Maria Anna of Austria (1634-1696)
Maria Anna von Habsburg (Spanish: Mariana de Austria ; * December 23, 1634 in Wiener Neustadt ; † May 16, 1696 in Madrid ) was Queen of Spain from 1649 to 1665 and from 1665 to 1675 when she was a minor through marriage to Philip IV of her son Charles II. Regent of Spain.
Lineage, Early Life, and Marriage
Maria Anna was born on December 23, 1634 in Wiener Neustadt as the second child and eldest daughter of the later (since 1637) Roman-German Emperor Ferdinand III. and his first wife Maria Anna of Spain born. At the time of her birth her father was only a Bohemian-Hungarian king and during the period of his wife's pregnancy mostly absent on campaigns of the Thirty Years' War . Three of Maria Anna's siblings died when they were young. Her eldest brother, Ferdinand IV. , Became King of the Romans in 1653, but died the following year. In 1658 her younger brother, Leopold I , advanced to become Roman-German Emperor.
When Maria Anna's mother, who came from the Spanish line of the Habsburgs , passed away on May 13, 1646 at the age of 39, her father and her uncle Philip IV of Spain agreed to initiate a new family connection. This project was in the tradition of the Habsburg family policy of guaranteeing succession in both lines through alternate marriages between members of their Austrian and Spanish lines. Maria Anna, who was only 11 years old, got engaged to the eldest son of King Philip IV, Baltasar Carlos . Since he died on October 9, 1646 at the age of only 17 and Philip IV was now without male offspring and heir to the throne, the Spanish king, widowed since the death of his wife Isabella von Bourbon (1644), finally decided to become his much younger niece to marry yourself. The wedding of Maria Anna and Philip IV took place on November 8, 1649 in Navalcarnero near Madrid. They spent their wedding night in the Escorial . In Spain the new wife of Philip IV was called Mariana .
Queen of Spain
Because of Philip IV's infidelity and the great age difference, Maria Anna's marriage was not particularly happy. Originally a happy young girl, the strict Spanish court ceremonies made her more and more bitter, melancholy and closed in the course of her life.
Maria Anna had five children with her husband, only two of whom reached adulthood. Almost two years after their marriage, the Queen gave birth to a daughter, Margarita Maria Teresa , on July 12, 1651 , then another daughter, Maria Ambrosia de la Concepción on December 7, 1655, who died two weeks later, and on November 28 1657 her first son, Felipe Próspero , who was greeted with joy. A second son, Fernando Tomás Carlos, who was born at the end of 1658, only reached an age of 10 months.
Since the Infanta Maria Teresa , the only surviving daughter of Philip IV with Isabella von Bourbon, now had a significantly lower chance of inheriting the Spanish throne due to the birth of Felipe Próspero, her father finally consented to the demand made by France to include her King Louis XIV to marry. Although Maria Anna opposed this marriage plan for her stepdaughter and tried to work in the interests of her brother, Emperor Leopold, who intended to take Maria Teresa himself as wife, the Infanta married the Sun King in June 1660. After all, according to a clause in her marriage contract, Maria Teresa had to renounce all claims to the Spanish crown for herself and her descendants. Maria Anna had also worked hard to ensure that this condition came about. Emperor Leopold was promised the hand of Maria Anna's eldest daughter in February 1660.
The death of their son Felipe Próspero on November 1, 1661 was a great misfortune for Philip IV and his wife, but just five days later the queen gave birth to another son, Carlos, who after Philip's death in 1665 as Charles II became the last Habsburg king of Spain. However, due to the inbreeding that had taken place over generations, he was severely handicapped and sickly.
Regent of Spain
After the death of Philip IV on September 17, 1665, Maria Anna became the guardian regent for her four-year-old son Karl, in accordance with his last will. In his will, the late king had set up a government commission ( junta de gobierno ) at her side, made up of carefully selected prominent personalities from politics, church and society. In addition, Maria Anna, who, contrary to custom, postponed the Castilian Cortes indefinitely, also relied on her favorites to secure the reign. This role was initially played by her Upper Austrian confessor, the Jesuit father Johann Eberhard Neidhardt , whom the regent made a member of the government commission and in September 1666 made inquisitor general of Spain. Neidhardt had a strong influence on the queen widow and was now her most powerful minister. Because of his foreign origins and wrong domestic political decisions, he quickly became hostile to large sections of the government and the population.
When Maria Anna assumed the reign, Spain was politically and militarily weakened due to its earlier protracted wars against France and the Netherlands and the unsuccessful attempts at reconquering Portugal in the early 1660s, while France had risen in its place. Serious epidemics further decimated the population and damaged the Spanish agricultural sector and industry. Despite this difficult situation, Maria Anna at least succeeded in marrying her eldest daughter to Emperor Leopold I in 1666 as planned.
During a sea voyage undertaken in 1668, the Jesuit missionary Diego Luis de San Vitores named the Mariana Islands after the Spanish regent. This recognized the independence of Portugal in February of the same year and in July 1670 in the Treaty of Madrid the conquests achieved by England under Cromwell in the Caribbean , in particular the occupation of Jamaica .
In the meantime, there was a power struggle between Neidhardt and King Philip IV's illegitimate son, Don Juan de Austria , who had been legitimized by his father and was very popular. Maria Anna turned against Don Juan. But when he threatened to approach with numerous armed men and several Spanish grandees and the papal nuncio urged Neidhardt's dismissal, the regent had to give in to this demand in February 1669 and send Neidhardt to Rome as ambassador. Don Juan now became viceroy of Aragon , but failed to establish himself in the center of power, Madrid. The regent, for her part, did not have much political capacity to act in the remaining time until her son Karl came of age in November 1675; no sustainable decisions were made in Madrid. After Neidhardt's fall, her new favorite Fernando de Valenzuela , son of an Andalusian nobleman , gained a great deal of trust and influence with Maria Anna .
