Catharina Of SPAIN

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Queen Consort of Portugal
• Name: Catherine Of Austria
• Name: Catherine Of Habsburg

Catharina married John III King Of PORTUGAL on 10 Feb 1525. John (son of Manuel I King Of PORTUGAL and Maria Of ARAGON) was born on 06 Jun 1502 in Lisbon, Portugal; died on 11 Jun 1557 in Lisbon, Portugal; was buried in Belem. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Isabel Of PORTUGAL was born on 28 Apr 1529; died on 28 Apr 1529.
2. Maria Princess Of PORTUGAL was born on 15 Oct 1527; died on 12 Aug 1545.
3. Alfonso Prince Of PORTUGAL was born on 24 Feb 1526; died in Mar 1526.
4. John Prince Of PORTUGAL was born on 03 Jun 1537; died on 02 Jan 1554.
5. Manuel Prince Of PORTUGAL was born on 01 Nov 1531; died on 14 Apr 1537.
6. Philip Prince Of PORTUGAL was born on 25 Mar 1533; died on 29 Apr 1539.
7. Dinis Of PORTUGAL was born on 06 Apr 1535; died on 01 Jan 1537.
8. Beatriz Of PORTUGAL was born on 15 Feb 1530; died on 15 Feb 1530.
9. Antonio Of PORTUGAL was born on 09 Mar 1539; died on 20 Jan 1540.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Phillip I King Of Spain

Notes:

Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
Philip the Handsome (July 22, 1478 ? September 25, 1506), (Felipe el Hermoso - Philipp der Schˆne - Philippe le Beau) was the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Through his mother Mary of Burgundy he inherited the greater part of the Burgundian state and through his wife Joanna the Mad he briefly succeeded to the kingdom of Castile. He was the first Habsburg ruler in Spain and his successors reckoned him as Philip I of Spain.
Philip was born in Bruges, then in the County of Flanders (today in Belgium). And was named after his grandfather, Philip the Good. In 1482, upon the death of his mother Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, he succeeded to her Burgundian possessions under the guardianship of his father. A period of turmoil ensued which witnessed sporadic hostilities between, principally, the large towns of Flanders (especially Ghent and Bruges) and the supporters of Maximilian. During this interregnum, the young Philip became caught up in events and was even briefly sequestered in Bruges as part of the larger Flemish campaign to support their claims of greater autonomy, which they had wrested from Mary of Burgundy in an agreement known as the Blijde Inkomst or Joyous Entry of 1477. By the early 1490s, the turmoil of the interregnum gave way to an uneasy stand-off, with neither French support for the cities of the Franc (Flanders), nor Imperial support from Maximilian's father Frederick III proving decisive. Both sides came to terms in the Peace of Senlis in 1493, which smoothed over the internal power struggle by agreeing to make the 15-year old Philip prince in the following year.

[edit] The Burgundian Inheritance and the Spanish Alliance
In 1494 Maximilian relinquished his regency under the terms of the Treaty of Senlis and Philip, at the age of 16, took over the rule of the Burgundian lands himself, although in practice authority was derived from a council of Burgundian notables. On October 20, 1496, he married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, in Lier, Belgium.

The marriage was one of a set of family alliances between Habsburgs and Trast·mara, designed to strengthen both the against growing French power, which had increased significantly thanks to the policies of Louis XI and the successful assertion of regal power after war with the League of the Public Weal. The matter became more urgent after Charles VIII's invasion of Italy (known as the First Peninsular War).

Philip's sister Margaret married Juan, Prince of Asturias, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella and successor to the unified crowns of Castile and Aragon. [1] The double alliance was never intended to let the Spanish kingdoms fall under Habsburg control. At the time of her marriage to Philip, Juana was third in line to the throne, with both Juan and his elder sister Isabella married and hopeful of progeny.

[edit] The Castilian Inheritance
In 1500, shortly after the birth of Juana and Philip's second child (the future Charles V), the succession to the Castilian and Aragonese crowns was thrown into turmoil. The heir presumptive, Juan, had died in 1497 very shortly after his marriage to Margaret of Austria. The succession thereby passed to Isabella, who had married Manuel I of Portugal. She died in 1498, while giving birth to a son, Miguel, to whom succession to the united crowns of Castile, Aragon and Portugal now fell; however, the infant was sickly, and he died during the summer of 1500. The succession to the Castilian and Aragonese crowns now fell to Juana. Because Ferdinand could conceivably produce another heir, the Cortes of Aragon refused to recognise Juana and Philip as the heirs presumptive to the Kingdom of Aragon. In Castile, however, the succession was clear. Moreover, there was no salic tradition which the Castilian Cortes could use to thwart the succession passing to Juana. At this point, the issue of Juana's mental incompetence moved from courtly annoyance to the centre of the political stage, since it was clear that Philip and his Burgundian entourage would be the real power-holders in Castile.

