June 21, 1528: Birth of Archduchess Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia

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and Croatia, Archduchess Maria of Austria, Archduchess of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Infanta of Spain, King Carlos I of Spain, Kingdom of Spain, Queen of Bohemia

Archduchess Maria of Austria (June 21, 1528 – February 16, 1603) was the empress consort and queen consort of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. She served as regent of Spain in the absence of her father Emperor Charles V from 1548 until 1551.

Early life

Maria was born in Madrid, Spain to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, (Carlos I of Spain) and Isabella of Portugal, the second child and first daughter of King Manuel I of Portugal and his second wife, Maria of Aragon, herself the the third surviving daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Fernando II-V of Aragon and Castile (the Catholic monarchs).

As a member of the House of Habsburg she was both an Archduchess of Austria and an Infanta of Spain.

Archduchess Maria grew up mostly between Toledo and Valladolid with her siblings, Archduke Philipp and Archduchess Joanna of Austria. They built a strong family bond despite their father’s regular absences. Maria and her brother, Philipp, shared similar strong personal views and policies which they retained during the rest of their lives.

Regent of Spain

On September 15, 1548, aged twenty, she married her first cousin Archduke Maximilian of Austria the eldest son of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, younger brother of Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Jagiellonian Princess Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547).

The couple had sixteen children during the course of a twenty-eight-year marriage.

While her father was occupied with German affairs, Maria and Maximilian acted as regents of Spain from 1548 to 1551 during the absence of Infante Felipe I of Spain. Maria stayed at the Spanish court until August 1551, and in 1552, the couple moved to live at the court of Maximilian’s father in Vienna.

In 1558, Maria returned to Madrid and acted as regent of Spain during the absence of her brother, now King Felipe II, from 1558 to 1561.

Empress

After her return to Germany, her husband eventually succeeded his father Ferdinand I, at his death, as Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia which he ruled from 1564 to his death in 1576.

Maria was a devout Catholic and frequently disagreed with her religiously ambiguous husband about his religious tolerance.

During her life in Austria, Maria was reportedly ill at ease in a country which was not entirely Catholic, and she surrounded herself with a circle of strictly Catholic courtiers, many of whom she had brought with her from Spain. Her court was organized by her Spanish chief lady-in-waiting Maria de Requenes in a Spanish manner, and among her favorite companions was her Spanish lady-in-waiting Margarita de Cardona.

In 1576, Maximilian II died. Maria remained at the Imperial Court for six years after his death. She had great influence over her sons, the future emperors Rudolf and Matthias.

Return to Spain

Maria returned to Spain in 1582, taking her youngest surviving child Archduchess Margaret with her, promised to marry Felipe II of Spain, who had lost his fourth wife, her oldest daughter, Archduchess Anna in 1580. Margaret finally refused and took the veil as a Poor Clare. Commenting that she was very happy to live in “a country without heretics”, Maria settled in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where she lived until her death in 1603.

She was the patron of the noted Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, and the great Requiem Mass he wrote in 1603 for her funeral is considered among the best and most refined of his works.

Maria exerted some influence together with Queen Margaret, the wife of her grandson/nephew, Felipe III of Spain. Margaret, the sister of the future Emperor Ferdinand II, would be one of three women at Felipe III’s court who would apply considerable influence over the king.

Margaret was considered by contemporaries to be extremely pious – in some cases, excessively pious, and too influenced by the Church, and ‘astute and very skillful’ in her political dealings, although ‘melancholic’ and unhappy over the influence of the Duke of Lerma over her husband at court. Margaret continued to fight an ongoing battle with Lerma for influence until her death in 1611. Felipe had an ‘affectionate, close relationship’ with Margaret, and paid her additional attention after she bore him a son, also named Felipe in 1605.

Maria, the Austrian representative to the Spanish court – and Margaret of the Cross, Maria’s daughter – along with queen Margaret, were a powerful Catholic and pro-Austrian faction in the court of Felipe III of Spain.

