August 8, 1503: King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor

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6th Earl of Angus, Archibald Douglas, Battle of Flodden, Elizabeth of York, Henry Stuart, Henry VII of England, Henry VIII of England, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, House of Stewart, House of Tudor, King James IV of Scotland, Lord Darnley, Louis XI of France, Margaret Tudor, Pope Julius II, Queen Mary I of Scotland

Margaret Tudor (November 28, 1489 – October 18, 1541) was Queen of Scotland from 1503 until 1513 by marriage to King James IV. She was the eldest daughter and second child of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and the sister of King Henry VIII of England.

Margaret married James IV at the age of 13, in accordance with the Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and Scotland. Together, they had six children, though only one of them reached adulthood. Margaret’s marriage to James IV linked the royal houses of England and Scotland, which a century later resulted in the Union of the Crowns.

Early life

Margaret was born on November 28, 1489 in the Palace of Westminster in London to King Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York. She was their second child and firstborn daughter. Her siblings included Arthur, Prince of Wales, the future King Henry VIII, and Mary, who would briefly become Queen of France.

Margaret Tudor

Margaret was baptised in St. Margaret’s, Westminster on St Andrew’s Day. She was named after Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, her paternal grandmother. Her nurse was Alice Davy.

On September 30, 1497, James IV’s commissioner, the Spaniard Pedro de Ayala concluded a lengthy truce with England, and now the marriage was again a serious possibility. James IV was in his late twenties and still unmarried. The Italian historian Polydore Vergil said that some of the English royal council objected to the match, saying that it would bring the Stewarts directly into the line of English succession, to which the wily and astute Henry replied:

What then? Should anything of the kind happen (and God avert the omen), I foresee that our realm would suffer no harm, since England would not be absorbed by Scotland, but rather Scotland by England, being the noblest head of the entire island, since there is always less glory and honour in being joined to that which is far the greater, just as Normandy once came under the rule and power of our ancestors the English.

On January 24, 1502, Scotland and England concluded the Treaty of Perpetual Peace, the first peace agreement between the two realms in over 170 years. The marriage treaty was concluded the same day and was viewed as a guarantee of the new peace. Margaret remained in England, but was now known as the “Queen of Scots”.

Marriage and progress

The marriage was completed by proxy on January 25, 1503 at Richmond Palace. The Earl of Bothwell was proxy for the Scottish king and wore a gown of cloth-of-gold at the ceremony in the Queen’s great chamber. He was accompanied by Robert Blackadder, archbishop of Glasgow, and Andrew Forman, postulate of Moray.

The herald, John Young, reported that “right notable jousts” followed the ceremony. Prizes were awarded the next morning, and the tournament continued another day.

The new queen was provided with a large wardrobe of clothes, and her crimson state bed curtains made of Italian sarcenet were embroidered with red Lancastrian roses. Clothes were also made for her companion, Lady Catherine Gordon, the widow of Perkin Warbeck. The clothes were embroidered by John Flee.

James IV, King of Scotland

In May 1503, James IV confirmed her possession of lands and houses in Scotland, including Methven Castle, Stirling Castle, Doune Castle, Linlithgow Palace and Newark Castle in Ettrick Forest, with the incomes from the corresponding earldom and lordship lands.

Later in 1503, months after the death of her mother, Queen Elizabeth (of York) Margaret came to Scotland; her progress was a grand journey northward. She left Richmond Palace on June 27, with Henry VII, and they travelled first to Collyweston in Northamptonshire.

At York a plaque commemorates the exact spot where the Queen of Scots entered its gates. After crossing the border at Berwick upon Tweed on August 1, 1503, Margaret was met by the Scottish court at Lamberton. At Dalkeith Palace, James came to kiss her goodnight. He came again to console her on August 4 after a stable fire had killed some of her favourite horses. Her riding gear, including a new sumpter cloth or pallion of cloth-of-gold worth £127 was destroyed in the fire.

At a meadow a mile from Edinburgh, there was a pavilion where Sir Patrick Hamilton and Patrick Sinclair played and fought in the guise of knights defending their ladies.

On August 8, 1503, the marriage was celebrated in person in Holyrood Abbey. The rites were performed by the archbishop of Glasgow and Thomas Savage, archbishop of York. Two days later, on St Lawrence’s day, Margaret went to mass at St Giles’, the town’s Kirk, as her first public appointment. The details of the proxy marriage, progress, arrival, and reception in Edinburgh were recorded by the Somerset Herald, John Young.

The marriage led to the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when Elizabeth I of England died without heirs and James IV’s great-grandson James VI succeeded to the English throne.

The long period of domestic peace after 1497 allowed James IV to focus more on foreign policy, which included the sending of several of his warships to aid his uncle, King Hans of Denmark, in his conflict with Sweden; amicable relations with the Pope, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Louis XII of France; and James’s aspiration to lead a European naval crusade against the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. James was granted the title of Protector and Defender of the Christian Faith in 1507 by Pope Julius II.

Following the death of James IV at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, Margaret, as queen dowager, was appointed as regent for their son, King James V.