In 1502, Philip, Juana and a large part of the Burgundian court travelled to Spain to receive fealty from the Cortes of Castile as king-consort of Juana, a journey chronicled in intense detail by Antoon van Lalaing (Antoine de Lalaing in French), the future Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland. Philip and the majority of the court returned to the Low Countries in the following year, leaving a pregnant Juana behind in Spain, where she gave birth to Ferdinand, later Holy Roman Emperor. Philip's life with Joanna was rendered extremely unhappy by his infidelity and by her jealousy, which, working on a neurotic temperament, furthered her insanity. The princess gave way to paroxysms of rage, in which she was guilty of acts of atrocious violence. Before her mother's death, in 1504, she was unquestionably quite insane, and husband and wife lived apart.

[edit] Struggle for Power in Spain
When Isabella died, Ferdinand endeavoured to lay hands on the regency of Castile, but the nobles, who disliked and feared him, forced him to withdraw. Philip was summoned to Spain, where he was recognized as king. He landed, with his wife, at La CoruÒa on April 28, 1506, accompanied by a body of German mercenaries. Father and son-in-law mediated under Cardinal Cisneros at Remesal, near Puebla de Sanabria, and at Renedo, the only result of which was an indecent family quarrel, in which Ferdinand professed to defend the interests of his daughter, who he said was imprisoned by her husband.

A civil war would probably have broken out between them; but Philip, who had only been in Spain long enough to prove his incapacity, died suddenly at Burgos, apparently of typhoid fever, on September 25, 1506. His wife refused for long to allow his body to be buried or to part from it.

Philip married Juana Queen Of CASTILE in 1496. Juana (daughter of Ferdinand V of Castile Ferdinand II King Of ARAGON and Isabella I Queen Of Castile And LEON) was born on 06 Nov 1479; died on 12 Apr 1555. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Joanna Of Aragon

Notes:

Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

Her youngest sister was Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. In 1496 at Lille, Joanna was married to the archduke Philip the Handsome, son of the German King Maximilian I, and at Ghent in February 1500, she gave birth to future emperor Charles V.

The death of her only brother John, Prince of Asturias, of her eldest sister Isabella of Asturias, queen of Portugal, and then of the latter's infant son Miguel, Prince of Asturias, made Joanna the heiress of the Spanish kingdoms, and in 1502 the cortes of Castile and of Aragon recognized her and her husband as their future sovereigns, already Princess and Prince of Asturias.

Joanna was said to pine day and night for her husband while he was overseas, and when she eventually joined Philip in Flanders, her passionate jealousy and constant suspicion of him made her notorious, if not necessarily beloved, in the local court.

Her mother's death left Joanna Queen of Castile in November of 1504. She and Philip set sail from Flanders to Spain, where he would assume the kingship as her husband. Their ships were wrecked on the English coast and the couple became guests of Henry VII at Windsor Castle. After they continued their trip to Spain, they landed at CoruÒa in 1506 and started their trip south for the coronation. Ferdinand, her father, claimed that Joanna was being kept prisoner by Philip and that he was speaking for her, and therefore he should be made co-regent with her. This conflict threatened to lead to civil war. However, Philip unexpectedly died due to typhus fever in Burgos in September 1506. Joanna became completely deranged ? it was almost impossible to get her away from the corpse of her husband.

F.Pradilla Ortiz: Juana la Loca Depicts Queen Joanna in vigil over her husband's coffinFerdinand's way to the regency was clear. Ferdinand convinced Joanna to grant him co-regency, and, in turn, kept her isolated in the castle of Tordesillas. After his death in 1516, her son Charles assumed the regency and was proclaimed co-king. Joanna was kept prisoner at Tordesillas, however, with the revolt of the comuneros she had a chance to resume her sole sovereignty but failed to take it. When Charles succeeded in quelling the uprising, Joanna was locked up for good in a windowless room in the castle of Tordesillas for the rest of her life. She died on Good Friday, April 12, 1555.

Joanna was the last of the original Spanish royals; after her, all royalty on the Spanish throne was from houses that had come from abroad - though most of the future monarchs also were born in Spain. Most historians believe she suffered from schizophrenia and she was kept locked away and imprisoned. Needed to legitimize the claims of her father and son to the throne, Joanna only nominally remained queen of Castile until her death. Many historians, not understanding the nature and severity of a disease like schizophrenia, have made her story into an archtypal victim parable, without adequately understanding the dangers which her condition posed to the governance of Castile.

