by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2022

The Holy Roman Empire was a limited elective monarchy composed of hundreds of kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, prince-bishoprics, and Free Imperial Cities in central Europe. The Holy Roman Empire was not really holy since, after Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1530, no emperors were crowned by the pope or a bishop. It was not Roman but rather German because it was mainly in the regions of present-day Germany and Austria. It was an empire in name only – the territories it covered were mostly independent each with its own rulers. The Holy Roman Emperor directly ruled over only his family territories, and could not issue decrees and rule autonomously over the Holy Roman Empire. A Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances, including marriage alliances, made him, and his power was severely restricted by the many sovereigns of the constituent monarchies of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 13th century, prince-electors, or electors for short, elected the Holy Roman Emperor from among the sovereigns of the constituent states.

Frequently but not always, it was common practice to elect the deceased Holy Roman Emperor’s heir. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy. No person had a legal right to the succession simply because he was related to the current Holy Roman Emperor. However, the Holy Roman Emperor could and often did, while still alive, have a relative (usually a son) elected to succeed him after his death. This elected heir apparent used the title King of the Romans.

Learn more at Unofficial Royalty: What was the Holy Roman Empire?

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Isabella, Infanta of Portugal was the wife of her first cousin Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor who was also King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Lord of the Netherlands, Duke of Burgundy, among many other titles. She was born on October 24, 1503, in Lisbon, Portugal, the second of the nine children and the elder of the two daughters of Manuel I, King of Portugal and his second wife Infanta Maria of Aragon. Isabella’s paternal grandparents were Fernando, Duke of Viseu (son of Duarte, King of Portugal) and Beatriz of Portugal (daughter of Infante João, Constable of Portugal). Her maternal grandparents were Ferdinand II, King of Aragon and Isabella I, Queen of Castile and León. Isabella was named for her maternal grandmother and her paternal aunt Isabella, Princess of Asturias who was her father’s first wife.

Isabella had nine siblings:

• João III, King of Portugal (1502 – 1557), married Catherine of Austria, had nine children, only two survived to their teens
• Infanta Beatriz (1504 – 1538), married Charles III, Duke of Savoy, had nine children, only one son survived childhood
• Infante Luis, Duke of Beja (1506 – 1555), unmarried
• Infante Fernando, Duke of Guarda (1507 – 1534), married Guiomar Coutinho, Countess of Marialva, no surviving children
• Cardinal-Infante Afonso (1509 – 1540)
• Cardinal-King Enrique I of Portugal (1512 – 1580)
• Infanta Maria (1511 – 1513), died in childhood
• Infante Duarte, Duke of Guimarães (1515 – 1540), married Isabella of Braganza, had three children
• Infante António de Portugal (born and died 1516)

Isabella had one half-sibling from her father’s first marriage to Isabella of Aragon, Princess of Asturias who died giving birth to:

• Miguel da Paz, Prince of Asturias, Prince of Portugal (1498 – 1500), heir to the Kingdoms of Portugal, Castile, León and Aragon, died a month short of his second birthday

Isabella had two half-siblings from her father’s third marriage to Eleanor of Austria (Isabella’s first cousin):

• Infante Carlos (1520 – 1521), died in infancy
• Infanta Maria of Portugal, Duchess of Viseu (1521 – 1577), unmarried, was the richest woman in Europe of her time

Isabella was educated under the supervision of Elvira de Mendoza, who had accompanied Isabella’s mother, Maria of Aragon, to Portugal as her lady-in-waiting when she married King Manuel. Isabella studied mathematics, the Renaissance classics, French, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catholic doctrine. When Isabella was fourteen years old, her 34-year-old mother died, exhausted from nine pregnancies in fourteen years.

Isabella’s father had started preliminary negotiations for a marriage between Isabella and her first cousin Charles of Austria, best known in history as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles was the son and heir of both his parents, Philip of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, the ruler of the Burgundian State from the House of Habsburg, and Juana I, Queen of Castile and León from the House of Trastámara. His paternal grandparents were  Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and the ruler of the Archduchy of Archduke of Austria, and the Duchies of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and the first of his three wives, Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, the ruler of the Burgundian State in her own right. Charles’ maternal grandparents were  Ferdinand II, King of Aragon and Isabella I, Queen of Castile and León. Charles would be the heir of all four of his grandparents.

Before the marriage negotiations were completed, Isabella’s father Manuel I, King of Portugal died and was succeeded by his eldest son João III, King of Portugal. Eventually, negotiations between the two kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula resulted in double Spanish-Portuguese weddings. João III, King of Portugal married Catherine of Austria, daughter of Philip of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and Juana I, Queen of Castile. Isabella would marry Catherine’s brother Charles of Austria. On March 11, 1526, at the Royal Alcázar of Seville in Seville, Spain, Isabella and Charles were married.

