Source:
Lettres de Charles-Quint, de Marie de Hongrie, régente des Pays-Bas, et de Louis de la Marck, comte de Rochefort, à Philippe de Croy, duc d'Arschot, prince de Chimay, 1535-1536-1539, Bulletin de la Commission royale d'Histoire, 1913
Above: Maria of Austria, queen of Hungary and Bohemia and governor of the Netherlands, painted after Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen.
Maria of Austria, also known as Maria of Hungary (born September 15, 1505, died October 18, 1558) was queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia as the wife of King Louis II, and was later Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands.
The daughter of Queen Joanna and King Philip I of Castile, Maria was barely a year old when her father died, and she and her siblings were taken away from their mother, who suffered from bad mental health and ultimately went insane. Maria married King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in 1515, when they were both nine years old. Already at that age Maria could speak Latin as well as German. The marriage was happy but short and childless. Upon her husband's death after the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Queen Maria governed Hungary as regent in the name of the new king, her brother Ferdinand I, during which time she suffered frequent financial difficulties, illnesses and loneliness.
After the death of their aunt Margaret in 1530, Maria was asked by her eldest brother, Emperor Charles V, to assume the governance of the Netherlands and guardianship over their nieces, Dorothea and Christina of Denmark. As governor of the Netherlands, Maria faced riots and a difficult relationship with the Emperor. Throughout her tenure she continuously tried to ensure peace between him and the King of France. Maria never enjoyed governing and several times asked for permission to resign. She told Ferdinand that the experience was like having a rope around her neck. Despite all this, she succeeded in creating a unity between the provinces, as well as in securing for them a measure of independence from both France and the Holy Roman Empire. After her final resignation, the very frail Maria moved to Castile, where she died a few weeks after suffering two heart attacks which were caused by stress from losing Charles just a few months after her sister Eleanor passed away.
Having inherited the Habsburg lip and not being very feminine, Maria was not considered physically attractive. Her portraits, letters, and comments by her contemporaries do not assign her the easy Burgundian charm possessed by her grandmother, Duchess Marie of Burgundy, and her aunt Margaret. Nevertheless, she proved to be a determined, wise and skilful politician, as well as an enthusiastic patron of literature, music and hunting. Whereas Margaret had been feminine, flexible, adaptable, humorous, charming, forgiving, and accomplished her goals using a smile, a good joke, or a word of praise, Maria was unyielding and authoritarian, often held grudges, and used cynical and biting comments to get her way, and it is therefore possible that she might have been on the autism spectrum. In contrast to these traits, and unusually for her day, Maria was very tolerant of other faiths and had to be forced to suppress Protestantism in the Netherlands, but she tried to enforce her brother's laws about religion as little as possible; and she was even accused of protecting Protestants on several occasions. Although she was interested in the teachings of Luther, Maria was a lifelong Catholic. She was also not easily bullied, especially when it came to her personality. Maria's stubbornness and determination sometimes caused clashes of wills with Charles. In most matters of patronage she had to defer to him, and he often criticised her decisions, which negatively affected their otherwise affectionate relationship.
In this letter, written on October 15, 1535, Maria informs Philippe de Croÿ, the Duke of Arschot, of the pleas made to her by the Duke of Guelders, Charles d'Egmont, in favour of the German troops then in conflict with the States of Utrecht; she invites him to send him, with all due diligence, his opinion on this subject.
The letter:
Mon cousin, suyvant ce que, par voz dernières lettres, m'avez requis, j'ay consenti au conseiller Schorre de aler vers vous, pour vous assister en aucunes voz affaires. Et à ceste fin partira d'icy déans ung jour ou deux, dont vous advise volontiers. Au surplus, avant-hier est ici venu le messaigier de mon cousin le Sr de Gheldres avec lettres que disoit charge de baillier en mes mains et à nul autre, lesquelles j'ay veues, ensemble celles que ses gens d'armes luy ont escriptes pour justifier, comme ils dient, pour deu qu'ilz demandent à ceulx du dict Utrecht. Et sans que le dict Sr de Gheldres faisce aucune mension des ouvertures que, à la journée de Vyane, luy ont esté faites, de poursuyvre les droits par voye de justice, ou en submectre à l'arbitraige de certains personnaiges neutres et non suspectz, il m'escript en sorte que verrez par le sommaire de ses lettres, lequel et le translat de celles de ses dicts gens d'armes je vous envoye, vous pryant veoir le tout, ensemble la responce que j'ay advisé de faire au dict Sr de Gheldres et la me renvoyer en la meilleure diligence que pourrez, avec vostre advis de ce que vous semblera que ce pourroit joindre ou estre d'icelle responce, pour après entendre à la dépesche du dict messagier, qui est fort importun pour estre de retour devers son maistre. A tant, mon cousin, je prye Dieu vous avoir en sa garde.
De Gant, le XV° jour d'octobre, XV°XXXV.
Vostre cousine,
MARIE.
English translation (my own):
My cousin,
According to what your last letters required of me, I consented that Councilor Schorre may come to you to assist you in any of your affairs. And to this end he will leave here in a day or two, which you gladly advise. In addition, the day before yesterday the messenger of my cousin the Duke of Guelders came here with letters that said "charge of bailiff" in my hands and to no one else, which I saw, together with those that his men-at-arms wrote to him to justify, as they say, the due diligence they ask of those of the said Utrecht. And without the said Duke of Guelders making any mention of the overtures which, on the day of Vianen, were made to him to pursue rights by way of justice, or to submit them to arbitration by certain neutral and non-suspect characters, he is writing to me so that I will see by the summary of his letters, which I send you with the translation of those of his said men-at-arms, begging you to see the whole of the answer which I advised to give to the said Duke of Guelders and send it back to me as quickly as possible, with your opinion of what it seems to you that this could join or be of this answer, after hearing the dispatch from the said messenger, who is very unwelcome to be of return to his master. So, my cousin, I pray God have you in his care.
From Ghent, the 15th day of October, 1535.
Your cousin
Maria.
Note: In accordance with the nobility's ideals in the early modern era, kings and queens considered themselves siblings; when talking to someone of a lower rank than their own, they would refer to that person as "my cousin", regardless of whether or not they were related.
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