Mary of Austria – “A woman, no less” (Part one)

Mary of Austria was born on 15 September 1505 at the Coudenberg Palace in Brussels as the daughter of Queen Joanna and King Philip I of Castile. She was their third daughter and fifth child and the first to be born after Joanna’s accession as Queen regnant of Castile. Her siblings were Eleanor (later Queen of Portugal and France), Charles (later Holy Roman Emperor), Isabella (later Queen of Denmark), Ferdinand (later Holy Roman Emperor), and Catherine (later Queen of Portugal).

Ferdinand and Catherine would grow up in Castile, while the others would grow up in the Low Countries.

Mary was baptised five days later at the Notre Dame de Sablon church. Her mother had already been secluded due to her mental health problems, and after her return to Castile, she was confined at Tordesillas from 1507. Due to her mother’s absence, Mary, alongside her siblings, Eleanor, Isabella and Charles, grew up in the care of their aunt, Margaret of Austria, at her court in Mechelen. Their father died on 25 September 1506, apparently of typhoid fever.

Here, she received an excellent education, and she learned Latin, Greek, literature, history, writing, drama, French, Dutch, Spanish, German, and Italian. Mary learned to play the organ, the clavichord, and the lute, cultivating her love of music from an early age. She was also an accomplished dancer, horse rider, and hunter.

As the family patriarch, her grandfather Maximilian played a large part in her life. Even before it was clear that the child Anne of Foix-Candale, Queen of Hungary, was carrying was a boy, it was determined that Mary should marry him. Mary herself was six months old at that point. On 1 July 1506, Anne indeed gave birth to a boy – the future King Louis II. Tragically, the birth cost Anne her life. Two years later, it was also settled that one of Mary’s brothers was to wed Louis’s elder sister, also named Anne.

When Mary was eight years old, Maximilian insisted on bringing her to Vienna for the official betrothal with Louis and her further education. This worried her aunt Margaret, who insisted that Mary’s governess be allowed to accompany her. On 22 July 1515, Mary and Louis were betrothed in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. They had met for the first time just three days earlier. It was an unusual double “wedding” as it also confirmed the betrothal of Anne and a still unspecified brother of Mary. On the occasion of the wedding, over 200 citizens were knighted. Anne and Mary remained in Vienna for now, but the death of Louis’s father, Vladislaus II, on 13 March 1516 plunged Hungary into a power struggle, and the Ottoman threat continued.

On  12 January 1519, Mary’s grandfather Maximilian also died, and she was deeply affected by his death. She wrote to her brother Ferdinand, “By the death of our good grandfather, I have lost everything.”¹ Their brother Charles now became the new Holy Roman Emperor.

It was finally time for Mary to join Louis in Hungary, and she departed for Buda. It turned out to be a happy marriage, and Mary tried to support him in his struggles. On 11 December 1521, Mary was crowned and anointed as Queen of Hungary, followed by the blessing of the royal marriage on 13 January 1522. She was also crowned Queen of Bohemia on 1 June 1522. Due to her husband’s weak health, it was Mary who took charge of the affairs of government.

She and Louis began to show sympathy for the teachings of Luther, which enraged her brother Ferdinand. Mary’s take-charge attitude had earned her both supporters and enemies. In the meantime, the Ottoman threat was coming closer and closer. In July 1526, Louis went to war with the armies of Suleiman the Magnificent.

The Battle of Mohács brought their happy marriage to a sudden end. Louis died on 29 August 1526 on the battlefield after falling from his horse and becoming trapped underneath it. He was still only 20 years old. Mary learned of her husband’s death on 30 August. She fled to Bratislava and would never return to Buda. She was devastated by Louis’s death and did not know what to do.

John Zápolya was crowned King of Hungary on 11 November 1526, but his reign was disputed by Mary’s brother Ferdinand, who had married Louis’s sister Anne in 1521. In her role as regent, Mary worked tirelessly to promote Ferdinand as King of Hungary and declared John’s coronation invalid. The threat of Ferdinand’s large army meant that a large number of Hungarian nobles went to Ferdinand’s side, and he was chosen as King in a rump Diet on 17 December 1526.

The following year, Mary moved to Vienna and gave up the regency of Hungary in 1528. Despite her loneliness, she was determined not to remarry, and she refused any marriage candidate offered up by her brothers, much to their annoyance. When her aunt Margaret died on 1 December 1530, the position of Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands became vacant. Charles now wished to appoint Mary to this position.

In March 1531, Mary arrived in the Low Countries for a new start in life. She met Charles in Louvain, where he implored her not to allow the Lutheran heresy to flourish.²

As governor, Mary was given broad political leeway, and she was allowed to make many decisions on her own as long as she remained within the limits that he had set. Where the military was concerned, she had less leeway. Charles wanted to keep control over who had made treaties with or went to war with. This frustrated Mary as she was quite the strategist and often knew what needed to be done. Nevertheless, she often had to wait a long time for Charles’s official approval.

Read part two here.

1. Maria van Hongarije by Bob van Boogert and Jacqueline Kerkhoff p.40
2. Maria van Hongarije by Bob van Boogert and Jacqueline Kerkhoff p.96