She is entombed in the Capilla Real of Granada, alongside her parents, her husband, and her nephew Miguel.

Notes:

Maximilian I of Habsburg (March 22, 1459 ? January 12, 1519) was Holy Roman Emperor. He expanded the influence of the House of Habsburg through both war and marriage.[1

Life and reign in the Habsburg hereditary lands
Maximilian was born in Wiener Neustadt as the son of the Emperor Frederick III and Eleanore of Portugal. He married (1477) the heiress of Burgundy, Mary, the only daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Through this marriage, Maximilian obtained the Burgundian Netherlands and the Free County of Burgundy, though France took Burgundy proper.

In 1490, he bought Tyrol and Further Austria from his cousin Sigismund, the last member of the Elder Tyrolean Line of the House of Habsburg. Upon the death of his father in 1493, he inherited the remaining Habsburg possessions and thus reunified all Habsburg territories. That same year Maximilian married Bianca Maria Sforza (d. 1510), the daughter of the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan as he had been a widower since the death of his first wife in 1482.

Reign in Burgundy and The Netherlands
Maximilian governed his first wife's vast inheritance in the Low Countries, and prosecuted a war over them with Louis XI, King of France on her behalf[1]. Upon the Duke of Burgundy's death in 1477, the Duchy of Burgundy had reverted to the French crown under Salic Law. Louis further attempted to expand his control into the Burgundian Netherlands. Mary, who was only 20 and yet unmarried, refused a proposed marriage to the Dauphin as a way to settle the dispute, and when she married Maximilian less than a year after her father's death, she used his power to try to take back the parts of her father's lands Louis had acquired. Maximilian was successful in the war and in stabilizing the Netherlands, but some of the Netherland provinces were hostile to him, and when Mary died unexpectedly in March 1482, they signed a treaty with Louis in 1482 which forced Maximilian to give Franche ComtÈ and Artois to Louis[1]. Louis died in 1483 and his successor, Charles VIII of France, was a minor whose regent, Anne of France, ended France's bellicosity for a time. Maximilian continued to govern Mary's remaining inheritance in the name of their young son, Philip the Handsome. After the regency ended, Maximilian and Charles VIII exchanged these two territories for Burgundy and Picardy in the Treaty of Senlis (1493). Thus ultimately much of the Netherlands became and remained a Habsburg possession.

[edit] Reign in the Holy Roman Empire
Elected King of the Romans in 1486 at the initiative of his father, he also stood at the head of the Holy Roman Empire upon his father's death in 1493. The following year, after he married a daughter of the Duke of Milan, Maximilian sought to expand his power in parts of Italy[1]. This brought French intervention in Italy, inaugurating the prolonged Italian Wars[1]. He joined the Holy League to counter the French. Maximilian lost, but after his death the Empire ultimately won. Maximilian was also forced to grant independence to Switzerland[1], where he had tried to re-establish the lost Habsburg dominance.

Maximilian is possibly best known for leading the 1495 Reichstag at Worms which concluded on the Reichsreform (Imperial Reform), reshaping much of the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire. In the 1499 Treaty of Basel, Maximilian was forced to acknowledge the de-facto independence of the Swiss confederacy from the Empire as a result of the Battle of Dornach.

In 1508, Maximilian, with the assent of the Pope, took the title of Elected Roman Emperor (Erw‰hlter Rˆmischer Kaiser), and thus ended the century-old custom that the Holy Roman Emperor had to be crowned by the pope.

[edit] Tu felix Austria nube

Emperor Maximilian I and his familyAs part of the Treaty of Arras, Maximilian betrothed his three-year-old daughter Margaret to the Dauphin (later Charles VIII), son of his adversary Louis XI. Louis had attempted seven years earlier to arrange a betrothal between the Dauphin and Margaret's mother, Mary. Under the terms of Margaret's betrothal, she was sent to Louis to be brought up under his guardianship. Despite the death of Louis in 1483, shortly after Margaret arrived in France, she remained at the French court. The Dauphin, now Charles VIII, was still a minor, and his regent until 1491 was his sister, Anne of France. Anne's first betrothal, to the Duke of Lorraine, had ended when the Duke broke it off in order to pursue Mary of Burgundy (and died shortly afterwards). Despite Margaret's betrothal and continued presence at the French court, Anne arranged a marriage between Charles and Anne of Brittany. She, in turn, had been betrothed in 1483, and actually married by proxy in 1491, to Maximilian himself, but Charles and his sister wanted her inheritance for France. The final result of all of these machinations was that Charles repudiated his betrothal to Margaret when he came of age in 1491, invaded Brittany, forced Anne of Brittany to repudiate her unconsummated marriage to Maximilian, and married her. (They had four children who all died in infancy, and after Charles died, his widow married his cousin and successor, Louis XII.) Margaret still remained in France until 1493, when she was finally returned to her father. She married twice more.

