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| Joanna of Austria | |
|---|---|
| Princess of Portugal | |
 Portrait byAlonso Sánchez Coello,c. 1557 | |
| Born | 24 June 1535 Madrid,Crown of Castile,Spain |
| Died | 7 September 1573(1573-09-07) (aged 38) El Escorial, Crown of Castile, Spain |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | Sebastian of Portugal |
| House | Habsburg |
| Father | Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor |
| Mother | Isabella of Portugal |
Joanna of Austria (Spanish:Doña Juana de Austria; in Portuguese,Dona Joana de Áustria; 24 June 1535 – 7 September 1573) was anInfanta of Spain by birth andPrincess of Portugal by marriage toJoão Manuel, Prince of Portugal. She served as regent ofSpain for her brotherPhilip II during his trips toEngland to marryMary I from 1554 to 1556, and 1556 to 1559. She was the mother of KingSebastian of Portugal.
Married at 16 to her even younger husband, Joanna was widowed after two years, giving birth in the same month to her only child. Later that year Joanna returned to Spain at her father's request, leaving her young son in the care of her mother-in-law, who was also her aunt. She never saw Sebastian again, but corresponded and had portraits sent. In later life Joanna was active in religious affairs.
Born inMadrid, Joanna was the daughter ofCharles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the first king of united Spain, officiallyKing of Aragon andKing of Castile and his wife,Isabella of Portugal. Therefore, her paternal grandparents werePhilip of Castile andJoanna of Castile, and her maternal grandparents wereManuel I of Portugal andMaria of Aragon. She was the sister of KingPhilip II of Spain andMaria of Austria.
Among others, Joanna held the titles ofArchduchess of Austria,Infanta of Castile and of Aragon, andprincess of Burgundy.
Named for the saint's day of her birth (24 June is theNativity of St. John the Baptist) and in honour of her paternal grandmother,Queen Joanna of Castile, Joanna of Austria was motherless at the age of four and was entrusted to DoñaLeonor de Mascareñas. By age eight she could understandLatin and could play several musical instruments.
On 11 January 1552, at the age of sixteen, Joanna married her double first cousin, the fourteen-year-old crown prince of Portugal,John Manuel of Portugal, byproxy inToro. She arrived at the Portuguese court in November 1552.
The marriage was cut short when John Manuel died oftuberculosis at age sixteen on 2 January 1554. However, Joanna was pregnant by that time, and the future Portuguese kingSebastián I was born on 20 January 1554.
Joanna returned to Spain in May 1554 at the request of her father, leaving her newborn son with her mother-in-law, the Portuguese QueenCatherine of Austria, who was Charles V's youngest sister.
Shortly after Sebastian's birth, Joanna was called back to Madrid by her brother Philip to act as regent during his absence in England from 1554. She filled this role with intelligence and efficiency. Joanna never remarried and never returned to Portugal. She never saw her son Sebastian again, although she sent him letters and had portraits of him painted at various ages so she could see what he looked like.
In 1557, Joanna founded the Convent of Our Lady of Consolation (Nuestra Señora de la Consolación) for the nuns of the order ofPoor Clares, also known asDiscalced Clarisses (in Spanish,clarisas descalzas) because they did not wear covered shoes, and only walked either barefoot or in sandals, now known as theConvent of Las Descalzas Reales, or convent of theroyal barefoot females, partly due to her affiliation and that the convent continued to attract aristocratic women as nuns. This convent is now a national monument and holds an art collection. It was founded in the royal palace where Joanna was born and where Charles V had lived when in Madrid.
Joanna repeatedly intervened in favour of the new order of theJesuits, founded byIgnatius of Loyola. In 1555, she is reputed to have been admitted surreptitiously to the male-only Jesuit order under the name of a pseudonym, Mateo Sánchez.[1] She corresponded with both Ignatius andFrancis Borgia.[2]
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