Twenty-six-year-old Charles had already inherited and reigned over the dominions of his mother Juana (Castile and León, and Aragon which would be united under Charles as the Kingdom of Spain), the dominions of his father Philip (the Burgundian State which Philip had inherited from his mother Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, consisting of parts of the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Germany), and also the Habsburg dominions of his paternal grandfather Maximilian (Archduchy of Austria, Duchy of Styria, Duchy of Carinthia, and Duchy of Carniola, today parts of Austria and Slovenia). Charles had been elected Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his paternal grandfather Maximilian in 1519.

Charles and Isabella had five children but only three survived to adulthood. Their son Felipe (also known as Philip) would become King of Spain (1555 – 1598), King of Portugal (1581 – 1598), King of Naples and Sicily (1554 – 1598), Duke of Milan (1540 – 1598), Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands (1555 – 1598) and jure uxoris (by right of his wife) King of England and Ireland during his marriage to his second wife Queen Mary I of England from 1554 until Mary died in 1558. Felipe is probably best remembered for sending the Spanish Armada on its unsuccessful mission to invade England in 1588.

• Felipe II, King of Spain (1527 – 1598), married (1) his double first cousin Maria Manuela, Infanta of Portugal who died giving birth to a son who predeceased his father (2) his first cousin once removed Queen Mary I of England, no children (3) Elisabeth of Valois, had five pregnancies but only two surviving daughters, Elisabeth died a few hours after the loss of her last child (4) his niece Anna of Austria had five children but only one son Felipe III, King of Spain survived childhood, Anna died of heart failure eight months after giving birth to her last child
• Maria of Austria (1528 – 1603), married her first cousin Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, had sixteen children
• Ferdinand of Austria (1529 – 1530), died in infancy
• Juana of Austria (1535 – 1573), married her first cousin João Manuel, Hereditary Prince of Portugal, had one son Sebastian, King of Portugal
• Juan of Austria (1537 – 1538), died in infancy

Charles and Isabella’s main residence was in Spain because the Spanish nobles had insisted that their children be raised there. Charles was often away from his family to lead military campaigns and administer his other realms, and Isabella was appointed regent in his absence. She attended meetings of the governing councils and consulted with the ministers. Isabella took an active role in the policy-making process, suggesting her own solutions rather than merely accepting recommendations. She supervised her children’s education and taught them Portuguese. Isabella wrote to her husband regularly but often spent months without receiving letters from him.

Isabella and Charles’ happy marriage lasted for thirteen years. In 1539, during the third month of Isabella’s seventh pregnancy, she developed a fever causing her to miscarry. The fever caused her condition to worsen and Isabella died two weeks later in Toledo, Spain, on May 1, 1539, aged thirty-five. Isabella was interred in the Royal Chapel of Granada in Spain, the burial place of Charles’ parents Philip of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and Juana I, Queen of Castile and León and his maternal grandparents Ferdinand II, King of Aragon and Isabella I, Queen of Castile and León. Charles was so grief-stricken that he shut himself up in a monastery for two months where he prayed and mourned for Isabella in solitude. He never recovered from her death, dressed in black for the rest of his life, and despite being only thirty-nine, never remarried.

In memory of Isabella, Charles commissioned several musical and artistic tributes to her. Probably his favorite tributes were the portraits of Isabella that he commissioned from his favorite painter Tiziano Vecelli, better known as Titian. Titian painted several portraits of Isabella, which included his Portrait of Isabella of Portugal (the portrait of Isabella at the beginning of this article), La Gloria (directly above, read about the painting at the link), and a double portrait of Isabella and Charles (above). Charles kept these paintings with him whenever he traveled and after he retired to the Monastery of Yuste.

Physically exhausted after forty years of ruling and suffering from crippling gout, Charles abdicated in 1555 and retired to the peace of the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura, Spain. In August 1558, Charles became seriously ill with malaria. He survived Isabella by nineteen years, dying at the age of fifty-eight, at the Monastery of Yuste on September 21, 1558, holding the same cross Isabella had been holding when she died. Charles was originally buried in the chapel at the Monastery of Yuste. However, in his will, he asked for the establishment of a new religious site where he could be reburied with his beloved Isabella.

To fulfill his father’s wish, in 1563, Charles and Isabella’s son King Felipe II of Spain started building the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial about 28 miles/45 kilometers from Madrid, Spain. The complex includes a palace, basilica, monastery, and library. When the Royal Crypt was completed in 1574, the remains of Charles and Isabella were re-interred in a small vault directly underneath the altar of the Royal Chapel. In 1654, after the basilica and royal tombs were finally completed during the reign of their great-grandson Felipe IV, King of Spain, the remains of Charles and Isabella were moved into the Royal Pantheon of Kings. Since then, the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial has been the burial place of Spanish monarchs and many members of the Spanish royal family.

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