In 1493, Maximilian contracted another marriage for himself, this time to the daughter of the Duke of Milan, whence ensued the lengthy Italian Wars with France. Thus Maximilian through his own marriages (and attempted marriage) sought to extend his sphere of influence against that of France. The marriages he arranged for both of his children more successfully fulfilled the same goal, and after the turn of the Sixteenth Century, his matchmaking focused on his grandchildren, for whom he looked opposite France towards the east.

In order to reduce the growing pressures on the Empire brought about by treaties between the rulers of France, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Russia, as well as to secure Bohemia and Hungary for the Habsburgs, Maximilian I met with the Jagiellonian kings Ladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia and Sigismund I of Poland at Vienna in 1515. There they arranged for Maximilian's grand-daughter Mary to marry Louis, the son of Ladislaus, and for Anne (the sister of Louis) to marry Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand (both grandchildren being the children of Philip the Handsome, Maximilian's son, and Juana la Loca of Castile). The marriages arranged there brought Habsburg kingship over Hungary and Bohemia in 1526. Both Anne and Louis were adopted by Maximilian following the death of Ladislaus. These political marriages have led the commonly attributed statement "Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube," roughly translated as "While others wage war, you, fortunate Austria, marry."

[edit] Death and legacy
Maximilian died in Wels, Upper Austria, and was succeeded as Emperor by his grandson Charles V, his son Philip the Handsome having died in 1506. Although he is buried in the Castle Chapel at Wiener Neustadt, a cenotaph tomb for Maximilian is located in the Innsbruck Hofkirche[1].

Maximilian was a keen supporter of the arts and sciences, and he surrounded himself with scholars such as Joachim Vadian and Andreas Stoberl (Stiborius), promoting them to important court posts.

Maximilian had appointed his daughter Margarete of Austria as both Regent of the Netherlands and the guardian and educator of his grandsons Charles and Ferdinand (their father, Philip, having predeceased Maximilian), and she fulfilled this task well. Through wars and marriages he extended the Habsburg influence in every direction: to the Netherlands, Spain, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. This influence would last for centuries and shape much of European history.

Charles built on his grandfather's successes and enlarged the Empire. He united the Habsburg Netherlands which Maximilian had ruled for his wife and son Philip.

Maximilian married Marie Of BURGUNDY on 18 Aug 1477. Marie (daughter of Charles I The Bold Duke Of BURGUNDY and Isabella Of BOURBON) was born on 13 Feb 1457; died on 27 Mar 1482. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Mary (February 13, 1457 ? March 27, 1482), Duchess of Burgundy, was the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon.

Heiress of Burgundy
As the only child of Charles, the Valois heiress of the rich Burgundian domains, her hand was eagerly sought by a number of princes. When her father fell upon the field at the siege of Nancy, on January 5, 1477, Mary was not yet twenty years of age. Louis XI of France seized the opportunity afforded by his rival's defeat and death to take possession of the Duchy of Burgundy as a fief lapsed to the French crown, and also of Franche ComtÈ, Picardy and Artois.

He was anxious that Mary should marry the Dauphin Charles and thus secure the inheritance of the Low Countries for his descendants, by force of arms if necessary. Mary, however, distrusted Louis, declined the French alliance, and turned to her Netherland subjects for help. She obtained their help only at the price of great concessions.

[edit] The Great Privilege
On February 10, 1477 at Ghent she was compelled to sign a charter of rights, known as "the Great Privilege," by which the provinces and towns of Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut, and Holland recovered all the local and communal rights which had been abolished by the arbitrary decrees of the dukes of Burgundy in their efforts to create in the Low Countries a centralized state on the French model. Mary had to undertake not to declare war, make peace, or raise taxes without the consent of the States, and not to employ any but natives in official posts.

Such was the hatred of the people for the old regime that two of her father's influential councillors, the Chancellor Hugonet and the Sire d'Humbercourt, having been discovered in correspondence with the French king, were executed at Ghent despite the tears and entreaties of the youthful duchess.

[edit] Marriage
Mary now made her choice among the many suitors for her hand, and selected the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, afterwards the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and the marriage took place at Ghent on August 18, 1477. In this way the Low Countries came to the Habsburgs, initiating two centuries of contention between France and Austria for their possession, which climaxed in the War of the Spanish Succession, 1701?1714.