A pro-French party took shape among the nobility, urging that she should be replaced by John, Duke of Albany, the closest male relative to the infant king. In seeking allies, Margaret turned to the Douglases, and in 1514 she married Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, which alienated the nobility and saw her replaced as regent by Albany.

In 1524, Margaret, with the help of the Hamiltons, removed Albany from power in a coup d’état while he was in France, and was recognised by Parliament as regent, then later as chief counsellor to King James V.

Following her divorce from Angus in 1527, Margaret married her third husband, Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven. Through her first and second marriages, Margaret was the grandmother of both Queen Mary I of Scotland, and Mary’s second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

January 20, 1423: King Christian II of Denmark and Norway is deposed

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Archduke Philipp the Handsome of Austria, Christian II of Denmark and Norway, Christian III of Denmark and Norway, Frederik I of Denmark and Norway, Gustaf Vasa, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, House of Vasa, Infanta Joanna the Mad of Aragon, King of Sweden. Archduchess Isabella of Austria, Union of Kalamar

Christian II (July 1, 1481 – January 25, 1559) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union who reigned as King of Denmark and Norway, from 1513 until 1523, and Sweden from 1520 until 1521. From 1513 to 1523, he was concurrently Duke of Schleswig and Holstein in joint rule with his uncle Frederik.

Christian was born at Nyborg Castle in 1481 as the son of Hans, King of Denmark and his wife, Christina of Saxony. Christian descended, through Valdemar I of Sweden, from the House of Eric, and from Catherine, daughter of Inge I of Sweden, as well as from Ingrid Ylva, granddaughter of Sverker I of Sweden.

His rival Gustaf I of Sweden descended only from Sverker II of Sweden and the House of Sverker.Christian took part in his father’s conquest of Sweden in 1497 and in the fighting of 1501 when Sweden revolted. He was appointed viceroy of Norway in 1506, and succeeded in maintaining control of this country.

During his administration in Norway, he attempted to deprive the Norwegian nobility of its traditional influence exercised through the Rigsraadet privy council, leading to controversy with the latter.In 1513, he succeeded his father as King Christian II of Denmark and Norway.

Christian’s succession to the throne of Denmark was confirmed at the Herredag assembly of notables from the three northern kingdoms, which met at Copenhagen in 1513.The Swedish delegates said, “We have the choice between peace at home and strife here, or peace here and civil war at home, and we prefer the former.”

A decision as to the Swedish succession was therefore postponed. Christian’s corronation as king of Denmark and Norway took place in 1514.Whilst visiting Bergen in 1507 or 1509, Christian fell in love with a Norwegian girl of Dutch heritage, named Dyveke Sigbritsdatter. She became his mistress and remained with him until Dyveke’s death.

Their relationship was not interrupted by Christian’s marriage to Archduchess Isabella of Austria, third child of Archduke Philipp the Handsome of Austria, ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands and Infanta Joanna the Mad of Aragon, heiress to the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.

Archduchess Isabella’s father was the son of the reigning Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and his deceased consort Mary of Burgundy, while her mother was the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs Fernando II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

They married by proxy on June 11, 1514 in Bruxelles. Isabella was brought to Copenhagen a year later, and the marriage was ratified on August 12, 1515 at Copenhagen Castle, in a ceremony conducted by Birger Gunnersen, Archbishop of Lund.Dyveke died in 1517, and Christian was led to believe that the magnate Torben Oxe had poisoned her.

Oxe’s status meant that he should have been tried by the Council of State, but instead he was brought to trial by a common jury at Solbjerg outside Copenhagen. He was found guilty and executed in November 1517.This act precipitated the division between the king and aristocracy that ultimately led to Christian’s deposition.Christian’s chief counsellor was Dyveke’s mother, Sigbrit Willoms.

Christian appointed her controller of the Sound Dues of Øresund, and took her advice on all financial matters.A bourgeoise herself, she acted to extend the influence of the middle classes, and formed an inner council, which competed with the Rigsraadet for power. Her influence was resented by the aristocracy, who blamed her for the king’s favouring the working classes.

As king, Christian tried to maintain the Kalmar Union between the Scandinavian countries which brought him to war with Sweden, lasting between 1518 and 1523. Though he captured the country in 1520, the subsequent slaughter of leading Swedish nobility, churchmen, and others, known as the Stockholm Bloodbath, caused the Swedes to rise against his rule.

The remaining Swedish nobility, appalled by the bloodbath, rose against Christian and the Swedish Diet elected Gustaf Vasa regent and subsequently King of Sweden. On account of the massacre Christian II is remembered in Sweden as Christian the Tyrant (Kristian Tyrann).

In June 1521, the Danish king paid a visit to Emperor Charles V in the Netherlands, where he remained for some months. He visited most of the large cities, made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Dürer, and met Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Protestant Reformation.Directly upon his return to Denmark in September 1521 Christian issued two bodies of laws – the Town Law and the Land Law – which governed respectively trade and the behaviour of the clergy.

The Town Law strengthened the rights of tradesmen and peasants at the expense of the nobility. Trade was reorganised and was to be conducted solely through market towns, which were to be governed by officials appointed by the king. Trading in peasants was forbidden, and peasants were given the right to negotiate the terms of their tenure with the nobility.