The news of the death of her eldest daughter Margarita Teresa in Vienna in 1673 pained Maria Anna very much. When her son Charles II reached the age of 14 on November 6, 1675 and, according to his father's will, was allowed to run the government himself, he called his half-brother from Saragossa to Madrid and wanted to make him prime minister. Don Juan came up with a sizeable band of armed supporters, but left without having achieved anything after the young king, who had meanwhile been retuned by his mother, extended her reign for two years.
Fernando de Valenzuela was meanwhile appointed Marquis of Villasierra and finally Prime Minister. Therefore Maria Anna's conflicts with some of the grandees of the empire intensified. In a manifesto dated December 15, 1676, they demanded that the regent be removed from the king’s surroundings, that Valenzuela be arrested and that Don Juan be made an influential advisor to Charles II. In January 1677 Valenzuela had to abdicate and was exiled to the Philippines . Maria Anna had to go into exile in Toledo while Don Juan became the new Prime Minister.
Later years and death
Don Juan initiated the marriage of Charles II to the French Princess Marie Louise d'Orléans and thus thwarted Maria Anna's plan to marry her son to Maria Antonia of Austria , a daughter of Emperor Leopold I. Accordingly, the niece of the Sun King first married the Spanish monarch on August 31, 1679 by procurationem in Fontainebleau Castle . This marriage union was intended to tie Spain more closely to the kingdom of the Sun King and promoted further alienation between the courts of Madrid and Vienna. But now Charles II sought closer contact with his mother, who was able to move back into Madrid immediately after Don Juan's death on September 17, 1679. On November 19, 1679, the Spanish king and his bride celebrated their actual wedding near Burgos . Maria Anna fell in love with her daughter-in-law, while she no longer had such cordial relations with Leopold I, as he had not supported her in the power struggle with Don Juan.
Marie Louise, who in contrast to her mother-in-law had no political influence, had no offspring and died on February 12, 1689 at the age of just 27 years. On May 4, 1690, Charles II married the German Princess Maria Anna of the Palatinate , which brought the courts of Madrid and Vienna closer together. Unlike Marie Louise, Charles's second wife showed political ambitions, which she was able to achieve in part due to her husband's weakness in making decisions. Like her predecessor, she had no children, so that the question of who would become the new Spanish king after the death of Charles II came to the fore. As heir to the throne, Maria Anna of the Palatinate favored a son of Leopold I from his third marriage with her sister Eleonore Magdalene von Pfalz-Neuburg . On the other hand, Karl's mother tried doggedly to secure the succession for her great-grandson Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria .
Maria Anna died of breast cancer on May 16, 1696 at the age of 61 in the Uceda Palace in Madrid and was buried in the Pantheon of Kings of the El Escorial Monastery. Just under three years later, Joseph Ferdinand also passed away at the age of only six. In 1700/1701, after the death of Charles II, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out.
progeny
- Margarita María Teresa (July 12, 1651 - March 12, 1673) ⚭ 1666 Leopold I (1640–1705), Holy Roman Emperor
- Maria Ambrosia de la Concepción (7 December 1655 - 21 December 1655),
- Felipe Próspero (born November 28, 1657 - † November 1, 1661),
- Fernando Tomás Carlos (23 December 1658 - 22 October 1659),
- Charles II (November 6, 1661 - November 1, 1700), King of Spain
ancestors
| Charles II (Inner Austria) (1540–1590) | |||||||||||||
| Ferdinand II (HRR) (1578-1637) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Anna of Bavaria (1551–1608) | |||||||||||||
| Ferdinand III. (HRR) (1608-1657) | |||||||||||||
| Wilhelm V (Bavaria) (1548–1626) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Anna of Bavaria (1574-1616) | |||||||||||||
| Renata of Lorraine (1544–1602) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Anna of Austria (1634-1696) | |||||||||||||
| Philip II (Spain) (1527–1598) | |||||||||||||
| Philip III (Spain) (1578-1621) | |||||||||||||
| Anna of Austria (1549–1580) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Anna of Spain (1606–1646) | |||||||||||||
| Charles II (Inner Austria) (1540–1590) | |||||||||||||
| Margaret of Austria (1584–1611) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Anna of Bavaria (1551–1608) | |||||||||||||
literature
- Wilhelm Donko: Austria-Philippines 1521–1898 - Austrian - Filipino points of reference, relationships and encounters during the period of Spanish rule . Verlag epubli.de GmbH, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-8442-0853-5 (for naming the Marianas after Maria Anna of Austria: pp. 59–67)
- Feliciano Barrios Pintado: Mariana de Austria , in: Diccionario biográfico español , Madrid 2009–2013, online version
- Gottfried Mraz : Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 203 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Maria Anna , in: Brigitte Hamann (Ed.): Die Habsburger , 1988, p. 296 f.
- Richard Reifenscheid: The Habsburgs . Weltbild Verlag, ISBN 3-85001-484-3
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Habsburg, Maria Anna (Queen of Spain) . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 7th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1861, p. 24 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Elisabeth de Bourbon |
Queen of Spain 1649–1665 regent 1665–1675 |
Marie Louise de Bourbon-Orléans |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Maria Anna of Austria |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Habsburg, Maria Anna von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Wife of Philip IV of Spain |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 23, 1634 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wiener Neustadt |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 16, 1696 |
| Place of death | Madrid |