Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress (1528-1603)

Dynastic Networker

Rubén González Cuerva

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367646592
• eBook ISBN: 9781000468939
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Frühneuzeitliche Geschichte

Maria of Austria was one of the longest surviving Renaissance Empresses but until now has received little attention by biographers. This book explores her life, actions, and management of domestic affairs, which became a feared example of how an Empress could control alternative spheres of power.

The volume traces the path of a Castilian orphan infanta, raised among her mother's Portuguese ladies-in-waiting and who spent thirty years of marriage between the imperial courts of Prague and Vienna. Empress Maria encapsulates the complex dynastic functioning of the Habsburgs: devotedly married to her cousin Maximilian II, Maria had constant communication with her father Charles V and her brother Philip II while preserving her Spanish background. Her unique intertwining of roles and positions allows a fresh approach to female agency and the discussion of current issues: the rules of dynastic entente, the negotiation of discreet political roles for royal women, the reassessment of informal diplomacy, and the creation of dynastic networks parallel to the embassies.

With chronological chapters discussing Empress Maria's roles such as infanta, regent, Empress, and a widow, this volume is the perfect resource for scholars and students interested in the history of gender, court culture, and early modern Central Europe.

1

INFANTA MARIA

A discreet childhood (1528–1539)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003125693-2

I found in the Lady Infanta Dona Maria, the eldest one, another prince, her brother, both in person and disposition; […] blessed will be he, […] who will take her as his wife.¹

Maria represented the most lasting and parallel of all of Philip II’s female relations, both in terms of chronology (they were born and died within a few years of each other) and in terms of their temperaments and activities. Throughout her life, Maria was repeatedly compared to her powerful elder brother, whose work she complemented in the dynastic sphere. She inherited and embodied the German legacy of her father Charles V, while her sister Juana took over the Portuguese connection from her mother Isabel of Portugal and Philip II remained essentially a Spanish monarch. As second in line of succession, Maria was destined for an illustrious marriage in which she was expected to have many offspring and prove her piety and prudence. Her first twenty years as an unmarried infanta were a period of preparation but also a testing ground for her ability to communicate and intercede, qualities which would later define her role as a dynastic agent. With whom and how did Maria relate during her residence in Castile? In what kind of political culture was she educated in terms of areas of action and room for manoeuvre?

Maria was born in the old Alcázar of Madrid at noon on 21 June 1528 and was immediately baptised, probably in the Palace parish (then the church of San Miguel de Sagra). Her father Charles V was at the Courts of Monzón at the time (in the current province of Huesca), and it therefore seems that it was through the initiative of her mother, Isabel of Portugal, that she was named after her maternal grandmother, María of Trastámara. Although her name connected her with the Iberian legacy of the dynasty, the choice of her godparents, possibly her father’s idea, linked her to the Central European side of the family: these were the future Emperor Ferdinand I and the Governor of the Netherlands, Marguerite of Austria, brother and aunt, respectively, of Charles V.²

Maria’s birth took place during the first lengthy separation of the couple. Before his departure, Charles V was careful to leave his wife “a household that was in many respects organised in a Castilian manner.”³ Domestic service in Isabel of Portugal’s household was conducted in a typically Portuguese fashion, which prominent Castilian ministers in the imperial circle tried to counterbalance with the customs of Castile, the land which gradually established itself as the governing centre of Charles V’s inheritance.⁴ Thus, from the moment of her birth, Maria found herself at the crossroads of various overlapping, and occasionally subtly competing, European cultural legacies (Portuguese, Castilian, and Austro-Burgundian), which would eventually define her personal style.

Indirect testimonies of Maria’s upbringing and development reiterated the traditional commonplaces about the health and beauty of the child.⁵ Her personality was scrutinised over time for signs of her ability to fulfil what was expected of her in the future, namely to influence her relatives and promote a climate of understanding among them: “the lady infanta has already begun to win her mother’s favour, and rightly so, and in concord with the prince, which is no small thing.”⁶

As was usually the case with royal children, Maria and her brother Philip II were attached to the household of their mother, Isabel of Portugal, which was characterised by its limited size and organisational weaknesses. This was due to the children’s young age and the itinerant nature of the court, whose movements were often dictated by the presence of disease or famine in the regions through which it passed. The siblings spent their first years in different towns and cities of Old Castile and the Kingdom of Toledo with the exception of a journey to the Crown of Aragon in 1533 to meet Charles V in Barcelona on his return to Spain.⁷ Particularly notable among the small number of servants that accompanied them were the strong Portuguese element and the considerable presence of Catalans and Valencians through the Requesens and Borja lineages.⁸ The children never lived with other members of the dynasty except with their cousin Louis of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, who died prematurely in 1536, and with their grandmother Juana of Castile (the so-called “Mad queen”) during their brief stays in Tordesillas (1532, 1536, 1538), whose impact on young Maria is open to debate.⁹

The Portuguese female entourage of Isabel of Portugal therefore provided the primary context of sociability for Maria, benefiting from the long family ties and the common Iberian cultural framework shared with the Portuguese dynasty of Avis.¹⁰ Moreover, the Habsburg-Avis marriage agreement had been twofold, as the marriage of Charles V to Isabel in 1526 was preceded in 1525 by that of John III of Portugal, Isabel’s brother, to Catarina of Austria, Charles’ younger sister. This reciprocity and relative family trust (in both cases the spouses were first cousins) opened possibilities for greater flexibility in the dynastic relations.

