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

Read part one here.

After being installed as governor on 5 July 1531, Mary moved her court to Brussels and sold her aunt’s palace to the city of Mechelen. Perhaps one of her biggest challenges was her personal sympathy for Protestantism, but she had to remain opposed to it publicly. Charles could be cruel to her, and he once told her, “You are a woman; you are not allowed to speak of such things.”¹ She was forced to execute Charles’s religious policies.

She was faced with unrest in the Low Countries several times and acted as a mediator during these times. However, she did not have enough military manpower to end any uprising. She also continued to act as a fundraiser for her brother, as he was almost constantly at war with France.

Her court in Brussels consisted of over 150 people, and the protocol would rule over daily life. Religion played a large part, and Mary went to Mass daily. She also maintained her love of music, and musicians accompanied her when she travelled. She took in her nieces, Dorothea and Christina, after the death of their mother, Isabella, and their aunt, Margaret. Mary became especially close to Christina, and Mary was horrified to learn that the 11-year-old Christina was due to marry the much older Duke of Milan.

She wrote to her brother, “Monseigneur, since the words of the treaty clearly show that the marriage is to be consummated immediately and she will have to take her departure without delay, I must point out that she is not yet old enough for this, being only eleven years and a half, and I hold that it would be contrary to the laws of God and reason to marry her at so tender an age.”² Charles refused to yield, but Mary managed to delay the wedding anyway.

Mary would be Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands for 24 years. She had been considering giving up the job for some time, and her health had been in decline as well. She asked Charles for permission to withdraw to Spain with her sister, Eleanor. At the time, Charles was also in the process of passing power to his son and brother. Charles tried everything he could to keep Mary as governor, but while she was devoted to Charles, she was less attached to his son, the future King Philip II. In the end, Mary was allowed to resign.

On 25 October 1555, Charles transferred the sovereignty of the Habsburg Netherlands to Philip as Mary watched on. He took the time to praise Mary for her work. Mary also spoke and asked for forgiveness for any mistakes she had made. She said, “If my abilities, my knowledge and my wealth had been commensurate with the goodwill, love and devotion with which I have given myself to this office, I am sure that no monarch would ever have been better served and no country would ever have been better governed than thou.”³

It wasn’t until September 1556 that Charles, Eleanor and Mary finally departed for Spain. While Charles headed for a convent in Yuste, the sisters had not decided where to settle. Mary had wanted to be with her mother, Joanna, but she died in April 1555. Eleanor had one wish above all – to see her daughter again. She had one daughter named Maria from her first marriage to King Manuel I of Portugal, but she had not seen her since she was a child. The Portuguese court was not willing to cooperate in facilitating a meeting. While they waited out the negotiations, Mary and Eleanor travelled to Jarandilla, from where they could visit Charles.

Finally, a meeting was arranged between Eleanor and Maria and on 14 December 1557, Mary joined her sister and travelled to Badajoz. They stayed there for three weeks and showered Maria with gifts. In the end, Maria did not want to stay with her mother and chose to return to Lisbon. After this meeting, Eleanor and Mary wanted to visit Our Lady of Guadalupe, but Eleanor fell ill while on the way. Mary wrote to their brother, “It’s so sad to see her like this; she could no longer speak; she sobbed and shed so many tears.”⁴ Eleanor died at Talavera on 18 February 1558.

Despite everything, both Charles and Philip still tried to convince her to return to the Habsburg Netherlands. In March 1558, she settled in Cigales as she awaited Philip’s permission for where she could stay. In September, she finally conceded under terms, among others, that the assignment was temporary. During this time, her brother Charles lay dying, and he would no doubt be comforted by the fact that she would be returning to the Habsburg Netherlands. But she would not see him again – he died on 21 September 1558.

His death hit Mary hard. In early October, she was struck twice by heart problems, but she insisted that she would still go. She rested at Valladolid before returning to Cigales, where the preparations were being made. On 18 October 1558, she suffered a third heart attack, which proved to be fatal. Her niece, Joanna, had been present at her bedside, and she told Philip that their aunt had to be in heaven, as she had died as such a good Christian.⁵

In her will, she requested that a small golden heart necklace, once worn by her husband Louis, should be melted and donated to the poor.⁵

Mary saw her governorship as a failure and blamed it partly on her sex. She wrote, “How could I have been so reckless to think that I am capable of leading this government, or any government, as a woman no less, and as such incapable of the important acts of government?” She seemed to have forgotten that both her grandmother and her mother ruled in their own right, admittedly with varying degrees of success, but still. Mary underestimated herself, and even the people of the Netherlands knew they had lost a great leader.⁶

1. Macht, vrouwen en politiek 1477-1558 by Monika Triest p.214
2. Christina of Denmark. Duchess of Milan and Lorraine. 1522–1590 by Julia Cartwright p.42
3. Maria van Hongarije by Bob van Boogert and Jacqueline Kerkhoff p.209
4. Maria van Hongarije by Bob van Boogert and Jacqueline Kerkhoff p.213
5. Maria van Hongarije by Bob van Boogert and Jacqueline Kerkhoff p.216
6. Macht, vrouwen en politiek 1477-1558 by Monika Triest