Maria Anna von Österreich

Mariana of Austria was born Maria Anna of Austria on 22 December 1634 in Wiener Neustadt. She was the daughter of Emperor Ferdinand III and the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna, and therefore belonged to both the Austrian and Spanish branches of the Habsburgs. Through her mother, she was a granddaughter of Philip III of Spain; through her father, she descended from Emperor Ferdinand II. She spent her childhood between Vienna and the residences of the imperial court, where she received the comprehensive education customary for a Habsburg princess, including religious instruction, language study, music, and courtly ceremony. From an early age, she was drawn into the dynasty’s marriage policy and was initially betrothed to her cousin Baltasar Carlos, heir to the Spanish throne. Her family was shaped by the political alliances of the Habsburgs. Her mother died in Linz in 1646 from complications during the birth of her youngest daughter. Ferdinand III subsequently remarried, first to Maria Leopoldine of Habsburg-Medici and, after her early death, to Eleonore of Mantua. As a result, Mariana’s number of siblings and half-siblings continued to grow. The family ties between the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs helped strengthen the dynasty during an era defined by wars and rivalry among the European powers. The death of Baltasar Carlos in 1646 fundamentally changed Mariana’s life. After Philip IV of Spain had been widowed by the death of his first wife, Elisabeth of France, he needed to remarry in order to father a male heir. The eleven-year-old Mariana was therefore designated as her uncle’s future wife. The union was intended to secure the succession and prevent the Spanish monarchy from falling under the influence of a foreign dynasty through a possible marriage of the heiress, Maria Teresa. Because of the close family relationship, a papal dispensation was required. The marriage contract was concluded in 1647, and the wedding was initially celebrated by proxy in Vienna on 8 November 1648. After traveling to Spain, the marriage was formally confirmed in person on 7 October 1649 in Navalcarnero, near Madrid. Mariana was then fourteen, while Philip IV was forty-four. On 15 November 1649, she made her solemn entry into Madrid and was presented as queen at the Spanish court. Although the marriage had been arranged for dynastic reasons, surviving accounts portray it as a stable relationship that increasingly came to be marked by mutual trust. Mariana accompanied the king during the final years of his reign and gained growing influence over the affairs of the Crown. Her most important initial responsibility, however, remained securing the succession. In July 1651, she gave birth to her first daughter, Margarita Teresa. The birth was celebrated throughout the king’s realms, but the queen was left seriously weakened by the confinement. She also contracted smallpox, survived the illness, but was left with pronounced scars on her face. After a long period without another pregnancy, rumors spread that she was infertile. In 1655, she did give birth to another girl, but the child suffered from epilepsy and died after fifteen days. Another daughter was stillborn in 1656. Only on 20 November 1657 was the long-awaited male heir born: Felipe Próspero. His birth helped facilitate peace negotiations with France, which culminated in the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659. As part of the agreement, Mariana’s stepdaughter Maria Teresa married Louis XIV of France in 1660 and renounced her rights to the Spanish succession. Further tragedies followed. A son named Fernando, born in 1658, died at six months of age. On 1 November 1661, Felipe Próspero, the previous heir to the throne, also died. A few days later, on 6 November, Mariana gave birth to another son, Carlos, the future King Charles II. His health was extremely fragile from the beginning, and his survival caused the court great concern. Several of the royal couple’s children died young, a fate connected both with the high child mortality of the period and with the frequent marriages between relatives among the Habsburgs, as well as the limited medical knowledge of the time. Charles II did reach adulthood, but remained childless. His death in 1700 brought the Spanish Habsburg line to an end and triggered the War of the Spanish Succession. Philip IV became seriously ill from 1664 onward and died on 16 September 1665. Mariana was only thirty years old and, under the terms of his will, was appointed guardian of her four-year-old son, regent, and governor of the Spanish realms. She thus found herself at the center of political power. Her regency took place during a period of financial and social crisis, declining Spanish influence in Europe, and intense tensions at court. Initially, her confessor, the German Jesuit Juan Everardo Nithard, exercised particularly strong influence. His prominent position provoked opposition among many nobles, especially from her political rival Juan José of Austria, an illegitimate son of Philip IV. Under his pressure, Mariana was forced to dismiss Nithard in 1669 and have him removed from Spain. Mariana’s reputation suffered greatly during the regency. Economic hardship, the unpopularity of foreign favorites, and a deliberate political campaign involving pamphlets, pasquinades, and satires made her a target of the opposition. Modern assessments therefore emphasize that her negative image was partly shaped by the propaganda of her opponents. In foreign policy, Spain also had to confront French expansion during her regency. In the War of Devolution, fought from 1667 to 1668, Louis XIV claimed territories in the Spanish Netherlands on behalf of his wife, Maria Teresa. The conflict ended with the Peace of Aachen and at the same time revealed Spain’s growing weakness in relation to France. Charles II came of age in 1675, formally ending Mariana’s regency. As queen mother, however, she retained considerable influence, partly because of her son’s poor health. In 1677, Juan José of Austria prevailed over her supporters and forced her to leave Madrid for Toledo. After his death in 1679, Mariana returned and regained part of her political importance. During her final years, the question of the succession and her rivalry with Charles II’s second wife, Maria Anna of the Palatinate-Neuburg, dominated court life. Mariana initially supported her great-grandson Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria as a possible heir, and later also Archduke Charles of Austria. The competing claims of the two women were sometimes described as the “war of the two Marianas.” Mariana was also deeply affected by the death of her granddaughter Maria Antonia in 1692 and placed great hopes in Maria Antonia’s son, Joseph Ferdinand. At the beginning of 1696, Mariana became seriously ill with a painful tumor in her left breast, which her doctors identified as cancer. Despite medical treatment and religious prayers for her recovery, her condition deteriorated. She died in Madrid on 16 May 1696. Her remains were buried in the Royal Pantheon at the monastery of El Escorial because she was the mother of Charles II, the last Spanish Habsburg monarch. Mariana is now regarded as one of the most influential women of seventeenth-century Spain. Alongside her political activities, she supported the arts and contributed to preserving and expanding the Habsburg art collections. Her name also remained present in cultural and geographical memory through the Mariana Islands, named after her by Jesuit missionaries, and indirectly through the Mariana Trench.