The Land Law permitted clergy to marry, and gave some control of the church over to the state. The new laws were radical, progressive, and perceived by the nobility and bishops as an existential threat.By 1522, Christian was running out of allies. In an attempt to set up a Danish-centered trading company in direct competition with the Hanseatic League, Christian had raised the sound tolls, which affected trade between Sweden and the Hanseatic towns.

As a consequence, Lübeck and Danzig joined the newly independent Sweden in war against Denmark.Domestic rebellion against Christian started in Jutland. On January 20, 1523, the herredag at Viborg offered the Danish crown to Christian’s uncle, Duke Frederik of Holstein.

Frederik’s army gained control over most of Denmark during the spring, and in April 1523 Christian left Denmark to seek help abroad. On May 1, he landed at Veere in Zeeland.

Exile and imprisonment

In exile Christian led a humble life in the city of Lier in the Netherlands (now in Belgium), waiting for military help from his brother-in-law Charles V. Christian corresponded with Martin Luther and he became a Lutheran for some time; he even commissioned a translation of the New Testament into Danish.

Queen Isabella died in January 1526, and Christian’s children were taken by her family so as not to be raised as heretics. Popular agitation against Frederik I in Denmark centered on Søren Norby, who gathered an army of peasants in Scania, but was defeated in 1525.By 1531, Christian had reverted to Catholicism and reconciled with the Emperor.

Çhristian II took a fleet to Norway, and landed in Oslo to popular acclaim in November 1531. Christian failed to subdue the fortresses of northern Norway, however, and accepted a promise of safe conduct from Frederik I.Frederik did not keep his promise, and Christian was kept prisoner for the next 27 years, first in Sønderborg Castle until 1549, and afterwards at the castle of Kalundborg.

Stories of solitary confinement in small dark chambers are inaccurate; King Christian was treated like a nobleman, particularly in his old age, and he was allowed to host parties, go hunting, and wander freely as long as he did not go beyond the Kalundborg town boundaries.

Frederik I died in April 1533, and the Danish Council of State was at first unable to choose a successor. The mayor of Lübeck, Jürgen Wullenwever, took advantage of the resulting interregnum to conspire for the restoration of Christian II to the throne of Denmark.

He formed an alliance with two prominent nobles, Ambrosius Bogbinder and Jørgen Kock, mayor of Malmö.With Christopher, Count of Oldenburg as his military commander he succeeded in seizing Scania and Zeeland in the name of Christian II in a conflict known as the Count’s Feud.

However, Frederik’s eldest son, also named Christian, raised an army in Holstein which, lead by Johann Rantzau, took in turn Holstein, Jutland and Zeeland in a series of brilliant military manoeuvers. He formed an alliance with Gustaf Vasa, who subdued Scania, and took the throne as Christian III of Denmark. Christian II remained in prison in Kalundborg.

Christian II died in January 1559, a few days after Christian III. The new king, Frederik II, ordered that a royal funeral be held in his memory.Christian II buried in Odense next to his wife, parents, and son John, who died in the summer of 1532.

January 17, 1463: Birth of Friedrich III the Wise, Elector of Saxony

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Diet of Worms, Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Empire, Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, Protestant Reformation, Roman Catholic Church

Friedrich III (January 17, 1463 – May 5, 1525), also known as Friedrich the Wise, was Elector of Saxony from 1486 to 1525, who is mostly remembered for the worldly protection of his subject Martin Luther.

Born in Torgau, Friedrichbwas the son of Ernst, Elector of Saxony and his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria, daughter of Albrecht III, Duke of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Brunswick-Grubenhagen-Einbeck, who was herself a daughter of Duke Eric I of Brunswick-Grubenhagen and his wife, Elisabeth of Brunswick-Göttingen.

Friedrich succeeded his father as elector in 1486; in 1502, he founded the University of Wittenberg, where Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon taught.

Friedrich was among the princes who pressed the need of reform upon Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and in 1500, he became president of the newly formed council of regency (Reichsregiment).

Friedrich III was Pope Leo X’s candidate for Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 after the death of Emperor Maximilian I. The Pope had awarded him the Golden Rose of virtue on September 3, 1518 in an effort to persuade him to accept the throne. However, Friedrich III helped secure the election of Maximilian’s grandson Charles of Austria, who was also King Carlos I of Spain, Friedrich agreed to support Charles and to convince his fellow electors to do the same if Charles repaid an outstanding debt to the Saxons dating to 1497.

Friedrich collected many relics in his castle church; his inventory of 1518 listed 17,443 items, including a thumb from St. Anne, a twig from Moses’ burning bush, hay of the holy manger, and milk from the Virgin Mary.

Money was paid in order to venerate these relics and thus escape years in purgatory. A diligent and pious person who rendered appropriate devotion to each of these relics could merit 1,902,202 years worth of penance (an earthly equivalent of time otherwise spent in Purgatory, removed by indulgences). Two years later, the collection exceeded 19,000 pieces.

Friedrich is most known for ensuring that Martin Luther would be heard before the Diet of Worms in 1521 and secured an exemption from the Edict of Worms for Saxony. He further protected Luther from the Pope’s enforcement of the edict by faking a highway attack on Luther’s way back to Wittenberg, abducting and then hiding him at Wartburg Castle after the Diet of Worms.

