Margaret of Austria – The ailing Archduchess

Margaret of Austria was born on 16 February 1536 as the daughter of the future Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anne of Bohemia and Hungary. She was their ninth child and seventh daughter. She was born in Innsbruck.¹

Alongside her sisters Helena and Magdelena, she expressed the wish to stay unmarried. Nevertheless, when Margaret was 14 years old, a plan was floated that saw her marrying her cousin, the future King Philip II. This didn’t happen, and Philip ended up marrying Queen Mary I of England in 1554.²

They founded the Ladies’ Convent of Hall together, but Margaret would not live long enough to move in.

Josef Hirn wrote, “Margaretha had been ailing for years. After an apparent recovery, she became ill again in the summer of 1566. She first sought relief by going to her sister, the Duchess of Bavaria [Anna], and when her condition did not improve, she moved to the Haller Pfannhaus with her two sisters. Here, death ended her suffering.”³

She had been under the care of her personal physician, Dr Merenda, the Bavarian Dr Cortoneus and doctors Schweiker and Alexandrini. Schweiker diagnosed her with a lung disease.³

Margaret died on 12 March 1567.

Her burial took place five days later at the Court Church in Innsbruck. Five years later, she would be transferred to the convent at Hall, where she now rests with Helena and Magdalena.⁴

1. Die Habsburger by Brigitte Hamann p.277
2. Philipp II.: Biographie eines Weltherrschers by Friedrich Edelmayer
3. Erzherzog Ferdinand II. von Tirol: Geschichte seiner Regierung und … Volume 2 by Josef Hirn p.162
4. Die Stadt Hall in Tirol, der Salzberg im Hallthale, die Saline und der Bezirk Hall by Peter Regalat Stolzissi p.19