In the Netherlands, affairs now went more smoothly, the French aggression was temporarily checked, and internal peace was in a large measure restored.

[edit] Death and Legacy
Five years later, the 25-year-old Duchess met her death by a fall from her horse on March 27 1482. Louis was swift to reengage, and forced Maximilian to agree to the Treaty of Arras (1482) by which Franche ComtÈ and Artois passed for a time to French rule, only to be exchanged for Burgundy and Picardy in the Treaty of Senlis (1493), which established peace in the Low Countries.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Ferdinand V King Of Aragon
• Fact: Between 1468 and 1516, King of Castile, Sicily
• Fact: 1469, Became Ferdinand V of Castile when he married Isabella
• Fact: Between 1479 and 1516, King of Aragon
• Fact: Between 1504 and 1516, King of Naples
• Death: 1516

Notes:

Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

Ferdinand was the son of John II of Aragon by his second wife, the Aragonese noblewoman Juana Enriquez. He married Infanta Isabella, the half-sister and heiress of Henry IV of Castile, on October 19, 1469 in OcaÒa and became Ferdinand V of Castile when Isabella succeeded her brother as Queen of Castile in 1474. The two young monarchs were initially obliged to fight a civil war against Juana, princess of Castile (also known as Juana la Beltraneja), the purported daughter of Henry IV, but were ultimately successful. When Ferdinand succeeded his father as King of Aragon in 1479, the Crown of Castile and the various territories of the Crown of Aragon were united in a personal union creating for the first time since the 8th century a single political unit which might be called Spain, although the various territories were not properly administered as a single unit until the 18th century.

The first decades of Ferdinand and Isabella's joint rule were taken up with the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim enclave in the Iberian peninsula, which was completed by 1492. In that same year, the Jews were expelled from both Castile and Aragon, and Christopher Columbus was sent by the couple on his expedition which would ultimately discover the New World. By the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, the extra-European world was split between the crowns of Portugal and Castile by a north-south line through the Atlantic Ocean.

The latter part of Ferdinand's life was largely taken up with disputes over control of Italy with successive Kings of France, the so-called Italian Wars. In 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and expelled Ferdinand's cousin, Alfonso II, from the throne of Naples. Ferdinand allied with various Italian princes and with Emperor Maximilian I, to expel the French by 1496 and install Alfonso's son, Ferdinand, on the Neapolitan throne. In 1501, following the death of Ferdinand II of Naples and his succession by his uncle Frederick, Ferdinand of Aragon signed an agreement with Charles VIII's successor, Louis XII, who had just successfully asserted his claims to the Duchy of Milan, to partition Naples between them, with Campania and the Abruzzi, including Naples itself, going to the French and Ferdinand taking Apulia and Calabria. The agreement soon fell apart, and over the next several years, Ferdinand's great general Gonzalo Fern·ndez de CÛrdoba conquered Naples from the French, having succeeded by 1504. Another less famous "conquest" took place in 1503, when Andreas Paleologus, de jure Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, left Ferdinand and Isabella as heirs to the empire, thus Ferdinand became de jure Roman Emperor.

After Isabella's death, her kingdom went to her daughter Joanna. Ferdinand served as the latter's regent during her absence in the Netherlands, ruled by her husband Archduke Philip. Ferdinand attempted to retain the regency permanently, but was rebuffed by the Castilian nobility and replaced with Joanna's husband, who became Philip I of Castile. After Philip's death in 1506, with Joanna mentally unstable, and her and Philip's son Charles of Ghent was only six years old, Ferdinand resumed the regency, ruling through Francisco Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros, the Chancellor of the Kingdom.

In 1508, war resumed in Italy, this time against Venice, which all the other powers on the peninsula, including Louis XII, Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Pope Julius II joined together against as the League of Cambrai. Although the French were victorious against Venice at the Battle of Agnadello, the League soon fell apart, as both the Pope and Ferdinand became suspicious of French intentions. Instead, the Holy League was formed, in which now all the powers joined together against France.

In November 1511 Ferdinand and his son-in-law Henry VIII of England signed the Treaty of Westminster, pledging mutual aid between the two against France. Earlier that year, Ferdinand had conquered the southern half of the Kingdom of Navarre, which was ruled by a French nobleman, and annexed it to Spain. At this point Ferdinand remarried with the much younger Germaine of Foix (1490?1538), a grand-daughter of Queen Leonor of Navarre, to reinforce his claim to the kingdom. The Holy League was generally successful in Italy, as well, driving the French from Milan, which was restored to its Sforza dukes by the peace treaty in 1513. The French were successful in reconquering Milan two years later, however.

