Margaret of Austria: Governor of the Netherlands and Early 16th-Century Europe’s Greatest Diplomat

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(as of Jun 07, 2024 13:47:02 UTC – Details)

An Amazon Top 25 Biographies of Royalty Best Seller

◆ FIRST PLACE WINNER – 2023 CHAUCER Book Awards – Early Historical Fiction

◆ WINNER – 2023 READERS’ FAVORITE Awards – Fiction-Historical-Personage

◆ Royalty ◆ Power ◆ Politics ◆ Love ◆ Struggle

Bestselling biographer and historian Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens and The Tudors in Love, calls this tale of early 16th-century Europe’s most brilliant power broker “Compelling and wholly convincing—at once a vividly readable novel and a long-overdue presentation of Europe’s unsung heroine to the broad audience she deserves.”

Margaret of Austria was the most significant political negotiator of early 16th-century Europe. About as Austrian as French fries are French, she was born in Brussels in 1480, raised in France, married and widowed in Spain, then married and widowed again in Savoy by age twenty-four.

In 1506 Margaret’s life turned upside down when her brother Philip of Burgundy unexpectedly died in Spain. With their mother Juana of Castile insane, four children, heirs to the Habsburg empire, were left behind in the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands.

Margaret stepped in and took the reins.

Appointed by her father, Maximilian I, Margaret became governor of the Netherlands, then widened her role to broker the 1508 Treaty of Cambrai where Europe’s princes united against Venice.

Ferdinand of Spain, Henry Tudor then Henry VIII of England, Louis XII of France, and Louise of Savoy for Francis I all came to Margaret’s negotiation table. Under her deft diplomacy princes saw reason and wars were averted.

Enjoying political power, Margaret avoided remarriage. Then Henry VIII’s right-hand man Charles Brandon turned her world upside down.

Margaret’s court attracted Europe’s brightest, including the young Anne Boleyn. Yet halfway through her rule Margaret was ousted by enemies. She won back her position with a comeback strategy as astute today as it was in 1517.

Click the READ NOW button to journey to the Renaissance with Margaret of Austria, who shot the fortunes of the House of Habsburg to the stars while setting a winning precedent for female rule in the Netherlands.

From the Publisher

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BKTL5882
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Renaissance Editions (March 7, 2023)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 7, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 42285 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 429 pages