In Lisbon, Catarina of Austria kept her first lady of the bedchamber, the Castilian María de Velasco, as her favourite and enjoyed a close relationship with the ambassador of her brother Charles V, Lope Hurtado.¹¹ In the delicate disagreements between the two crowns, as in the dispute about the allocation of the Moluccas in 1529, Catarina played a discreet but effective intermediary role between her husband and her brother, employing a language of friendship and familiarity.¹² The undisguised zeal with which Catarina served her brother Charles V in Lisbon found no parallel in Castile, since Isabel of Portugal exhibited a more reserved attitude and Charles V had to ask her to write to her brother John III in order to promote his interests.¹³

In fact, the princesses always had to negotiate several roles simultaneously, and it would be a mistake to see them as fifth columnists of a foreign government. The court texts which scrutinise the actions of these women are concerned with their ability to win over their husbands’ will, a type of influence which was by nature changeable and conditioned.¹⁴ Unlike her sister-in-law Catarina of Austria, Isabel did not directly attract comment for supporting her brother and home country. Attention was primarily drawn to her household and ladies-in-waiting, a sphere which was vulnerable to accusations of isolation and exclusivity. The clash of national identities contributed to the image of those Portuguese women as pretentious and uncouth.¹⁵

Concerns about the composition of this close-knit and markedly Portuguese circle did not only stem from xenophobic fears but also involved an important political dimension. The royal household constituted a natural framework of sociability for Charles V’s progeny, and even more so for his daughters, who were to be raised with these women until the time of their wedding. This experience proved decisive for Maria’s later development in two ways. On the one hand, growing up in a house which was relatively isolated and culturally distinct from the rest of courtly society may explain why she was able to retain her household in the Empire in the same remarkable way in which her mother had preserved hers in Castile.

On the other hand, young Maria’s horizon of expectations was more directed towards the West than the North, as she was quite unfamiliar with the Central European part of the dynasty. From the moment of her birth, which was celebrated in Lisbon “more than I could say,”¹⁶ Isabel had intended her first-born daughter to weave stronger bonds with the Avis. This was her request to Charles V in her will in 1529: marrying in Portugal “will be much better for her [Maria] than elsewhere.”¹⁷ In one of the earliest testimonies to Maria’s behaviour during an audience, on the occasion of the reception of the French envoy Brissac in 1538, it was pointed out that Prince Philip embraced him, whereas Maria neither did so nor shook his hand. By contrast, she showed great poise at the hearings with Portuguese representatives.¹⁸ For the princess, the Portuguese court, which she only knew from hearsay, served as a standard of comparison with her experience in Castile: during the refurbishment of the Alcázar of Madrid in 1545, Maria asked one of her Portuguese servants whether this new palace was better than the one in Sintra.¹⁹

In daily life, Isabel was affectionate in private but strict in public, admonishing Maria and Philip and even punishing them if they failed to keep to their schedules and tasks. A Portuguese wet nurse, Maria de Leite, was in charge of nursing Infanta Maria, whose daily care was the responsibility of the most trusted ladies-in-waiting, particularly of the Portuguese Leonor de Mascarenhas and, to a lesser extent, the Castilian Inés Manrique and Isabel de Quiñones, all under the supervision of the first lady of the bedchamber, also the Portuguese Guiomar de Melo.²⁰ The daily routine followed a model which had been established by Isabel of Portugal and was based on a “Portuguese-style” service. It was never recorded in writing but was sufficiently well known for Charles V to order that it should continue unchanged after his wife’s death.²¹

In this apparently peaceful family setting, Maria and Philip spent a loving and harmonious childhood sharing lodgings, retinue, and rules. He entertained her “as a courteous gentleman,” and she planned to organise a soirée when she turned twenty years old. At the age of seven Philip was already able to ride and gave his mules to Maria as a present; all their arguments seemed to revolve around settling who had more clothes, although their mother had forbidden them those of gold cloth.²² As the two children grew up, the gender roles which they learned also became more differentiated, and their beginnings in gallantry, horse riding, and modes of dress were noted by court sources with satisfaction. Although they continued to live together under maternal supervision, domestic service in Prince Philip’s household was separated after 1535, and on important occasions, such as the birth of Infanta Juana in Madrid in 1535, the prince and the women were housed in different buildings...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Infanta Maria: a discreet childhood (1528–1539)
• 2 The orphan learning at court (1539–1548)
• 3 The exercise of authority: marriage and the Iberian regency (1548–1551)
• 4 The Queen of Bohemia fighting for her own space (1552–1564)
• 5 Empress consort, discreet mediator (1564–1576)
• 6 The uncertain role of the dowager empress (1576–1581)
• 7 Establishing an imperial household in Madrid (1581–1587)
• 8 The empress without an empire and the dynastic turn (1587–1598)
• 9 New opportunities? The reign of Philip III (1598–1603)
• Conclusions
• Sources and bibliography
• Index