Ferdinand died in 1516 in Madrigalejo, C·ceres, Extremadura. He had made Spain the most powerful country in Europe. The succession of his grandson Charles, who would inherit not only the Spanish lands of his maternal grandparents, but the Habsburg and Burgundian lands of his paternal family, would make his heirs the most powerful rulers on the continent. Charles succeeded him in the Aragonese lands, and was also granted the Castilian crown jointly with his insane mother, bringing about at long last the unification of the Spanish thrones under one head.

Ferdinand married Isabella I Queen Of Castile And LEON on 19 Oct 1469 in Ocana. Isabella (daughter of JuanIIJohn II King Of Castile And LEON and Isabel Of PORTUGAL) was born on 23 Apr 1451; died on 26 Nov 1504. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Isabel I Queen Of Castile
• Residence: Between 1474 and 1504, Queen of Castile and Leon
• Death: 1501

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Holy Roman Emperor
• Name: Frederick III King Of The Germans

Notes:

Frederick III of Habsburg (Innsbruck, September 21, 1415 ? August 19, 1493 in Linz) was elected as German King as the successor of Albert II in 1440. He was the son of Duke Ernest the Iron from the Leopoldinian line of the Habsburg family ruling Inner Austria, i.e. Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and of his wife Cymburgis of Masovia. As an Austrian Habsburg Duke, he became Frederick V in 1424, and Frederick IV as Geman king, and then Frederick III with his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. He married in 1452, at age 37, the 18-year-old Princess Eleonor of Portugal, whose dowry helped him to alleviate his debts and cement his power.

In 1442, Frederick allied himself with Rudolf St¸ssi, burgomaster of Z¸rich, against the Old Swiss Confederacy in the Old Z¸rich War (Alter Z¸richkrieg).

In 1446, he entered into the Vienna Concordat with the Holy See, which remained in force until 1806 and regulated the relationship between the Habsburgs and the Holy See.

Frederick was the last Emperor to be crowned in Rome, being crowned in 1452 by Pope Nicholas V. He opposed the reform of the Holy Roman Empire at that time and was barely able to prevent the electors from electing another king.

His politics were hardly spectacular but still successful. His first major opponent was his brother Albert VI, who challenged his rule. He did not manage to win a single conflict on the battlefield, and thus resorted to more subtle plans. He held his nephew Ladislaus Posthumus, the ruler of the Archduchy of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, (born in 1440) as a prisoner and attempted to extend his guardianship over him in perpetuity to maintain his control over Lower Austria. Ladislaus was freed in 1452 by the Lower Austrian estates. He acted similarly towards his nephew Sigismund of the Tyrolian line of the Habsburg family. Despite those efforts, he failed to gain control over Hungary and Bohemia, and was even defeated by the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus in 1485, who managed to reside in Vienna until his death later that year. Ultimately, Frederick prevailed in all those conflicts by outliving his opponents and sometimes inheriting their lands from, such as in the case of his nephew Ladislaus Posthumus, from whom he gained Lower Austria in 1457, and his brother Albert VI, whom he succeeded in Upper Austria. These conflicts forced him to an anachronistic itinerant existence, as he had to move his court between various places through the years, residing in Graz, Linz and Wiener Neustadt. Wiener Neustadt owes him its castle and the "New Monastery".

Still, in some ways his policies were astonishingly successful. In the Siege of Neuss, he could force Charles the Bold of Burgundy to give his daughter Mary of Burgundy as wife to Frederick's son Maximilian. With the inheritance of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg began to rise to predominance in Europe. This gave rise to the saying "Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry", which became a motto of the dynasty.

The marriage of his daughter Kunigunde of Austria to Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria, was another result of intrigues and deception, but rather a defeat for Frederick. Albert had illegally taken control over some imperial fiefs, asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father) and offered the Emperor to give the fiefs to the daughter as a dowry. Frederick agreed, but withdrew his approval when Albert also took control of Regensburg. Before the daughter learned of this, Albert had married her on January 2, 1487. A war could be prevented only by intermediation by the Emperor's son, Maximilian.

In some smaller issues, Frederick was quite successful: in 1469 he managed to establish bishoprics in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, in which all previous Dukes of Austria had failed over the centuries.

Frederick died in a failed attempt to have his left leg amputated. His grave, built by Niclaes Gerhaert van Leyden, in the Stephansdom in Vienna is one of the most important works of sculptural art of the late middle ages.

For the last ten years of Frederick's life, he and Maximilian ruled jointly.

