ‘pleasure’.

Still on the subject of her time in England, whilst she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife Bess of Hardwick, Mary fell out with Bess big time; Bess apparently became convinced that her husband had more than just a soft spot for the captive Queen of Scots. To get back at Bess for besmirching her name Mary wrote what has come to be called ‘The Scandal Letter��� to Elizabeth I, detailing all the dubious titbits of gossip Bess had told her over their sewing sessions.

According to what Mary had heard from Bess, Elizabeth thought herself so beautiful that she couldn’t be looked upon directly; her ladies-in-waiting would frequently find themselves convulsed with laughter at having to maintain this fiction; also that Elizabeth was sexually insatiable and had pursued one of her favourite courtiers, Christopher Hatton, and secured his favours in a threesome; and finally, and perhaps more mysteriously, that Elizabeth ‘wasn’t like other women’, perhaps physically or in some other way. Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s secretary of state (later Lord Burghley) sensibly saw to it that his mistress never received the letter. I do wonder what the "not like other women" comment meant!

And finally Mary was implicated in several lots to assassinate he cousin, Queen Elizabeth, the first was The Ridolfi Plot in 1571, it is said to have involved Philip II of Spain, Pope Pius V and the Duke of Norfolk, as well as Mary’s advisor, the Bishop of Ross, and Mary herself. It was to involve a Spanish invasion and a catholic uprising, followed by Mary being wed to the Duke of Norfolk, then would take the throne. When Ridolfi’s messenger was arrested at Dover, incriminating letters were seized and Norfolk was arrested, tried for high treason and found guilty. He was executed on Tower Hill on 2 June 1572. Ridolfi was abroad when the plot was uncovered and escaped this fate. Elizabeth was reluctant to authorise the execution of a fellow queen, but Mary was kept under ever-tighter surveillance.

Then there was the Throckmorton Plot Francis Throckmorton was arrested in November 1583 by Sir Francis Walsingham’s agents. Under torture he revealed a plot to invade England and place Mary on the throne, naming several allies in his confession. Throckmorton was executed and Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, was sent back to Spain. Again, Parliament and Council believed the Queen of Scots should be executed. Again, Elizabeth refused to admit that Mary had been plotting against her. This plot contributed to the Act of Association of 1585 after which, Mary would be held responsible for any plot carried out in her name – whether she knew of it or not.

In 1585 we saw The Parry plot.William Parry had been working as a double agent for both the English Queen and Mary, Queen of Scots. Queen Elizabeth was informed that he had planned to kill her either in a private meeting or ambushing her. There were calls for Mary, Queen of Scots, to also be brought to justice –although there was no proof of her involvement in the Parry Plot.

Parry was arrested for treason and hanged at Westminster.

And finally The Babington plot in 1586. Babbington, an English Catholic nobleman plotted to restore the Roman Catholic religion by placing Mary on the English throne. Anthony Babington had made Mary aware of his plans to kill Elizabeth and help Mary escape.

Mary replied to Babington in letters, she explained how she wanted France and Spain to help her become Queen by invading England.

However, these letters were intercepted by Elizabeth’s spy, Sir Francis Walsingham. The letters were amended, to what extent we will never know, but it is known a gallows sign was added to a letter and a post-script asking for the names of the conspirators.

In her defence, she claimed that she could not be accused of treason as she was not an English subject.

Mary was taken to Fotheringay Castle and put on trial in October. Throughout the proceedings she protested her innocence and denied all knowledge of the plot, but the letters were produced as evidence of her guilt. After months of delays Elizabeth signed Mary’s death warrant on 1 February 1587. Seven days later Mary was beheaded in the Great Hall at Fotheringay.