They were successful, for example, in convincing Felipe to provide financial support to Ferdinand from 1600 onwards. Felipe III steadily acquired other religious advisors. Father Juan de Santa Maria, the confessor to Felipe III’s daughter, Maria Anna, was felt by contemporaries to have an excessive influence over Felipe at the end of his life, and both he and Luis de Aliaga, Felipe III’s own confessor, were credited with the overthrow of Lerma in 1618. Similarly Mariana de San Jose, a favoured nun of Queen Margaret’s, was also criticised for her later influence over the King’s actions.

July 8, 1545: Birth of Carlos, Prince of Asturias. Part I.

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Carlos of the Asturias, Catherine of Aragon, Catherine of Austria, Henry II of France, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Empire, John III of Portugal, King Carlos I of Spain, Kingdom of Spain, Philip II of Spain

Carlos, Prince of Asturias, also known as Don Carlos (July 8 1545 – July 24, 1568), was the eldest son and heir-apparent of King Felipe II of Spain. His mother was Infanta María-Manuela of Portugal, daughter of João III of Portugal and Catherine of Austria, Infanta of Castile and Archduchess of Austria, Catherine was the posthumous daughter of King Felipe I by Queen Joanna of Castile. Catherine was born in Torquemada and named in honor of her maternal aunt, Catherine of Aragon.

Carlos was born at Valladolid on July 8, 1545, the son of the double first cousins Felipe II of Spain and Infanta María-Manuela of Portugal. His paternal grandfather, Emperor Charles V, was the reigning king of Spain. Carlos’s mother María died four days after the birth of her son from a haemorrhage she had suffered following the birth.

The young Infante Carlos was delicate and deformed. He grew up proud and willful and, as a young adult, began to show signs of mental instability. Many of his physical and psychological afflictions may have stemmed from the inbreeding common to his family, the House of Habsburg, and the royal houses of Portugal (House of Aviz) and Spain.

Carlos had only four great-grandparents instead of the maximum of eight, and his parents had the same coefficient of co-ancestry (1/4) as if they were half siblings. He had only six great-great-grandparents, instead of the maximum 16; his maternal grandmother and his paternal grandfather were siblings, his maternal grandfather and his paternal grandmother were also siblings, and his two great-grandmothers were sisters.

In 1556, Emperor Charles V abdicated and retired to the Monastery of Yuste in southern Spain, leaving the Spanish holdings of his empire to his son, who became King Felipe II, who was Carlos’s father. The former emperor died in 1558, and the following year, Prince Carlos was betrothed to Elizabeth of Valois, eldest daughter of King Henri II of France. However, for political reasons, and for his father’s mistrust on Carlos’s temper, Elizabeth of Valois instead married his father, King Felipe II, in 1560.

The health of Carlos was always weak. At age 14 he fell ill with malaria, which provoked severe deformations in his legs and spinal column. In 1561 the doctors of the court recommended him to move permanently to Alcalá de Henares for his health, as the climate was milder. Carlos constantly complained about his father’s resistance to giving him positions of authority.

Finally, the King gave him a position in the Council of Castile and another in the Council of Aragon. This only made Carlos more furious, since both organisations were important but ultimately consultative. He showed no interest in the councils or in familiarising himself with political matters through them.

Three other brides were then suggested for the Prince: Mary I, Queen of Scots; Margaret of Valois, youngest daughter of Henri II of France; and Archduchess Anna of Austria, who was later to become Felipe II’s fourth wife, and was a daughter of Felipe’s cousin, Emperor Maximilian II and Felipe’s sister Maria. It was agreed in 1564 that Carlos should marry Anna. His father promised him rule over the Low Countries in 1559, before his accident, but Carlos’s growing mental instability after it, along with his demonstrations of sadism, made his father hesitate and ultimately change his mind, which enraged Carlos further.

In 1562, he suffered a serious head injury falling downstairs while chasing a serving girl. The prince was close to death, in terrible pain and suffering delusions. After trying all sorts of remedies, including doctors of all types, healers, and even the relics of Diego de Alcalá, his life was saved by a trepanation of the skull, performed by the eminent anatomist Andreas Vesalius.