Frederick married Eleonora Of PORTUGAL on 08 Mar 1452 in Naples. Eleonora (daughter of Edward of Portugal Duarte I King Of PORTUGAL and Queen of Portugal Leonor Of ARAGON) was born on 18 Sep 1434; died on 01 Sep 1467. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Also Known As: Leonor of Portugal

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: There were no issues.
• Residence: Count of Charolais
• Residence: Duke of Burgundy

Notes:

Charles, called the Bold or the Rash (French: Charles le TÈmÈraire) (November 10, 1433 ? January 5, 1477) was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477. He was known as Charles the Terrible to his detractors.

He was born in Dijon, the son of Philip III, Duke of Burgundy and Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy. In his father's lifetime (1433-1467) he bore the title of Count of Charolais; afterwards, he assumed all of his father's titles, including that of "Grand Duke of the West". He was also created a Knight of the Golden Fleece but twenty days after his birth, being invested by Charles I, Count of Nevers and the seigneur de Croy.

He was brought up under the direction of the seigneur d'Auxy, and early showed great application to study and also to warlike exercises. He was on familiar terms with the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XI), when the latter was a refugee at the Court of Burgundy. But he viewed with chagrin the repurchase by the King of France of the towns on the Somme, which had been temporarily ceded to Philip the Good by the Treaty of Arras; and when his father's failing health enabled him to take into his hands the reins of government (which Philip abandoned to him completely by an act of April 12, 1465), he entered upon his lifelong struggle against Louis XI, and became one of the principal leaders of the League of the Public Weal.

[edit] Early battles
His bravery at the Battle of MontlhÈry (July 13, 1465), where he was wounded and was left master of the field, neither prevented the King from re-entering Paris nor assured Charles a decisive victory. He succeeded, however, in forcing upon Louis the Treaty of Conflans (October 1465), by which the King restored to him the towns on the Somme, and promised him the hand of his infant daughter Catherine, with Champagne as dowry.

In the meanwhile, the Count of Charolais obtained the surrender of Ponthieu. The revolt of LiËge and Dinant intervened to divert his attention from the affairs of France. On August 25, 1466, Charles took possession of Dinant, which he pillaged and sacked, and succeeded in treating at the same time with the Bishopric of LiËge. After the death of his father, Philip the Good (June 15, 1467), the Bishopric of LiËge renewed hostilities, but Charles defeated them at Sint-Truiden, and made a victorious entry into LiËge, which he dismantled and deprived of some of its privileges.

[edit] Treaty of PÈronne
Alarmed by these early successes of the Duke of Burgundy, and anxious to settle various questions relating to the execution of the treaty of Conflans, Louis requested a meeting with Charles and placed himself in his hands at PÈronne. In the course of the negotiations the Duke was informed of a fresh revolt of the Bishopric of LiËge secretly fomented by Louis. After deliberating for four days how to deal with his adversary, who had thus maladroitly placed himself at his mercy, Charles decided to respect the parole he had given and to treat with Louis (October 1468), at the same time forcing him to assist in quelling the revolt. The town was carried by assault and the inhabitants were massacred, Louis not having the courage to intervene on behalf of his ancient allies.

At the expiry of the one year's truce which followed the Treaty of PÈronne, the King accused Charles of treason, cited him to appear before the parlement, and seized some of the towns on the Somme (1471). The Duke retaliated by invading France with a large army, taking possession of Nesle and massacring its inhabitants. He failed, however, in an attack on Beauvais, and had to content himself with ravaging the country as far as Rouen, eventually retiring without having attained any useful result.

[edit] Domestic policies
Other matters, moreover, engaged his attention. Relinquishing, if not the stately magnificence, at least the gay and wasteful profusion which had characterized the court of Burgundy under his father, he had bent all his efforts towards the development of his military and political power. Since the beginning of his reign he had employed himself in reorganizing his army and the administration of his territories. While retaining the principles of feudal recruiting, he had endeavoured to establish a system of rigid discipline among his troops, which he had strengthened by taking into his pay foreign mercenaries, particularly Englishmen and Italians, and by developing his artillery.

[edit] Building a kingdom
Furthermore, he had lost no opportunity of extending his power. In 1469, the Archduke of Austria, Sigismund, had sold him the county of Ferrette, the Landgraviate of Alsace, and some other towns, reserving to himself the right to repurchase.

In 1472-1473, Charles bought the reversion of the Duchy of Guelders from its old Duke, Arnold, whom he had supported against the rebellion of his son. Not content with being "the Grand Duke of the West," he conceived the project of forming a kingdom of Burgundy or Aries with himself as independent sovereign, and even persuaded the Emperor Frederick to assent to crown him king at Trier. The ceremony, however, did not take place owing to the Emperor's precipitate flight by night (September 1473), occasioned by his displeasure at the Duke's attitude.