Bonfires were lit and bells were rung throughout the country in celebration.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.16 (before 1930)

1458 BC – Hatshepsut dies at the age of 50 and is buried in the Valley of the Kings. 27 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire. 378 – General Siyaj K'ak' conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán. 550 – Gothic War: The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison. 929 – Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III establishes the Caliphate of Córdoba. 1120 – Crusades: The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1362 – Saint Marcellus's flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea. 1537 – Bigod's Rebellion, an armed insurrection attempting to resist the English Reformation, begins. 1547 – Grand Duke Ivan IV of Muscovy becomes the first Tsar of Russia, replacing the 264-year-old Grand Duchy of Moscow with the Tsardom of Russia. 1556 – Philip II becomes King of Spain. 1572 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried and found guilty of treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. 1605 – The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain. 1707 – The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain. 1757 – Forces of the Maratha Empire defeat a 5,000-strong army of the Durrani Empire in the Battle of Narela. 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape St. Vincent. 1786 – Virginia enacts the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson. 1809 – Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña. 1847 – Westward expansion of the United States: John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory. 1862 – Hartley Colliery disaster: Two hundred and four men and boys killed in a mining disaster, prompting a change in UK law which henceforth required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape. 1878 – Russo-Turkish War (1877–78): Battle of Philippopolis: Captain Aleksandr Burago with a squadron of Russian Imperial army dragoons liberates Plovdiv from Ottoman rule. 1883 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is enacted by Congress. 1900 – The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands. 1909 – Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole. 1919 – Nebraska becomes the 36th state to approve the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. With the necessary three-quarters of the states approving the amendment, Prohibition is constitutionally mandated in the United States one year later. 1920 – The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France. 1921 – The Marxist Left in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine holds its founding congress in Ľubochňa.

[isadomna]

Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo (1553 – 1576)

Known as "Leonora" or "Dianora", she was daughter of García Álvarez de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca and Duke of Fernandina, and Vittoria Colonna, the niece of the poet. Leonora was born in Florence and when her mother died, she was left in the care of her aunt Eleonora di Toledo, the Duchess of Florence. Eleonora and Cosimo raised her lovingly at the Medici court, where she remained for the rest of her life. The red-headed Leonora, who possessed a natural charm, was popular in the Medici family. At the age of five, she was reported as being a comfort to Cosimo's second daughter Lucrezia, from whom she became inseparable, when Lucrezia was apart from her husband Alfonso d'Este. The Duke Cosimo was extremely fond of Leonora, and treated her as his own daughter. He was charmed by her vivacity and physical vigour — she delighted in horsemanship and arms — though he occasionally gently reminded her to behave with more decorum. 

Owing to the close family and political ties between the House of Medici and the viceroyal family of Toledo, a marriage was arranged between Leonora and Cosimo's son Pietro, with whom she had grown up and who was of a similar age. The couple were betrothed when she was 15, with the approval of Philip II of Spain. Garcia Álvarez de Toledo provided her with a dowry of 40,000 gold ducats. They were married at the Palazzo Vecchio in April 1571, and it was reported that Pietro had to be forced to consummate the union. Pietro nevertheless had affairs with other women, and the reasons for his aversion to sexual intercourse with Leonora are unknown. In 1573, Leonora gave birth to a son, Cosimo, who was the sole male Medici heir in this generation until his death three years later, one month after his mother's death.

This marriage was never a physical and emotional success. In this it resembled that of Isabella de Medici, whose protégée Leonora became, and Paolo Giordano Orsini. Although Isabella had two children by Paolo Giordano, she had chosen not to live at her husband's castle at Bracciano or in Rome, where he conducted his political and amorous affairs. Instead, with Cosimo's permission, she had remained in Florence, cultivating an artistic salon at her Villa Baroncelli in the south of the city, and discreetly taking lovers, notably Troilo Orsini, a cousin of her husband's.

Leonora became part of Isabella's circle and renowned for her beauty and vivacity. Leonora saw Isabella as her role model and engaged in the same kind of intellectual activities, music and sports. Like Isabella, she sponsored charities and the arts, serving as the patron of the literary Accademia degli Alterati. Neglected by her husband, she also followed Isabella's example in taking lovers. Under Cosimo, such behaviour was tolerated as long as discretion was maintained and the marriages reaped political advantages. The women's respective husbands conducted affairs of their own, leading largely separate lives. Thus matters stood until the death of Cosimo. His successor, the reclusive Grand Duke Francesco, was, however, very different. He was less willing to turn a blind eye to the behaviour of Isabella and Leonora and to the complaints of their spouses, for whom their adultery was a question of honour rather than jealousy.

