Margarita of Austria (1536-1567)

Margarita of Austria was born in Innsbruck on February 16, 1536 ^[1] . She was the ninth child and seventh daughter in the large family of Emperor Ferdinand I and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary , the princess from the Jagiellonian house. On the father's side, the Archduke was the granddaughter of Philip I , King of Castile and the Duke of Burgundy under the name of Philip IV and Juan I , Queen of Castile and Leon and Queen of Aragon, an infante from the house of Trastamar . On her mother's side, she was the granddaughter of Vladislav II , the king of the Czech Republic and Hungary and Anna de Foix , a lady from the house of Foix .

During the Augsburg Reichstag in 1550, the brothers Emperor Charles V and the future Emperor Ferdinand I agreed on continuity in the empire. The negotiator was their sister, the Hungarian and Czech Queen Mary , who proposed the marriage of Margarita, daughter of Ferdinand, to the future Spanish king Philip II, son of Charles V. However, this plan was rejected during negotiations on a successor.

Together with her elder sister Magdalene , she expressed a desire to remain unmarried and to establish a monastery for aristocrats and commoners, who sought a pious life outside the world. The father was against the decision of the daughters. Soon, their younger sister joined Magdalene and Margarita, for whom, due to poor health, marriage seemed impossible. The three sisters formed a pious community at court, in which they worked according to the rule drawn up for them by the confessors.

Already after entering the monastery and before the completion of its construction, Margarita died on March 12, 1566 ^[1] . In 1572, the remains of the Archduke were buried in the Jesuit church in Hall in Tirol.

• Wurzbach C. von . Habsburg, Margaretha (Tochter des Kaisers Ferdinand I.) // Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich : [ him. ] . - Wien: Kaiserlich-königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1861. - P. 11. - 458 p.

• Gebhardi L. Al. Genealogische Geschichte der erblichen Reichsstände in Teutschland : [ him. ] . - Halle: Gebauer, 1779. - P. 448. - 616 p.