[edit] Downfall

Charles the Bold as imagined in a Victorian engraving.In the following year Charles involved himself in a series of difficulties and struggles which ultimately brought about his downfall. He embroiled himself successively with the Archduke Sigismund of Austria, to whom he refused to restore his possessions in Alsace for the stipulated sum; with the Swiss, who supported the free towns of Upper Rhine in their revolt against the tyranny of the ducal governor, Peter von Hagenbach (who was condemned by a special international tribunal and executed in May 1474); and finally, with RenÈ II, Duke of Lorraine, with whom he disputed the succession of Lorraine, the possession of which had united the two principal portions of Charles's territories? Flanders and the Low Countries and the Duchy and County of Burgundy. All these enemies, incited and supported as they were by Louis, were not long in joining forces against their common adversary.

Charles suffered a first rebuff in endeavouring to protect his kinsman, the Archbishop of Cologne, against his rebel subjects. He spent ten months (July 1474 ? June 1475) in besieging the little town of Neuss on the Rhine (the Siege of Neuss), but was compelled by the approach of a powerful imperial army to raise the siege. Moreover, the expedition he had persuaded his brother-in-law, Edward IV of England, to undertake against Louis was stopped by the Treaty of Picquigny (August 29, 1475). He was more successful in Lorraine, where he seized Nancy (November 30, 1475).

From Nancy he marched against the Swiss, hanging and drowning the garrison of Grandson, a possession of the Savoyard Jacques de Romont, a close ally of Charles, which the Confederates had invested shortly before, and in spite of their capitulation. Some days later, however, he was attacked before Grandson by the confederate army in the Battle of Grandson and suffered a shameful defeat, being compelled to fly with a handful of attendants, and leaving his artillery and an immense booty in the hands of the allies (March 1476).

He succeeded in raising a fresh army of 30,000 men, with which he attacked Morat, but he was again defeated by the Swiss army, assisted by the cavalry of RenÈ II, Duke of Lorraine (June 22, 1476). On this occasion, and unlike the debacle at Grandson, little booty was lost, but Charles certainly lost about one third of his entire army, the unfortunate losers being pushed into the nearby lake where they were drowned or shot at whilst trying to swim to safety on the opposite shore. On October 6 Charles lost Nancy, which RenÈ re-entered.

[edit] Death at Nancy

Depiction of finding his body after the Battle of Nancy.Making a last effort, Charles formed a new army and arrived in the depth of winter before the walls of Nancy. Having lost many of his troops through the severe cold, it was with only a few thousand men that he met the joint forces of the Lorrainers and the Swiss, who had come to the relief of the town, at the Battle of Nancy (January 5, 1477). He himself perished in the fight, his naked body being discovered some days afterwards, the face so mutilated by wild animals that only his physician was able to identify him by old scars on his body.

[edit] Legacy
Charles the Bold has often been regarded as the last representative of the feudal spirit?a man who possessed no other quality than a blind bravery.

Charles married Isabella Of BOURBON in 1454. Isabella (daughter of Charles I Duke Of BOURBON and Agnes Of BURGUNDY) was born in 1436; died in 1465. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Juan married ? UNKNOWN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: Between 1406 and 1454, King of Castile and Leon

Notes:

Juan II (March 6, 1405 ? July 20, 1454) was King of Castile from 1406 to 1454.

He was the son of Henry III of Castile and his wife Katherine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt by Constance of Castile, daughter of King Pedro of Castile (aka. Pedro the Cruel). He was also great-grandson of King Edward III of England through the maternal line.

He succeeded his father on December 25, 1406, at the age of a year and ten months, and united in his person the claims of Pedro the Cruel and of Henry of Trastamara. It was one of the many misfortunes of Castile that the long reign of John II?forty-nine years?should have been granted to one of the least capable of her kings. Juan was amiable, weak, and dependent on those about him. He had no taste except for ornament and no serious interest except in amusements such as verse-making, hunting, and tournaments.

He was entirely under the influence of his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, until his second wife, Queen Isabella of Portugal, obtained control of his feeble will. At her instigation, he dismissed his faithful and able favorite, an act which is said to have caused him much remorse. He died on July 20, 1454, at Valladolid. By his second marriage he was the father of Isabella "the Catholic."

JuanIIJohn married Isabel Of PORTUGAL in Aug 1447 in Madrigal. Isabel (daughter of John Of PORTUGAL and Isabel Of PORTUGAL) was born in 1430; died on 15 Aug 1496 in Averalo; was buried in Miraflores, near Burgos. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Birth: 1428