Every villain has an origin story and this is where the Wicked and Evil Italian Queen is made:

Catherine de Medici’s evolution from powerless pawn and scorned wife to master manipulator and Regent of France beside her son, King Charles, has been rife with religious unrest. The French Wars of Religion between the Catholics and the Huguenots has ramped up and, even with a union of Protestant and Catholic royalty on the horizon, Catherine’s own precarious strategizing will inevitably be her downfall and spark the flames that will forever tarnish Catherine’s good name. 

Warning: this episode gets dark and terrible and, while we don’t go into specific detail, we recommend you have a happy song/movie/podcast queued up and ready to go for after you’ve listened to Part III of Catherine de Medici. Rachel and I suggest the movie, Anastasia.

33. Catherine de’ Medici - Part IV:

Difficult Damsels is an amateur podcast, brought to you by two ridiculous humans, that explores the difficult damsels throughout history who said “f💋ck this” and broke out of their preordained roles as meek and obedient to be their most authentic selves. Your hosts Rachel and Kat delve into what it means to be a difficult damsel and just how these women changed history only to be labeled witch, mad, crazy because they dared to rise against societal and patriarchal norms and change their world!