Mariana of Austria Mariana of Austria, 1652 by Diego Velázquez, Prado Museum, Madrid. Queen consort of Spain Tenure 1649 - 1665 Spouse Philip IV of Spain Issue Margaret Theresa, Holy Roman Empress Philip Prospero, Prince of Asturias Charles II of Spain House House of Habsburg Father Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor Mother Maria Anna of Spain Born 21 December 1634(1634-12-21) Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria Died 16 May 1696 (aged 61) Uceda Palace, Madrid, Spain

The reflection of Mariana and Philip IV appears in Las Meninas.

Arms of Mariana of Austria, Queen of Spain.

Mariana of Austria (21 December 1634 – 16 May 1696) was Queen consort of Spain as the second wife of King Philip IV, who was also her maternal uncle. She was the daughter of Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III and Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, Philip's sister. At the death of her husband in 1665, Mariana became queen regent, and she remained an influential figure during the reign of her son Charles II, the last Spanish Habsburg.

[edit] Early life

Mariana by Diego Velázquez, 1655-1660 128,8 x 99 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna .

Mariana (or Maria-Anna) was born on 21 December 1634 in Neustadt, during the reign of her paternal grandfather Ferdinand II. Her father, who would become Emperor in 1637, was as yet only the King of Hungary and Bohemia, and was away for most of his wife's pregnancy campaigning in the Thirty Years' War.

Mariana, was the second of six children, three of which died in early childhood. Her oldest brother, Ferdinand IV of Hungary died young. Only Mariana and her younger brother Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor lived to reach old age.

[edit] Marriage

Mariana was destined from her early years to continue the marriage policy between the two branches of the Habsburg family, the Austrian and the Spanish. A policy of inbreeding followed for generations. Following this policy, in 1646 Mariana, then eleven years old, was engaged to her Spanish Habsburg first cousin Baltasar Carlos, Prince of Asturias, heir of the Spanish crown but he died three months later age 16. With Baltasar Carlos's death, Philip IV was left without a male heir and Maria-Anna without a fiancé. In 1649 the king married his 14-year-old niece himself. Although known for being cheerful as a young girl, after her wedding to her uncle she became cold and bad-tempered.

[edit] Children

Philip IV and Mariana had five children, two of which survived infancy:

• Margaret Theresa (12 July 1651 - 12 March 1673). Married her maternal uncle Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.
• Infanta Maria Ambrosia de la Concepción (1655)
• Philip Prospero of Spain (1657–1661).
• Infante Fernando Tomás (1658–1659)
• Charles II of Spain (6 November 1661 - 1 November 1700). Nicknamed the Bewitched, the last Spanish Habsburg king.

When Philip IV died on 17 September 1665, their only surviving son, Charles II of Spain, was only 3 years old, and Mariana served as Regent, supporting on her confessor Juan Everardo Nithard until his dismissal in 1669. Charles, at most times unable to walk or speak, needed a regent more than most child kings, and was carried as an infant in arms until he was 10. Mariana served as his regent for much of his life, except when she was successfully driven from Madrid by John of Austria the Younger, an illegitimate son of Philip IV, in 1677 in a palace revolution, due to widespread dissatisfaction at court because of her support for her new advisor Fernando de Valenzuela. She went to live to Toledo, but returned to Madrid upon John's death in 1679.

[edit] Later life

That same year, her son Charles II married the French princess Marie Louise of Orléans. Although he was madly in love with her, their marriage remained childless. Ten years later, in 1689, Marie Louise died under mysterious circumstances and Charles married again, this time a German princess: Maria Anna of Neuburg. However, this second marriage was also childless.

Realizing that her son would never have children of his own, Mariana wanted her great-grandson, Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, to become the next King of Spain. This made her to argue frequently with her second-daughter-in-law, Maria Anna of Neuburg, who wanted her nephew, Archduke Charles of Austria, to become the next King of Spain. As her great-grandson, Joseph Ferdinand, died childless, Mariana has no descendants today.

[edit] Death

Mariana as a widow by Juan Carreño de Miranda

Mariana died of breast cancer on the night of 16 May 1696 in Madrid, Spain, at the moment when a total eclipse of the moon reached its maximum and the Spanish capital was completely covered in darkness. Soon after her funeral, some miracles begun to be reported. When her coffin was taken out so the crowds could say farewell, a white dove was seen flying around it and finally disappeared into the heavens. Everyone thought it was an omen. A nun who had attended the Queen Mother at the palace begged a garment for remembrance; she slept in it and next morning awoke cured of a life-long paralysis. The British ambassador in Madrid, Lord Alexander Stanhope, wrote about this subject:

There is now great noise of a miracle, done by a piece of waistcoat she died in, on an old lame nun, who in great faith earnestly desired it, and so sooner applied it to her lips, but she was perfectly well, and immediately threw away her crutches. This, with some other stories, which will not be wanting, may in time grow up to a canonization.

The infamous Countess of Berlips, a German lady living at the Spanish court, wrote the following lines on the subject:

The miracles attributed to her after her death are not yet proved. One knows how easily such things are made up and attributed to people who have been calumniated while alive. There is no doubt that the dead Queen was a saint, because of her irreproachable conduct all her life, but the Spaniards don't deserve miracles from her, since they embittered her existence.

In 1668, a voyage led by Jesuit missionary San Vitores named the Mariana Islands in the North Pacific after the queen regent.

[edit] Ancestors

[edit] Bibliography

• Calvo Poyato, José, La vida y epoca de Carlos II el Hechizado (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1998).
• Calvo Poyato, José, Reinas viudas de España (Barcelona: Península, 2002).
• Fisas, Carlos, Historias de las reinas de España: la Casa de Austria (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1999).
• González-Doria, Fernando, Las reinas de España (Madrid: Trigo, 2003).
• Maura Gamazo, Gabriel, Vida y reinado de Carlos II (Madrid: Espasa Calve, 1942).
• Pfandl, Ludwig, Carlos II (Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, 1947).

[edit] Links

• http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmonarchs/carlos2/carlos2_bio.htm A biography of Charles II of Spain in Joan's Mad Monarchs Series

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