HAHAHAHAHA and you said there was no gossipy sensationalism about her life?? That's totally awesome. Can I have source quotes?
The Margaret biography footnotes this particular bit to another book: Pietro Romano: Pasquino e la satira in Roma, Rome 1932, page 24.
what do you think then was the difference between Philip and Ferdinand?
A combination of factors coming together, I guess. Firstly, Ferdinand when leaving Spain and, after some transiton time with Aunt Margaret in the Netherlands, going to the HRE to govern the Austrian heartlands and represent his brother Charlesin the HRE, had to prove himself. To Charles - they hadn't grown up together, after all, they'd been strangers before Charles came to Spain, and Charles knew that lots of people in Castile would have prefered Ferdinand as their King, not himself who was seen as "The Fleming". (Which was of course one of the reasons why he sent Ferdinand to the Netherlands and Austria to begin with, thereby nixing the possibility that Castilians and Aragonese would rally behind his brother as an alternate candidate.) But also to the German princes, who didn't know either him or Charles at this point. He was a younger brother, all his power derived from Charles, who could also take it away, and his chance in creating a place in the world for himself where he would/could use his considerable abilities best lay in winning the Germans over and showing himself a good, competent and trustworthy ruler. So he learned German post haste, made Vienna his main residence, moved otherwise around among the HRE places and befriended the locals.
Meanwhile, Philip was the (only) (legitimate) son and heir. Spain wasn't just his home, it was his power basis, which he always knew he would have. The Netherlands were useful as a tax revenue, but he had no emotional connection to them, nor did he see the need to. The first time he was abroad and in a situation where winning the locals would have been important was when he married Mary Tudor and came to England. That this went spectacularly wrong was actually not mostly Philip's fault - the combination of English insularity and decades of reformation made him and Mary's marriage with him massively unpopular before he ever put a foot on this island. And he and his entourage did actually try, in the conventional sense of alms giving and befriending (trying to) the English nobility. Note that this is how the surviving Dudley brothers (including Elizabeth I.'s childhood friend and later favourite Robert), who'd been imprisoned in the Tower since their father's downfall and execution and their brother Guildford's execution, got out - their mother mother Jane, who'd tried in vain to get an audience with Mary, managed to befriend Mendoza's wife who got her an audience with Philip who got her boys out of the Tower. This is why Sir Philip Sidney, Robert's nephew, the son of his sister Mary and later Elizabethan poet, is called "Philip", actually - he was named after Philip of Spain in gratitude.
But in general, the English reaction to Philip was extremely hostile and became even more so when the burnings really got going. It also contributed to Mary Tudor going from popular and beloved daughter of Catherine of Aragon, whom people had sympathized with and pitied ever since her father had taken up with Anne Boleyn, to being hated. There were pamphlets, mocking songs, and booing and hissing during royal progresses. Philip had never experienced something like this in his entire Spanish life, he never forgot it, and it certainly did not make him more flexible - it made him conclude he'd made a mistake trying to win these people over to begin with and pride and showing them what's what was the way to go. Also, of course, he wasn't too keen on poor Mary herself and after supposedly getting her pregnant (which then turned out to have been fake news - left for the continent. And that was Philip when his father was still alive and ruling. Once Charles had abdicated and settled the succession by giving Ferdinand the HRE and Philip Spain & the Netherlands, Philip was the supreme power in his life. His one visit to the Netherlands to present himself - where he met Margaret for the first time - had gone reasonably well, but other than that, he mostly remained in Spain, surrounded by other Spaniards. So, just the opposite situation Ferdinand had experienced as a young man when moving to Austria. It encouraged all of Philip's "my way or NO WAY" tendencies instead of teaching him the value of compromise.
And then, of course: don't forget Charles always felt guilty for not having Luther arrested when he'd had the chance. Now today, it's fairly obvious that even if he had done that, the Reformation still would have happened. Sirs Calvin and Zwingli would like to point out they existed, too, and even more importantly, given the state the clergy and the Church was in at this point - gestures to all stories mentioned so far - , it HAD to happen. It was more than due. Making Martin Luther a martyr might have even have encouraged it. But that's not how Philip saw it. What Philip thought was: Dad had the chance and blew it because he'd given his word, now heresy has spread like a cancer and thousands of people's souls go to hell, I have not to make the same mistake, I have to be hardcore!
