| Archduchess Maria | |
|---|---|
| Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg | |
 Portrait by Hans Besser, c. 1555 | |
| Born | (1531-05-15)15 May 1531 Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 11 December 1581(1581-12-11) (aged 50) Hambach Castle, Niederzier, Duchy of Jülich, Holy Roman Empire |
| Spouse |
William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg
(m. 1546) |
| Issue | |
| House | Habsburg |
| Father | Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor |
| Mother | Anna of Bohemia and Hungary |
Archduchess Maria of Austria (15 May 1531 – 11 December 1581) was the daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor from the House of Habsburg and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary.
Life
Maria was born on the 15 May 1531 in Prague. The same year as her birth her father had been elected King of the romans, and the so the designated heir of the emperor, Marias paternal uncle Charles V. Governing the Austrian hereditary lands from Innsbruck,and Maria and her siblings grew up there.
Although Marias parents marriage like so many of their class had been arranged for political reasons, it had turned out to be a happy union with mutual affection apparent between the couple.
Maria was described as small for her age and described as "almost intelligent" and with excellent manners and attractive, though she had inherited the facial features so characteristic of the Habsburgs.
As both their parents had a love of learning, Maria and her siblings received a strict and thorough education from the humanist Kaspar Ursinus Velius. Learning German,Italian and French. as well receiving a Catholic religious education. Both Marias parents were devout Catholics;Ferdinand on one occasion threatened to have anyone who exposed his children to Lutheranism executed. Maria and her sisters were also taught to play keyboard instruments and to dance.
Marriage
Because of two treaties made between her uncle Charles V the first being Treaty of Venlo and the Brussels alliance wherein the Duke promissed to end his alliance with France in return for the duchy of Guelders. Furthermore the emperor proposed a marriage between the William and one of the emperors nieces with William was being allowed to pick between Maria and her sister Anne.
The only complication was that William was already married to Jeanne d´Albret, since 1541. But the marriage was annulled by the Pope on the grounds that it had not been consummated and that Jeanne had been married against her will.
In June,1546 Maria,her mother and her sister Anne arrived in Regensburg for the marriage negotiations and to meet the prospective groom,these negotations were completed the following month. William initially chose Marias sister, but instead Anna was married to Albrecht V of Bavaria. On the 18 July 1546 Maria married William in a lavish ceremony with festivites for some days.
The following year her mother Anna,died in childbed giving birth to her youngest daughter,Joanna.
Life in Düsseldorf
Little is known about Marias life after marriage at the court of Jülich. Information about her is very scarce, and some historians have concluded from this that the princess had little mental capacity,explaining the comment about her "being almost intelligent" Letters of her husband from the year 1560 bear witness as much to the tender relationship of the two spouses to each other as to Marias supposed infirmity. According to a diplomat who visited the court of William the following year,that Maria was mentally disturbed at the time , because as a result of her husband's marriage to Jeanne she had doubts about the legality of her own marriage .
The mental illness of her son Johann Wilhelm, born in 1562, finds its natural explanation in this way as inherited from his mother. The theory that the princess was sickly and therefore not a part of court life the fact that she gave birth to six children in eight years wich might have taxed her already frail health and psyche and pushed her into mental confusion. Her paternal grandmother was Joanna of Castile and much like her grandmother she was regarded as moody and was at first temporarily and later entirely insane.
Death
Maria passed away on the 11 December at Hambach castle.
Marriage
She married William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg on 18 July 1546 as his second wife. Their children were:
- Marie Eleonore (1550–1608); married Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia
- Anna (1552–1632); married Philip Louis, Count Palatine of Neuburg
- Magdalene (1553–1633); married John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, brother of Philip Louis, Count Palatine of Neuburg
- Charles Frederick (1555–1575)
- Elizabeth (1556–1561)
- Sibylle (1557–1627); married Karl II Habsburg (1560–1618) of Austria, Margrave of Burgau, a morganatic son of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria
- John William (1562–1609), Bishop of Münster, Count of Altena, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg; married firstly, in 1585, to Jakobea of Baden (1558–1597), daughter of Philibert, Margrave of Baden-Baden; married secondly, in 1599, to Antonia of Lorraine (1568–1610), daughter of Charles III, Duke of Lorraine)
References
- ^ Dairsie, Heather R. (2023). Children of the House of Cleves. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445699431.
- Dairsie, Heather R. (2023). Children of the House of Cleves. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445699431.
- Gu, Jenny; Bourne, Philip (2009-06-16). "The uses of humanism". SciVee. Retrieved 2025-01-04.
- ^ Weaver, Andrew H. (2020). A Companion to Music at the Habsburg Courts in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Brill. p. 156. ISBN 9789004435032.
- Schaarschmidt, Friedrich (1897). Fürstliche Bildnisse in der Gemäldesammlung der Kgl . Kunstakademie zu Düsseldorf [Princely paintings in the collection of the Royal Academy of Düsseldorf]. p. 3.
.svg){kind=small} | This article about a German duchess is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
 | This biography of a member of a European royal house is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
- 1531 births
- 1581 deaths
- 16th-century Austrian women
- 16th-century German nobility
- 16th-century House of Habsburg
- 16th-century German women
- Austrian princesses
- Countesses of Mark
- Countesses of Ravensberg
- Duchesses of Berg
- Duchesses of Cleves
- Duchesses of Jülich
- Daughters of emperors
- Children of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
- Daughters of kings
- Nobility from Prague
- Mothers of German monarchs
- Daughters of dukes
- German duchess stubs
- European royalty stubs