Katharina von Österreich

Catherine of Austria was born on 15 September 1533, one of fifteen children of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. She spent most of her childhood at the Hofburg in Innsbruck, where she received a strict, religious and disciplined education and learned Italian and Latin. From an early age, Catherine was drawn into Habsburg marriage policy. In 1543, she became engaged to Francesco III Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Marquess of Montferrat. The marriage was intended to strengthen Habsburg influence in northern Italy and improve its position against France. Since Catherine and Francesco were only nine and ten years old at the time, their wedding did not take place until 22 October 1549. Catherine was escorted to Mantua with a dowry of 100,000 Rhine florins. The marriage lasted only a few months: on 21 February 1550, Francesco drowned in Lake Como. Catherine returned to Innsbruck as a widow. To improve her prospects for another advantageous marriage, the Habsburgs claimed that the marriage had not been consummated. After the death of his beloved second wife, Barbara Radziwiłł, in 1551, Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, sought a new marriage. Catherine’s father, Ferdinand I, promoted the match because he wanted to strengthen Habsburg influence at the Polish-Lithuanian court and prevent Poland from supporting Sigismund’s sister Isabella Jagiellon and her son in the disputes over the Hungarian succession. Both prospective spouses initially opposed the marriage. Catherine held Sigismund responsible for the poor treatment and early death of her older sister Elisabeth of Austria, who had been his first wife. Sigismund, in turn, feared that Catherine might be as sickly as Elisabeth. Habsburg political pressure and the threat of an alliance with the Tsardom of Russia eventually led him to consent. The papal permission required for the marriage because of their distant kinship was granted in May 1553. The marriage treaty was signed on 23 June, and a proxy wedding was celebrated the same day. The actual wedding was delayed because of Sigismund’s illness and took place between 1 and 30 July. Catherine received another substantial dowry, along with silver, costly clothing and numerous jewels. As Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania, she tried to gain political influence at court. Because she spoke Italian, she was able to communicate with Queen Mother Bona Sforza and her family. Her ambition, however, increased Sigismund’s resentment. The marriage was tense from the beginning. In the spring of 1554, the couple separated for an extended period for the first time. During this separation, Catherine told Sigismund that she was pregnant. She reported suffering various complaints and believed that she could feel the movements of the unborn child. Midwives from her father’s court were sent to Lithuania, but in the autumn Catherine declared that all signs of the pregnancy had disappeared. Since neither a live birth nor a stillbirth was recorded, it remained unclear whether she had actually been pregnant. Sigismund later made contradictory accusations, claiming either that she had faked the pregnancy or that she had deliberately caused a miscarriage. It is also possible that she had experienced a false pregnancy. In the following years, Catherine and Sigismund maintained an outwardly orderly but increasingly distant married life. Catherine took part in certain court and political events, mediated between her husband and her father, and maintained contacts with Duke Albert of Prussia. She was regarded as relatively sympathetic toward Protestantism. In 1558, she became seriously ill, but the nature and cause of the illness remained unclear. Sigismund later suspected that she suffered from epilepsy, the same disease that was said to have afflicted his first wife and Catherine’s sister. Their relationship deteriorated further. In October 1562, the couple saw each other for the last time, at the wedding of Catherine’s sister. Sigismund wanted to dissolve the marriage so that he could marry again and father a male heir. In 1565, he complained to the papal nuncio that the marriage was problematic because of Catherine’s relationship to his first wife, that Catherine hated Poland, had caused the pregnancy to miscarry in 1554, and had become unbearable to him because of her illness. Pope Pius IV nevertheless refused to annul the marriage because of Habsburg influence. After Ferdinand I’s death, his successor Maximilian II tried to reconcile the couple or enable Catherine to leave Poland. She finally departed at the end of 1565, after Polish nobles had initially delayed her departure. Catherine was not warmly received in Vienna, where she was blamed for the failed marriage. Sigismund firmly rejected the idea of returning to her and offered neither a suitable place for her to live in Poland nor sufficient funds for her own court. After suffering a serious mental illness, Catherine moved to Linz in October 1567. There she effectively lived as a widow. Sigismund paid her 28,000 florins a year for a household of more than fifty people. She received visits from her family, studied the Bible and theological writings, and created a garden of medicinal herbs from which remedies were made. She apparently continued to hope that she might return to Poland and repeatedly asked visitors for help. In her will, she asked Sigismund’s forgiveness, left him the jewelry he had given her, and donated most of her wealth to charitable causes. Catherine of Austria died on 28 February 1572. She was initially buried in the castle chapel. In 1599, Emperor Rudolf II had her remains transferred to St. Florian Monastery because of renovations to the castle. A formal funeral was not held until 1614, and the surviving sarcophagus was created in 1781. Sigismund II Augustus died a few months after her. His death brought the male line of the Jagiellonian dynasty to an end, although the dynasty continued for one further reign through the rule of his sister, Anna Jagiellon.