It's also doubtful whether he ever had a longer conversation with a Protestant (whom he knew to be one) in his life. Not least because most people aren't suicidal. Philip saw them as evil, evil, evil, full stop. To Ferdinand, Lutherans were people who existed both among the populace and among the nobility. Early on, he'd fought them, absolutely. But he also knew them on a day to day basis. He'd in fact been with Charles on the famous Diet of Worms when Luther spoke. Two of the Princes Elector whom he interacted with on a rgular basis ended up being Lutherans. He was far more concerned with the fact that one, the Saxon, had always eyed the Imperial Throne himself, so ensuring that Protestant princes accepted the secular authority of the Emperor as supreme (and didn't rebel), which they swore to do in the Augsburg Confessional Peace against being granted cuius regio, eius religio was more useful than risking endless civil war pursuing the goal of complete Re-Catholization which he could see was not attainable in the HRE at this point.
How was her son Alessandro as governor? Any better?
I don't know more than what his wiki article says, because the biography doesn't get into that. (His turn starts during the last four years of Margaret's life.) He certainly didn't have the problem of another co-ruler with the authority to countermand his orders. Since he was a good general and unlike Alba had read his Machiavelli, he was able to use the "divide and rule" principle with the various Netherland factions to some extent, and he was able to win back and solidify Spanish rule in what came to be called the Spanish Netherlands (i.e. essentially Belgium), but kept duking it out with the backed up by English troops Protestant Dutch in the Dutch Netherlands. (He was also supposed to back up the Spanish Armada conquering England, but as you know, that never happened.)
And also it sounds like she got along with not just men she wasn't married to, but men she was related to (but didn't necessarily previously know), which I feel like is not a given at all! (*cough* G2/Caroline and Fritz of Wales)
Indeed! BTW, husband Ottavio was much insulted that Philip didn't even for a hearbeat consider him as governor of the Netherlands. (Just as Charles had explicitly given those territories in the Abruzzes to Margaret, not Ottavio.) Oh, und Giovanna, Juan d'Austria's daughter, was left the best of Margaret's personal jewelry in her last will, so she definitely cared for this unexpected niece in turn.
Lastly: Alessandro de' Medici, rotten as he was, did provide a beautiful wedding present: one of the last hand painted Book of Hours at an age where print had already taken over, check it out.
The biography also mentions that Margaret was a redhead (with blue eyes). (Philip and Charles were both (ash) blonds, a heritage of Burgundian and German side of the gene pool that's rarely considered in Elizabeth I. movies and tv shows where Philip, due to being the Spaniard, is usually cast with a black-haired actor.) And Margaret was spared the Habsburg chin though she did have a prominent lower lip according to the descriptions.
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Re: Margaret of Parma
Date: 2021-07-02 07:55 am (UTC)The Margaret biography footnotes this particular bit to another book: Pietro Romano: Pasquino e la satira in Roma, Rome 1932, page 24.
what do you think then was the difference between Philip and Ferdinand?
A combination of factors coming together, I guess. Firstly, Ferdinand when leaving Spain and, after some transiton time with Aunt Margaret in the Netherlands, going to the HRE to govern the Austrian heartlands and represent his brother Charlesin the HRE, had to prove himself. To Charles - they hadn't grown up together, after all, they'd been strangers before Charles came to Spain, and Charles knew that lots of people in Castile would have prefered Ferdinand as their King, not himself who was seen as "The Fleming". (Which was of course one of the reasons why he sent Ferdinand to the Netherlands and Austria to begin with, thereby nixing the possibility that Castilians and Aragonese would rally behind his brother as an alternate candidate.) But also to the German princes, who didn't know either him or Charles at this point. He was a younger brother, all his power derived from Charles, who could also take it away, and his chance in creating a place in the world for himself where he would/could use his considerable abilities best lay in winning the Germans over and showing himself a good, competent and trustworthy ruler. So he learned German post haste, made Vienna his main residence, moved otherwise around among the HRE places and befriended the locals.
Meanwhile, Philip was the (only) (legitimate) son and heir. Spain wasn't just his home, it was his power basis, which he always knew he would have. The Netherlands were useful as a tax revenue, but he had no emotional connection to them, nor did he see the need to. The first time he was abroad and in a situation where winning the locals would have been important was when he married Mary Tudor and came to England. That this went spectacularly wrong was actually not mostly Philip's fault - the combination of English insularity and decades of reformation made him and Mary's marriage with him massively unpopular before he ever put a foot on this island. And he and his entourage did actually try, in the conventional sense of alms giving and befriending (trying to) the English nobility. Note that this is how the surviving Dudley brothers (including Elizabeth I.'s childhood friend and later favourite Robert), who'd been imprisoned in the Tower since their father's downfall and execution and their brother Guildford's execution, got out - their mother mother Jane, who'd tried in vain to get an audience with Mary, managed to befriend Mendoza's wife who got her an audience with Philip who got her boys out of the Tower. This is why Sir Philip Sidney, Robert's nephew, the son of his sister Mary and later Elizabethan poet, is called "Philip", actually - he was named after Philip of Spain in gratitude.