On 11 July 1576, Pietro de Medici sent a note to his brother, Grand Duke Francesco, from the Villa Medici at Cafaggiolo, north of Florence: "Last night at six hours an accident occurred to my wife and she died. Therefore Your Highness be at peace and write me what I should do, and if I should come back or not." The next day, Francesco wrote to his brother Ferdinando in Rome: "Last night, around five o'clock, a really terrible accident happened to Donna Leonora. She was found in bed, suffocated, and Don Pietro and the others were not in time to revive he.”

In fact, Leonora's death was not an accident: Pietro had murdered her in cold blood, with Francesco's connivance. She was 23. Six days later, in a similar manner, her best friend, Isabella de Medici, was strangled by her husband, Paolo Giordano. Francesco announced the death of his sister as an accident. Bastiano Arditi recorded that Leonora was "deposited in a box, in San Lorenzo, without any other ceremonies". The diarist Agostino Lapini recorded that everyone knew very well that Leonora had been killed. At first, Grand Duke Francesco put it about that Leonora had died of a heart attack. But the Florence grapevine knew otherwise, and the Spaniards were outraged at this treatment of such a high-ranking subject of their crown. Under pressure, Francesco eventually admitted the truth. He wrote to Philip II of Spain, on whose favour his title depended:

 "Although in the letter I had told you of Donna Eleonora's accident, I have nevertheless to say to His Catholic Majesty that Lord Pietro our brother had taken her life himself because of the treason she had committed through behaviour unbecoming to a lady ... We wish that His Majesty should know the truth ... and at the first opportunity he will be sent the proceedings through which she should have known with what just reasons Lord Pietro acted".

The "proceedings" Francesco had in mind concerned the documented behaviour of Leonora's lover Bernardino Antinori, who had often been seen publicly with her in her coach. Francesco had imprisoned Antinori, and he was strangled in his cell two days before Leonora met the same fate. Love letters and poems written by Antinori, extolling Leonora's beauty and charms in minute Petrarchian detail, were "found hidden in her foot stool". There was also a political dimension to the murders, because Antinori and another associate of Leonora's, Pierino Ridolfi —according at least to Ridolfi's confession under torture— were implicated in an anti-Medici vendetta led by Orazio Pucci. For this reason, Francesco convinced himself that Leonora's misdemeanours had also encompassed treason.

 In 1575, Cortile reported to the Duke of Ferrara: "Pierino Ridolfi has been accused of plotting to kill Don Pietro while he was in a whorehouse, to murder his son and poison Cardinal Ferdinando. He is in the service of Donna Leonora and the duke is in a great rage with her for having given Pierino a necklace worth 200 scudi and a horse on which to escape". Francesco, reported Cortile, was "prepared to wash his hands of his sister-in-law". Caroline P. Murphy regards these charges against Leonora as excessive, particularly the notion that she would plot the death of her own son. Francesco's approval meant that Pietro was never brought to justice for Leonora's murder, despite the protests of her brother Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Colonna that her death was unacceptable. (X)

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

Hey, I've never really known what to think of Phillip 2 from Spain a part of me likes him and you're making me discover things about him that make me like him a little bit more but my problem with him is his reaction to the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre an opinion on it?

And also in relation to Elizabeth how do you think this has impacted their friendship ?

Hi!

Philip greatly rejoiced at the news of the massacre and congratulated the king of France and Catherine de Medici for it, but it was less because of the religious fervor but more because of the fact that the massacre prevented the planned French invasion in the Netherlands. Philip’s Dutch rebels led by William of Orange in their struggle against the Spanish governance had gained the support of the French Huguenots, and their leader Admiral Coligny had convinced Charles IX of his plan to go to war against Spain in the Netherlands. The Duke of Alba, governor-general of the Netherlands, was awaiting the French attack. But it never came because of the massacre. So for Philip the whole thing primary was a happy God given escape of the war and he didn’t hide his relief jokingly telling the French ambassador that “he had to admit that he owed his Low Countries of Flanders to Your Majesty”.

Btw, Elizabeth too didn’t want to see the French controlling the Netherlands (the whole Anjou saga later was meant to prevent them from getting into the Netherlands unchecked by her).

I don’t think that Elizabeth particularly cared about Philip’s reaction to the massacre, she had more important things to charge him with like his participation in the Ridolfi plot and him endorsing her assassination the year before. Their friendship already was in ruins, caused by the events going back to 1568, the year which I think made a turning point in their relations. Their task in 1572 was to patch their relations up and they were slowly starting to take steps in that direction.