Catherine de' Medici (1518-89) is one of the most controversial of all historical figures. Wife of one French King and mother of three others she was as Regent and Queen Mother, a key figure in the French Wars of Religion. Praised as a peacemaker she has also been blamed for the Massacre of St Bartholomew (24 August 1572): Professor Knecht goes behind the familiar Black Legend to assess the real Catherine; and while no attempt is made to whitewash her he reveals a more sympathetic and, in her pragmatism, more modern figure than most of her leading contemporaries. This study, the first recent biography of her in English, by a leading scholar of Renaissance France, is a major event.