Friedrich died unmarried at Lochau, a hunting castle near Annaburg (30 km southeast of Wittenberg), in 1525 and was buried in the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg with a grave by Peter Vischer the Younger. He was succeeded by his brother Duke Johann the Steadfast as Elector of Saxony.

Issue of conversion in 1525

Friedrich III was a lifelong Roman Catholic, but he might have converted to Lutheranism on his deathbed in 1525 depending on how his receiving of a Protestant communion is viewed. He leaned heavily towards Lutheranism throughout his later years, as demonstrated by his guaranteeing the safety for his subject and Protestant reformer Martin Luther when he was tried for heresy and excommunicated by the Pope.

Friedrich III took communion as outlined in Lutheranism on his deathbed. That can be seen as a conversion to Lutheranism, although he never officially or clearly indicated that he converted. By the time of his death, he was proclaimed to have “converted to the evangelical faith” and Saxony was now “evangelical”. His protection of Martin Luther and allowed Lutheranism to flourish in his realm, protecting him from the Holy Roman Emperor.

His successor, Johann, Elector of Saxony, had been Lutheran even before he became Elector. Johann made the Lutheran church the official state church in Saxony in 1527.

January 12, 1519: Death of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

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Charles V Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Empire, King Louis XI of France, Mary of Burgundy, Pope Julius II

Maximilian I (March 22, 1459 – January 12, 1519).

Maximilian was the son of Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor, and Eleanor of Portugal, a Portuguese infanta (princess), daughter of King Duarte of Portugal and his wife Eleanor of Aragon.

He ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of the latter’s reign, from c. 1483 until his father’s death in 1493.

Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on 16 February 16, 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his father’s initiative and crowned on April 9, 1486 in Aachen. Much of th Austrian territories and Vienna were under the rule of king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, as a result of the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–1488). Maximilian was now a king without lands. After the death of king Matthias, from July 1490, Maximilian began a series of short sieges that reconquered cities and fortresses that his father had lost in Austria.

Maximilian was never crowned by the pope, as the journey to Rome was blocked by the Venetians.

In 1508, Maximilian, with the assent of Pope Julius II, took the title Erwählter Römischer Kaiser (“Elected Roman Emperor”), thus ending the centuries-old custom that the Holy Roman Emperor had to be crowned by the Pope.

Maximilian expanded the influence of the House of Habsburg through war and his marriage. In 1477 Maximilian married Mary of Burgundy, the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon, she inherited the Burgundian lands at the age of 19 upon the death of her father in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. She spent most of her reign defending her birthright; in order to counter the appetite of the French king Louis XI for her lands.

Maximilian and Mary’s wedding contract stipulated that their children would succeed them but that the couple could not be each other’s heirs. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Mary’s death in a riding accident on March 27, 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilian’s aim was now to secure the inheritance to his and Mary’s son, Philipp the Handsome.

Maximilian lost his family’s original lands in today’s Switzerland to the Swiss Confederacy. Through marriage of his son Philipp the Handsome to eventual Queen Joanna of Castile in 1498, Maximilian helped to establish the Habsburg dynasty in Spain, which allowed his grandson Charles to hold the thrones of both Castile and Aragon, and he was the eventual successor to the Imperial Throne of the Holy Roman Empire.

The historian Thomas A. Brady Jr. describes him as “the first Holy Roman Emperor in 250 years who ruled as well as reigned” and also, the “ablest royal warlord of his generation.”

After 1517 Maximilian began to focus entirely on the question of his succession. His goal was to secure the throne for a member of his house and prevent François I of France from gaining the imperial throne.

In 1501, Maximilian fell from his horse and badly injured his leg, causing him pain for the rest of his life. Some historians have suggested that Maximilian was “morbidly” depressed: from 1514, he travelled everywhere with his coffin.

Maximilian died in Wels, Upper Austria, on January 12, 1519 at the age of 59. The death of Maximilian seemed to put the succession at risk. However, The Fugger family provided Maximilian a credit of one million gulden, which was used to bribe the prince-electors. However, the bribery claims have been challenged. At first, this policy seemed successful, and Maximilian managed to secure the votes from Mainz, Cologne, Brandenburg and Bohemia for his grandson Charles.

Maximilian’s son, Philipp the Handsome (King Felipe I of Castile by right of his wife) had died in 1506. The resulting “election campaign” was unprecedented due to the massive use of bribery. Within a few months the election of his grandson as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was secured. Charles had also succeeded his maternal grandfather, King Fernando II-V of Aragon and Castile in 1516 and became King Carlos I of a united Spain. With his election as Emperor, Charles V ruled an empire as vast and as powerful as that of Charlemagne ‘s centuries earlier.

Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands

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Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Carlos I of Spain, Felipe I of Castile and Spain, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, King François I of France, Pope Julius II, The Holy League

By 1504, however, Margaret’s husband, Philiberto II of Savoy, died of pleurisy. Grief-stricken, Margaret became suicidal and she threw herself out of a window, but was saved. After being persuaded to bury her husband, she had his heart embalmed so she could keep it with her forever. Her court historian and poet Jean Lemaire de Belges gave her the title “Dame de deuil” (Lady of Mourning).

Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands

Queen Isabella I of Castile died in late 1504, and Archduke Philipp and Infanta Juana went to Castile to claim the crown. Archduke Philipp of Austria is considered Felipe I of Castile (Spain).

At the death of Philipp (Felipe) in 1506, Charles was recognized Lord of the Netherlands with the title of Charles II of Burgundy. During his childhood and teen years, Charles lived in Mechelen together with his sisters Mary, Eleanor, and Isabella at the court of his aunt Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. Despite being at his aunt’s court Charles was young and alone. Juana could not return to act as regent because her unstable mental state and her Castilian subjects would not allow their ruler to abandon the kingdom.

Fernando II of Aragon took control of all the Spanish kingdoms, under the pretext of protecting Charles’s rights, which in reality he wanted to elude, but his new marriage with Germaine de Foix failed to produce a surviving Trastámara heir to the throne. With his father dead and his mother confined, Charles became Duke of Burgundy and was recognized as Prince of Asturias (heir presumptive of Spain) and honorific Archduke (heir apparent of Austria).

Preoccupied with German affairs, Margaret’s father, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire Maximillian I, named Margaret governor of the Low Countries and guardian of Charles in 1507, along with her nieces Eleanor, Isabella and Mary. She became the only woman elected as its ruler by the representative assembly of Franche-Comté, with her title confirmed in 1509.

Some report that Margaret was considered a foreigner because of her childhood at the French court. According to Blockmans and others though, Margaret, Philip as well as Charles were considered autochthonous; only Maximilian was always a foreigner. The Governess served as an intermediary between her father and her nephew’s subjects in the Netherlands from her newly built palace at Mechelen. During a remarkably successful career, she broke new ground for women rulers.

Margaret soon found herself at war with France over the question of Charles’s requirement to pay homage to the French king for the County of Flanders (which was outside the Empire; and while a long-standing portion of the inherited Burgundian titles & provinces, legally still within France).

In response, she persuaded Emperor Maximilian to end the war with King Louis XII. On November 1508, she journeyed to Cambrai to assist in the formation of the League of Cambrai, which ended (for a time) the possibility of a French invasion of the Low Countries, redirecting French attention to Northern Italy.

By 1512, she told her father that the Netherlands existed on peace and trade, and thus she would declare neutrality while using foreign armies and funds to wage wars. She played the key role in bringing together the participants of Holy League: Pope Julius II, the Swiss, Henry VIII of England, Fernando II of Aragon and her father Maximilian (he joined the League only as Emperor, as not as guardian of his grandson Charles and thus, the Low Countries’ neutrality was maintained). The league targeted France. The treaty also would not prevent the more adventurous Netherlands seigneurs from serving under Maximilian and Henry when they attacked the French later.

The Spanish inheritance, resulting from a dynastic union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, included Spain as well as the Castilian West Indies and the Aragonese kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Joanna inherited these territories in 1516 in a condition of mental illness.

Charles, therefore, claimed the crowns for himself jure matris, thus becoming co-monarch of Joanna with the title of Carlos I of Castile and Aragon or Carlos I of Spain. Castile and Aragon together formed the largest of Charles’s personal possessions, and they also provided a great number of generals and tercios (the formidable Spanish infantry of the time). However, at his accession to the throne, Charles was viewed as a foreign prince.

In 1519, Margaret’s father, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died and his grandson, Charles II of Burgundy (Carlos I of Spain) inherited the Austrian hereditary lands in 1519, as Charles I of Austria, and obtained the election as Holy Roman Emperor against the candidacy of the French King François I. Since the Imperial election, he was known as Emperor Charles V even outside of the Empire and the Habsburg motto A.E.I.O.U. (“Austria Est Imperare Orbi Universo”; “it is Austria’s destiny to rule the world”) acquired political significance.

In 1520, Emperor Charles V made Margaret his governor-general in gratitude for her services. She was the only regent he ever re-appointed indefinitely from 1519 until her death in on 1 December 1530.

Her queenly virtues helped her to play the role of diplomat and peace-maker, as well as guardian and educator of future rulers, whom Maximilian called “our children” or “our common children” in letters to Margaret. This was a model that developed as part of the solution for the emerging Habsburg composite monarchy and would continue to serve later generations. As an older relative and former guardian, she had more power with Emperor Charles V than with her father Maximilian, who treated her cordially but occasionally acted in a threatening manner.

On November 15, 1530, Margaret stepped on a piece of broken glass. She initially thought little of the injury but gangrene set in and the leg had to be amputated. She decided to arrange all her affairs first, designating Charles V as her sole heir and writing him a letter in which she asked him to maintain peace with France and England. On the night of November 30, the doctors came to operate on her. They gave her a dose of opium to lessen the pain, but the dosage was reportedly so strong that she did not wake up again. She passed away between midnight and one o’clock. So basically her doctors accidentally overdosed her.

She was buried alongside her second husband at Bourg-en-Bresse, in the mausoleum of the Royal Monastery of Brou that she previously commissioned

January 10, 1530: Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. Part I.

