Marie de' Medici

Marie de' Medici (French: Marie de Médicis; Italian: Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV. Marie served as regent of France between 1610 and 1617 during the minority of her son Louis XIII. Her mandate as regent legally expired in 1614, when her son reached the age of majority, but she refused to resign and continued as regent until she was removed by a coup in 1617.

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Marie de' Medici
Portrait by Frans Pourbus the Younger
Queen consort of France and Navarre
Tenure	17 December 1600 – 14 May 1610
Coronation	13 May 1610
Born	26 April 1575 Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Tuscany
Died	3 July 1642(1642-07-03) (aged 67) Sternengasse 10, Cologne
Burial	Basilica of St Denis, Paris, France
Spouse	Henry IV of France ​ ​ (m. 1600; died 1610)​
Issue	Louis XIII, King of France Elisabeth, Queen of Spain and Portugal Christine, Duchess of Savoy Nicolas Henri, Duke of Orléans Gaston, Duke of Orléans Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland
House	Medici
Father	Francesco I, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Mother	Joanna of Austria
Religion	Roman Catholicism
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Marie was member of the powerful House of Medici in the branch of the grand dukes of Tuscany. The wealth of her family caused Marie to be chosen by Henry IV to become his second wife after his divorce from his previous wife, Margaret of Valois. The assassination of her husband in 1610, which occurred the day after her coronation, caused her to act as regent for her son, Louis XIII, until 1614, when he officially attained his legal majority, but as the head of the Conseil du Roi, she retained the power.^[1]

Noted for her ceaseless political intrigues at the French court, her extensive artistic patronage^[1] and her favourites (the most famous being Concino Concini and Leonora Dori), she ended up being banished from the country by her son and dying in the city of Cologne, in the Holy Roman Empire.