Mariana of Austria[a] (23 December 1634 – 16 May 1696) wasQueen of Spain from 1649 until her husbandPhilip IV of Spain died in 1665. AppointedRegent for their infant sonCharles II, she remained an influential figure until her own death in 1696.
Her regency was overshadowed by thedecline of Spain in the second half of the 17th century, and internal political divisions, combined with a general European economic crisis. Charles died without children in 1700, leading to the 1701 to 1714War of the Spanish Succession.
In 1646, Mariana was betrothed to her cousinBalthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias, heir to the Spanish throne. His death soon afterwards left her without a prospective husband and her widowed unclePhilip IV without a successor. The solution was a marriage between Philip and his niece on 7 October 1649 atNavalcarnero, outsideMadrid.[2]
Only two of their five children survived to adulthood. The eldest,Margaret Theresa, married her maternal uncleLeopold I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1666. Mariana's second daughter, Maria Ambrosia, lived only fifteen days, followed by two sons,Philip Prospero and Ferdinand Thomas. On 6 November 1661, Mariana gave birth to her last child, a son,Charles.[3] Subject to ill health for much of his life, one study argues this may have been caused by genetic disorders inherited from his parents.[4]
Charles' poor health and lack of an heir meant his reign was often dominated by a power struggle between Mariana'sAustrian faction, and a pro-French lobby initially led by his illegitimate half-brother,John of Austria the Younger. Spain was also divided into the Crowns ofCastile andAragon, whose very different political cultures made it almost impossible to enact reforms or increase taxes. As a result, government finances were in perpetual crisis, the Crown declaring bankruptcy in 1647, 1652, 1661, and 1666.[7]
CardinalJuan Everardo Nithard, c. 1674, Mariana's first advisor until ousted in 1669
Spain was exhausted by almost a century of continuous war, while the second half of the 17th century coincided with a period of extreme cold weather known as theLittle Ice Age. Between 1692 and 1699, crops failed across Europe and an estimated 5–10% of the population starved to death.[8] The new government inherited other problems, the long-runningPortuguese Restoration War being the most urgent. This was made worse in May 1667 when France once againinvaded theSpanish Netherlands, and occupied the Spanish province ofFranche-Comté.[9] TheTreaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) ended the war with France, while theTreaty of Lisbon (1668) restoredPortugal's independence.[10]
Peace ended the drain on Spanish resources, while France returned most of the territories over-run in the War of Devolution. They represented a significant diplomatic achievement, but many Spanish military officers considered the terms humiliating. Joseph Malladas, an Aragonese captain, was executed in June 1668 for plotting to murder Nithard, reputedly on John's behalf.[11] In February 1669, Nithard was succeeded asvalido by Aytona, who died in 1670 and was replaced in turn byValenzuela, a member of her household since 1661.[12] An outsider from the lower ranks of Spanish nobility, Valenzuela depended entirely on Mariana for his position.[13]
In 1672, Spain was dragged into theFranco-Dutch War; Valenzuela was dismissed when Charles came of age in 1675, but Spanish policy continued to be undermined by the struggle for power. Mariana reinstated the regency in 1677 on the grounds of Charles's ill-health and Valenzuela was restored, before John finally gained control in 1677.
John died in September 1679 and Mariana became regent once again; one of his final acts was arranging the marriage of Charles to 17-year-oldMarie Louise of Orléans, which took place in November 1679.[14] She died in February 1689, without producing an heir; as with many deaths of the period, limited medical knowledge led to allegations she was poisoned. Modern assessments of her symptoms conclude it was almost certainly appendicitis, possibly from the treatments undertaken to improve fertility.[15]
Mariana in her later years, byClaudio Coello, c. 1685–1693
Her replacement wasMaria Anna of Neuburg, one of 12 children whose family reputation for fertility made them popular choices for royal marriages. Of her sisters,Maria Sophia marriedPeter II of Portugal, whileEleonore was the third wife ofLeopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Anna was aunt to future emperorsJoseph I andCharles VI, making her an ideal choice for the Austrian faction.[16] However, Charles was by now almost certainly impotent, his autopsy later revealing he had only one atrophied testicle.[17]
As his health declined, internal struggles over the succession became increasingly bitter, leadership of the pro-French faction passing toFernández de Portocarrero,Archbishop of Toledo. In 1690, Spain joined theGrand Alliance in theNine Years' War with France. It declared bankruptcy again in 1692 and by 1696, France occupied most ofCatalonia; Mariana retained power with the support of German auxiliaries under Maria Anna's brotherCharles Philip, many of whom were expelled after Mariana's death.[18] She died on 16 May 1696 at theUceda Palace in Madrid, at the age of sixty-one, probably from breast cancer.[19]
ThePortrait of Mariana of Austria painted byDiego Velázquez was commissioned by Philip and is the only known full-length painting of her. The original is in thePrado Museum in Madrid; a copy was sent to her father Ferdinand and is held by theKunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. She also appears as a detail in Velázquez' masterpieceLas Meninas which features her daughter Margaret Theresa.
Cowans, Jon (2003).Modern Spain: A Documentary History. U. of Pennsylvania Press.ISBN0-8122-1846-9.
De Vries, Jan (2009). "The Economic Crisis of the 17th Century".Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.40 (2).
Durant, Ariel; Durant, Will (1963).Age of Louis XIV (Story of Civilization). TBS Publishing.ISBN0-207-94227-7.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Graziano, Frank (2004).Wounds of Love: The Mystical Marriage of Saint Rose of Lima. OUP.ISBN0-19-513640-3.
Kamen, Henry (2002).Spain's Road to Empire (2003 ed.). Allen Lane.ISBN978-0-14-028528-4.
Knighton, Tess (2005). Carreras Lopez, Juan José (ed.).The Royal Chapel in the time of the Habsburgs: Music and Court Ceremony in Early Modern Europe. Boydell Press.ISBN978-1-84383-139-6.
Mitchell, Silvia Z (2013).Mariana of Austria and Imperial Spain: Court, Dynastic, and International Politics in Seventeenth- Century Europe. University of Miami Scholarly Repository.
Mitchell, Silvia Z (2019).Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman: Mariana of Austria and the Government of Spain. Pennsylvania State University Press.ISBN978-0-271-08339-1.
O'Connor, John T. (1978).Negotiator out of Season. University of Georgia Press.ISBN0-8203-0436-0.
Rommelse, Gijs (2011).Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650–1750). Routledge.ISBN978-1-4094-1913-6.
Rule, John (2017). Onnekink, David; Mijers, Esther (eds.).The Partition Treaties, 1698-1700; A European View in Redefining William III: The Impact of the King-Stadholder in International Context. Routledge.ISBN978-1-138-25796-2.
Stolicka, Ondrej. Different German Perspectives on Spanish Politics in the 1670s: The Reaction of Vienna and Berlin on the Coup of Juan José de Austria in the Year 1677, JEHM 23(4), 2019, pp. 367–385.https://doi.org/10.1163/15700658-00002638
Storrs, Christopher (2006).The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy 1665–1700. OUP Oxford.ISBN0-19-924637-8.
Generations are numbered by male-line descent fromFrederick III, Holy Roman Emperor. Later generations are included although Austrian titles of nobility were abolished and outlawed in 1919.
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