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Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Archduke Philipp of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, Governor of the Hapsburg Netherlands, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, King Charles VIII of France, King Louis XI of France, Philiberto II of Savoy

Archduchess Margaret of Austria (January 10, 1480 – December 1, 1530) was Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530. She was the first of many female regents in the Netherlands.

Archduchess Margaret was born on January 10, 1480 and named after her stepgrandmother, Margaret of York. She was the second child and only daughter of Maximilian of Austria (future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I) and Mary of Burgundy, co-sovereigns of the Low Countries. In 1482, her mother died and her three-year-old brother Archduke Philipp the Handsome succeeded her as sovereign of the Low Countries, with her father as his regent.

The same year her mother died, King Louis XI of France signed the Treaty of Arras, whereby her father promised to give her hand in marriage to Louis’ son, Dauphin Charles. The engagement took place in 1483. With Franche-Comté and Artois as her dowry, Margaret was transferred to the guardianship of Louis XI, who died soon after. The Dauphin became King Charles VIII and Margaret was raised as a fille de France and prepared for her future role as Queen of France.

Under the supervision of her governess Madame de Segré, and Charles VIII’s sister, regent of France Anne de Beaujeu, Margaret received a fine education alongside several noble children, amongst whom was Louise of Savoy.

Although their union was political, the young Margaret developed a genuine affection for Charles VIII. However, he renounced the treaty in the autumn of 1491 and forcibly married Margaret’s former stepmother Anne, Duchess of Brittany, for political reasons.

The French court had ceased treating Margaret as their future queen but she could not return to her ex-stepmother’s (Anne of Brittany) court until June 1493 after the Treaty of Senlis had been signed in May that year. She was hurt by Charles’ actions and was left with a feeling of enduring resentment towards the House of Valois.

In order to achieve an alliance with Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Fernando II of Aragon, Maximilian started negotiating the marriage of their only son and heir, Juan, Prince of Asturias, to Margaret, as well as the marriage of their daughter Juana to Archduke Philipp. Margaret left the Netherlands for Spain late in 1496. Her engagement to the Prince of Asturias seemed doomed when the ship carrying her to Spain hit a storm in the Bay of Biscay. In haste, she wrote her own epitaph should she not reach Spain:

“Here lies Margaret, the willing bride,
Twice married – but a virgin when she died.”

However, Margaret actually married Prince Juan on April 3, 1497 in Burgos Cathedral. Tragically, John died of a fever after only six months, on October 4. Margaret was left pregnant but gave birth to a premature stillborn daughter on April 2, 1498.

Duchess of Savoy

In 1501, Margaret married Philiberto II, Duke of Savoy (1480–1504), whose realm played a decisive role in the rivalry between France and the Habsburgs in Italy on account of its strategic position in the Western Alps. They had a very stable relationship for those 3 years. When Margaret came to Savoy, the government was in the hands of René, Philiberto’s bastard brother.

Margaret fought hard to strip away his powers and possessions, even involving Maximilian (as Holy Roman Emperor, he was overlord of Savoy) to nullify the letters that gave René legitimacy. René, being declared a traitor, took refuge in France and was welcomed by his half-sister Louise of Savoy, mother of King François I of France. She then took hold of the government, while her husband focused on private hobbies like hunting (which she did share with him). She summoned councils, appointed officers, and when her brother Philipp visited, she discussed and approved his plan regarding a continued reapproachement with France.

March 22, 1459: Birth of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. Part II.

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Anne of Brittany, Archduke of Austria, Bianca Maria Sforza, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Empire, King Carlos I of Spain, Philip the Handsome

As the Treaty of Senlis had resolved French differences with the Holy Roman Empire, King Louis XII of France had secured borders in the north and turned his attention to Italy, where he made claims for the Duchy of Milan. In 1499/1500 he conquered it and drove the Sforza regent Lodovico il Moro into exile.

After his wife’s Duchess Mary of Burgundy’s death (1482) Maximilian was forced to allow the States General (representative assembly) of the Netherlands to act as regent for his infant son Archduke Philipp but, having defeated the States General in war, he reacquired control of the regency in 1485. Through marriage of his son Philipp the Handsome to eventual queen Joanna of Castile in 1498, Maximilian helped to establish the Habsburg dynasty in Spain, which allowed his grandson Charles to hold the thrones of both Castile and Aragon.

Maximilian’s second marriage was to Anne of Brittany (1477–1514) — they were married by proxy in Rennes on December 18, 1490, but the contract was dissolved by Pope Innocent VIII in early 1492, by which time Anne had already been forced by the French King, Charles VIII (the fiancé of Maximilian’s daughter Margaret of Austria) to repudiate the contract and marry him instead.

This breech of contract brought France into conflict with Maximilian. On March 16, 1494 Maximilian married Bianca Maria Sforza, a daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, by his second wife, Bona of Savoy. However, despite supporting the Duke of Milan Maximilian was unable to hinder the French from taking over Milan. The subsequent prolonged Italian Wars resulted in Maximilian joining the Holy League to counter the French. In 1513, with Henry VIII of England, Maximilian won an important victory at the battle of the Spurs against the French, stopping their advance in northern France. His campaigns in Italy were not as successful, and his progress there was quickly checked.