But in general, the English reaction to Philip was extremely hostile and became even more so when the burnings really got going. It also contributed to Mary Tudor going from popular and beloved daughter of Catherine of Aragon, whom people had sympathized with and pitied ever since her father had taken up with Anne Boleyn, to being hated. There were pamphlets, mocking songs, and booing and hissing during royal progresses. Philip had never experienced something like this in his entire Spanish life, he never forgot it, and it certainly did not make him more flexible - it made him conclude he'd made a mistake trying to win these people over to begin with and pride and showing them what's what was the way to go. Also, of course, he wasn't too keen on poor Mary herself and after supposedly getting her pregnant (which then turned out to have been fake news - left for the continent. And that was Philip when his father was still alive and ruling. Once Charles had abdicated and settled the succession by giving Ferdinand the HRE and Philip Spain & the Netherlands, Philip was the supreme power in his life. His one visit to the Netherlands to present himself - where he met Margaret for the first time - had gone reasonably well, but other than that, he mostly remained in Spain, surrounded by other Spaniards. So, just the opposite situation Ferdinand had experienced as a young man when moving to Austria. It encouraged all of Philip's "my way or NO WAY" tendencies instead of teaching him the value of compromise.
And then, of course: don't forget Charles always felt guilty for not having Luther arrested when he'd had the chance. Now today, it's fairly obvious that even if he had done that, the Reformation still would have happened. Sirs Calvin and Zwingli would like to point out they existed, too, and even more importantly, given the state the clergy and the Church was in at this point - gestures to all stories mentioned so far - , it HAD to happen. It was more than due. Making Martin Luther a martyr might have even have encouraged it. But that's not how Philip saw it. What Philip thought was: Dad had the chance and blew it because he'd given his word, now heresy has spread like a cancer and thousands of people's souls go to hell, I have not to make the same mistake, I have to be hardcore!
It's also doubtful whether he ever had a longer conversation with a Protestant (whom he knew to be one) in his life. Not least because most people aren't suicidal. Philip saw them as evil, evil, evil, full stop. To Ferdinand, Lutherans were people who existed both among the populace and among the nobility. Early on, he'd fought them, absolutely. But he also knew them on a day to day basis. He'd in fact been with Charles on the famous Diet of Worms when Luther spoke. Two of the Princes Elector whom he interacted with on a rgular basis ended up being Lutherans. He was far more concerned with the fact that one, the Saxon, had always eyed the Imperial Throne himself, so ensuring that Protestant princes accepted the secular authority of the Emperor as supreme (and didn't rebel), which they swore to do in the Augsburg Confessional Peace against being granted cuius regio, eius religio was more useful than risking endless civil war pursuing the goal of complete Re-Catholization which he could see was not attainable in the HRE at this point.
How was her son Alessandro as governor? Any better?
I don't know more than what his wiki article says, because the biography doesn't get into that. (His turn starts during the last four years of Margaret's life.) He certainly didn't have the problem of another co-ruler with the authority to countermand his orders. Since he was a good general and unlike Alba had read his Machiavelli, he was able to use the "divide and rule" principle with the various Netherland factions to some extent, and he was able to win back and solidify Spanish rule in what came to be called the Spanish Netherlands (i.e. essentially Belgium), but kept duking it out with the backed up by English troops Protestant Dutch in the Dutch Netherlands. (He was also supposed to back up the Spanish Armada conquering England, but as you know, that never happened.)
And also it sounds like she got along with not just men she wasn't married to, but men she was related to (but didn't necessarily previously know), which I feel like is not a given at all! (*cough* G2/Caroline and Fritz of Wales)
Indeed! BTW, husband Ottavio was much insulted that Philip didn't even for a hearbeat consider him as governor of the Netherlands. (Just as Charles had explicitly given those territories in the Abruzzes to Margaret, not Ottavio.) Oh, und Giovanna, Juan d'Austria's daughter, was left the best of Margaret's personal jewelry in her last will, so she definitely cared for this unexpected niece in turn.
Lastly: Alessandro de' Medici, rotten as he was, did provide a beautiful wedding present: one of the last hand painted Book of Hours at an age where print had already taken over, check it out.
The biography also mentions that Margaret was a redhead (with blue eyes). (Philip and Charles were both (ash) blonds, a heritage of Burgundian and German side of the gene pool that's rarely considered in Elizabeth I. movies and tv shows where Philip, due to being the Spaniard, is usually cast with a black-haired actor.) And Margaret was spared the Habsburg chin though she did have a prominent lower lip according to the descriptions.