After his recovery, Carlos became even wilder, more unstable in his temper and unpredictable in his behaviour. His father was forced to move him away from any position of power. He took a dislike to the Duke of Alba, who became the commander of Felipe’s forces in the Netherlands, a position that had been promised to Carlos.

June 21, 1528: Birth of Archduchess Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress and Queen consort of Bohemia and Hungary.

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Archduchess Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, King Carlos I of Spain, King Felipe II of Spain, King Philip II of Spain

Archduchess Maria of Austria (June 21, 1528 – February 26, 1603) was Holy Roman Empress and queen consort of Bohemia and Hungary as the spouse of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia and Hungary. She served as regent of Spain in the absence of her father Holy Roman Emperor Charles V from 1548 until 1551, and in the absence of her brother Felipe II of Spain from 1558 to 1561.

Archduchess Maria of Austria

Archduchess Maria was born in Madrid, Spain to Charles V (Carlos I) Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, and Infanta Isabella of Portugal. She grew up mostly between Toledo and Valladolid with her siblings, Felipe and Joanna. They built a strong family bond despite their father’s regular absences. Maria and her brother, Philip, shared similar strong personal views and policies which they retained during the rest of their lives.

On September 15, 1548, aged twenty, she married her first cousin Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the eldest son of the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand I, younger brother of Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Jagiellonian princess Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547).

He was named after his great-grandfather, Emperor Maximilian I. At the time of his birth, his father Ferdinand succeeded his brother-in-law King Louis II in the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Kingdom of Hungary, laying the grounds for the global Habsburg Monarchy. Maximilian II was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague on May 14, 1562 and elected King of Germany (King of the Romans) on November 24,1562. On September 8, 1563 he was crowned King of Hungary and Croatia in the Hungarian capital Pressburg (Pozsony in Hungarian; now Bratislava, Slovakia). On July 24, 1564 he succeeded his father Ferdinand I as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.

The couple had sixteen children during the course of a twenty-eight-year marriage.

Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia.

While her father was occupied with German affairs, Maria and Maximilian acted as regents of Spain from 1548 to 1551 during the absence of Prince Felipe. Maria stayed at the Spanish court until August 1551, and in 1552, the couple moved to live at the court of Maximilian’s father in Vienna. In 1558, Maria returned to Madrid and acted as regent of Spain during the absence of her brother, now King Felipe II, from 1558 to 1561.

Empress

After her return to Germany, her husband eventually succeeded his father Ferdinand I, at his death, as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia and Hungary, which he ruled from 1564 to his death in 1576. Maria was a devout Catholic and frequently disagreed with her religiously ambiguous husband.

During her life in Austria, Maria was reportedly ill at ease in a country which was not entirely Catholic, and she surrounded herself with a circle of strictly Catholic courtiers, many of whom she had brought with her from Spain. Her court was organized by her Spanish chief lady-in-waiting Maria de Requenes in a Spanish manner, and among her favorite companions was her Spanish lady-in-waiting Margarita de Cardona.

In 1576, Maximilian died. Maria remained at the Imperial Court for six years after his death. She had great influence over her sons, the future emperors Rudolf and Matthias.

Maria returned to Spain in 1582, taking her youngest surviving child Archduchess Margaret with her. Archduchess Margaret promised to marry Felipe II of Spain, who had lost his fourth wife, his niece and Maria’s her oldest daughter, Archduchess Anna in 1580. This would haven Felipe’s second marriage to one of his nieces. Archduchess Margaret finally refused to marry her uncle and instead took the veil as a Poor Clare. Commenting that she was very happy to live in “a country without heretics”, Maria settled in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where she lived until her death in 1603.

Maria exerted some influence together with Queen Margaret, the wife of her grandson, Felipe III of Spain. Margaret
was the daughter of Archduke Charles II of Austria and Maria-Anna of Bavaria and thus the paternal granddaughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and the sister of the future Emperor Ferdinand II. Queen Margaret would be one of three women at Felipe III’s court who would apply considerable influence over the king.

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