The situation in Italy was not the only problem Maximilian had at the time. The Swiss won a decisive victory against the Empire in the Battle of Dornach on July 22, 1499. Maximilian had no choice but to agree to a peace treaty signed on September 22, 1499 in Basel that granted the Swiss Confederacy independence from the Holy Roman Empire.

Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan

In 1496, Maximilian issued a decree which expelled all Jews from Styria and Wiener Neustadt. Similarly, in 1509 he passed the “Imperial Confiscation Mandate” which ordered the destruction of all Jewish literature apart from the Bible.

Within the Holy Roman Empire, Maximilian faced pressure from local rulers who believed that the King’s continued wars with the French to increase the power of his own house were not in their best interests. There was also a consensus that deep reforms were needed to preserve the unity of the Empire. The reforms, which had been delayed for a long time, were launched in the 1495 Reichstag at Worms. A new organ was introduced, the Reichskammergericht, that was to be largely independent from the Emperor. The new organ proved itself politically weak and its power returned to Maximilian in 1502.

Due to the difficult external and internal situation he faced, Maximilian also felt it necessary to introduce reforms in the historic territories of the House of Habsburg in order to finance his army. Using Burgundian institutions as a model, he attempted to create a unified state. This was not very successful, but one of the lasting results was the creation of three different subdivisions of the Austrian lands: Lower Austria, Upper Austria, and Vorderösterreich.

Years later, in order to reduce the growing pressures on the Empire brought about by treaties between the rulers of France, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Russia, as well as to secure Bohemia and Hungary for the Habsburgs, Maximilian met with the Jagiellonian kings Ladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia and Sigismund I of Poland at the First Congress of Vienna in 1515. There they arranged for Maximilian’s granddaughter Mary to marry Louis, the son of Ladislaus, and for Anne (the sister of Louis) to marry Maximilian’s grandson Ferdinand (both grandchildren being the children of Philip the Handsome, Maximilian’s son, and Joanna of Castile). The marriages arranged there brought Habsburg kingship over Hungary and Bohemia in 1526. Both Anne and Louis were adopted by Maximilian following the death of Ladislaus.

Thus Maximilian through his own marriages and those of his descendants (attempted unsuccessfully and successfully alike) sought, as was current practice for dynastic states at the time, to extend his sphere of influence. The marriages he arranged for both of his children more successfully fulfilled the specific goal of thwarting French interests, and after the turn of the sixteenth century, his matchmaking focused on his grandchildren, for whom he looked away from France towards the east. These political marriages were summed up in the following Latin elegiac couplet: Bella gerant aliī, tū fēlix Austria nūbe/ Nam quae Mars aliīs, dat tibi regna Venus. Translated: “Let others wage war, but thou, O happy Austria, marry; for those kingdoms which Mars gives to others, Venus gives to thee.”

Maximilian’s policies in Italy had been unsuccessful, and after 1517 Venice reconquered the last pieces of their territory. Maximilian began to focus entirely on the question of his succession. His goal was to secure the throne for a member of his house and prevent Francis I of France from gaining the throne.

In 1501, Maximilian fell from his horse and badly injured his leg, causing him pain for the rest of his life. Some historians have suggested that Maximilian was “morbidly” depressed: from 1514, he travelled everywhere with his coffin.

Maximilian died in Wels, Upper Austria, on January 12, 1519 at the age of 59. The death of Maximilian seemed to put the succession at risk. However, The Fugger family provided Maximilian a credit of one million gulden, which was used to bribe the prince-electors. However, the bribery claims have been challenged. At first, this policy seemed successful, and Maximilian managed to secure the votes from Mainz, Cologne, Brandenburg and Bohemia for his grandson Charles.

Maximilian’s son, Philipp the Handsome (King Felipe I of Castile by right of his wife) had died in 1506. The resulting “election campaign” was unprecedented due to the massive use of bribery. Within a few months the election of his grandson as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was secured. Charles had also succeeded his maternal grandfather, King Fernando II-V of Aragon and Castile in 1516 and became King Carlos I of a united Spain. With his election as Emperor, Charles V ruled an empire as vast and as powerful as that of Charlemagne ‘s centuries earlier.

Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor
Charles I as King of Spain
Charles I as Archduke of Austria
Charles II as Duke of Burgundy

March 22, 1459: Birth of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. Part I.

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Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Eleanor of Portugal, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Empire, Louis XI of France, Mary of Burgundy, Philip the Handsome, Salic Law

Maximilian I (March 22, 1459 – January 12, 1519) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death. Maximilian was the son of Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor, and Eleanor of Portugal, daughter of King Duarte of Portugal and his wife Infanta Eleanor of Aragon. Maximilian was born at Wiener Neustadt on March 22, 1459. His father named him for an obscure saint, Maximilian of Tebessa, whom Friedrich believed had once warned him of imminent peril in a dream.

Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor and Infanta Eleanor of Portugal

At the time, the dukes of Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal family, with their sophisticated nobility and court culture, were the rulers of substantial territories on the eastern and northern boundaries of France. The reigning duke, Charles the Bold, was the chief political opponent of Maximilian’s father Friedrich III. Friedrich was concerned about Burgundy’s expansive tendencies on the western border of his Holy Roman Empire, and, to forestall military conflict, he attempted to secure the marriage of Charles the Bold’s only daughter, Mary of Burgundy, to his son Maximilian. After the Siege of Neuss (1474–75), he was successful. The wedding between Maximilian and Mary took place on August 19, 1477.

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Mary, Duchess of Burgundy

Maximilian’s wife had inherited the large Burgundian domains in France and the Low Countries upon her father’s death in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Already before his coronation as the King of the Romans in 1486, Maximilian decided to secure this distant and extensive Burgundian inheritance to his family, the House of Habsburg, at all costs.

The Duchy of Burgundy was also claimed by the French crown under Salic Law, with Louis XI of France vigorously contesting the Habsburg claim to the Burgundian inheritance by means of military force. Maximilian undertook the defence of his wife’s dominions from an attack by Louis XI and defeated the French forces at Guinegate, the modern Enguinegatte, on August 7, 1479.

Maximilian and Mary’s wedding contract stipulated that their children would succeed them but that the couple could not be each other’s heirs. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Mary’s death in a riding accident on March 27, 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilian’s aim was now to secure the inheritance to his and Mary’s son, Philipp the Handsome.

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of the latter’s reign, from c. 1483 to his father’s death in 1493. Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on February 16, 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his father’s initiative and crowned on April 9, 1486 in Aachen. He became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of his father in 1493. He was never crowned by the pope, as the journey to Rome was always too risky. He was instead proclaimed Emperor Elect by Pope Julius II at Trent, thus breaking the long tradition of requiring a papal coronation for the adoption of the imperial title.

Part II Reign in the Holy Roman Empire

February 22, 1511: Death of Prince Henry, Duke of Cornwall.

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Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Catherine of Aragon, Duke of Cornwall, Ferdinand II of Aragon, Henry IX of England, Henry of Cornwall, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, House of Tudor, Janes Seymour, King Edward VI of England, King Henry VIII of England, Margaret of York

Henry, Duke of Cornwall (January 1, 1511 – February 22, 1511) was the first child of King Henry VIII of England and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and though his birth was celebrated as that of the heir apparent, he died within weeks. His death and Henry VIII’s failure to produce another surviving male heir with Catherine led to succession and marriage crises that affected the relationship between the English church and Roman Catholicism, giving rise to the English Reformation.

Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of England used from 1504 to 1554 for the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI.

Birth and christening

Henry was born on January 1, 1511 at Richmond Palace, the first live-born child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, born eighteen months after their wedding and coronation. Catherine had previously given birth to a stillborn daughter, on January 31, 1510. He was christened on January 5 in a lavish ceremony where beacons were lit in his honour. The christening gifts included a fine gold salt holder and cup weighing a total 99 ounces, given by Louis XII of France, his godfather. His other godparents were William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy * At the christening, the baby prince’s great-aunt Lady Anne Howard stood proxy for Margaret, and Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, stood proxy for the French king.

Young King Henry VIII of England

Celebrations and death

Henry VIII and his queen planned extravagant celebrations rivalling that of their joint coronation for the birth of his son, who automatically became Duke of Cornwall and heir apparent to the English throne, and was expected to become Prince of Wales, King of England, and third king of the House of Tudor, as King Henry IX. The tournament at Westminster was the most lavish of Henry’s reign, and is recorded via a long illuminated vellum roll, known as The Westminster Tournament Roll to be found in the College of Arms collection. Known as “Little Prince Hal” and “the New Year’s Boy”, the prince was fondly regarded by Henry’s court.

However, on February 22, 1511, the young prince died suddenly. The cause of his death was not recorded. He received a state funeral at Westminster Abbey. It was another two years until the Queen again became pregnant. There is no known portrait of Prince Henry. Contemporary reports state that both parents were distraught at the loss of their child. The deeply religious Catherine spent many hours kneeling on cold stone floors praying, to the worry of courtiers. Henry distracted himself from his grief by waging war against Louis XII of France with his father-in-law, Fernando II of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England

Impact of Henry, Duke of Cornwall’s death on history

Historians have speculated what course English history might have taken had Henry, Duke of Cornwall, or any other legitimate son by Catherine survived. With the couple’s failure to provide a live son, Henry VIII’s desire for a male heir was the cited reason that led him to have their marriage annulled. A living son by Catherine might have forestalled or even prevented the marriage to Anne Boleyn and placed England in a different relationship with Roman Catholicism during the Protestant Reformation, thereby affecting, and perhaps even preventing, the English Reformation that grew out of the succession crisis prior to the birth of the future Edward VI to Henry VIII and Jane Seymour in 1537. This theme has also been explored in some alternative history fiction.

* Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, (January 10, 1480 – December 1, 1530), the second child and only daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of Austria and Mary of Burgundy, co-sovereigns of the Low Countries. She was named after her stepgrandmother, Margaret of York, (May 3, 1446 – November 23, 1503) the third wife of Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy a daughter of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville.