Maria Anna of Austria was born on Christmas Eve, 1634, in Wiener Neustadt, just south of Vienna, into the most powerful family in Europe. Her father, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, was the son of the Holy Roman Emperor and would himself inherit the imperial throne just three years after her birth. Her mother, also named Maria Anna, was the daughter of King Philip III of Spain. The union of her parents was itself a product of the Habsburg dynasty’s obsessive practice of intermarriage, the two branches of the family in Austria and Spain having married each other for generations to keep power within the bloodline.
That tradition would shape her life in ways no one could then predict. As a girl, Maria Anna was educated in Austria during the Thirty Years’ War, a brutal conflict her father was determined to end. By 1645, with peace negotiations underway, attention turned to her marriage. The plan was straightforward: she would marry a Spanish prince.
The chosen groom was Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias, the only son of King Philip IV of Spain from his first marriage. He was also Maria Anna’s first cousin, the son of her mother’s brother. For the Habsburgs, such close blood ties caused no concern whatsoever. An agreement was reached in 1646: Maria Anna would marry Balthasar once she came of age.
Then fate intervened. In October 1646, just weeks after the betrothal was settled, Balthasar Charles fell ill and died, possibly of smallpox, just days before his seventeenth birthday. Spain was suddenly without an heir. Philip IV, a widower with no male successor, faced immense pressure to secure his dynasty.
His solution was shocking: since his son could no longer marry Maria Anna, he would marry her himself. The arrangement was agreed to, and on October 7, 1649, Maria Anna, aged fourteen, married her uncle, aged forty-four, in the church of Madrid. Thrust into the Spanish court at such a young age, Maria Anna had no choice but to adapt quickly. She mastered Spanish, learned to navigate court politics, and became queen consort of the largest empire on Earth.
Spain’s dominions stretched across the Americas, the Philippines, and vast territories beyond. Her husband, Philip IV, was known at court as Rey Planeta, the Planet King, a title meant to symbolize the reach of his empire. The marriage soon produced children. Their first child, Margaret Teresa, was born in 1651 and, mirroring her mother’s fate, was sent to Vienna at age fourteen to marry her uncle, Leopold I, Maria Anna’s own brother.
Two more children, Maria Ambrosia and Ferdinand Thomas, died in infancy. Two sons followed: Philip Prospero in 1657 and Charles in 1661. Philip Prospero died in 1661, leaving only the sickly Charles as the last hope for the Spanish throne. In 1665, Philip IV died, leaving behind a weakened empire and a fragile heir.
Charles was just shy of his fourth birthday. Spain needed leadership immediately, and a swift decision was made: Maria Anna would serve as regent during her son’s minority. In essence, she became the de facto ruler of Spain. But ruling as a female regent in one of the most deeply patriarchal courts in Europe was no easy task.
Her authority was constantly challenged by powerful Spanish nobles. Spain itself was in steep decline. The gold and silver flowing from the mines of Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia was running dry. Economic stagnation, domestic unrest, and constant wars drained resources and morale.
One of the longest-running conflicts was the war with Portugal, which had rebelled against Spanish rule in 1640. By the time Maria Anna took power, the war was clearly unwinnable, with France and England backing the Portuguese. Influenced by her Jesuit adviser, Cardinal Juan Everardo Nithard, she made the bold decision to cut Spain’s losses. In 1668, she signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle with France and the Treaty of Lisbon with Portugal, officially recognizing Portugal’s independence.
Just four years later, war erupted again when Louis XIV of France moved to seize the Spanish Netherlands, modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg. Spain’s international struggles were far from over. But the crisis unfolding at home was worse. As Charles grew up, it became clear he was not well.
Historians and medical experts still debate what exactly afflicted him, but the records paint a grim picture. His body never fully developed. He could barely walk unaided. His Habsburg jaw was so extreme that he struggled to chew food properly.
His mental faculties were severely impaired. He aged prematurely, showing dementia-like symptoms in his twenties and going bald around the same time. His contemporaries called him El Hechizado, the Bewitched King, believing his condition was the result of sorcery. Modern researchers have suggested his ailments likely stemmed from severe genetic disorders caused by generations of inbreeding, possibly hormonal deficiencies, epilepsy, and skeletal deformities.
His inbreeding coefficient was shockingly high, with some estimates suggesting his genetic makeup was as inbred as that of a child born to siblings. By the 1670s, it was undeniable that Charles would never be able to fully rule Spain by himself. He was deemed to have come of age when he turned fourteen in 1675, ending his mother’s ten-year regency. But court factional fighting and Charles’s clear inability to govern saw Maria Anna orchestrate an arrangement that reestablished the regency in 1677.
Her return to power was brief. John Joseph of Austria, the illegitimate son of Philip IV and Charles’s half-brother, seized control of the regency. He held power only two years before his death in 1679. With his death, Maria Anna reclaimed the regency once again, becoming the most powerful figure in Spain.
This time, she would hold onto power for the rest of her life. Her greatest concern during this second regency was securing the future of the Spanish monarchy. Charles was unfit to rule, but perhaps he could father an heir who might restore the dynasty. In 1679, she arranged for her son to marry Marie Louise d’Orléans, the niece of Louis XIV.
The marriage was miserable for Marie Louise and produced no children. She died in 1689, likely from a burst appendix, though some whispered rumors of poison. Determined to secure an heir, Maria Anna arranged for Charles to remarry within months. His second wife, Maria Anna of Neuburg, was chosen for her family’s reputation for fertility.
It was all in vain. Charles remained without an heir. These were difficult years for Maria Anna. She was constantly anxious about Spain’s decline, her son’s condition, and the fate of the Habsburg dynasty.
She frequently argued with her daughter-in-law. In 1692, her granddaughter Maria Antonia of Austria died at just twenty-three, a terrible blow to the already melancholy queen. By the early 1690s, it was painfully clear that Charles would never produce a child. His health worsened rapidly, and many at court believed his death was imminent.
Yet he lingered on for another decade. Maria Anna would not live to see his final days. In the mid-1690s, she developed what appears to have been breast cancer. After years of political struggle and failed efforts to secure Spain’s future, she died in Madrid on May 16, 1696, at the age of sixty-one.
Her life’s work, preserving the Habsburg dynasty, had ultimately failed. Her only surviving child did not long outlive her. On November 1, 1700, Charles II, the Bewitched King, died at just thirty-eight. His second marriage had produced no children, and with his death, the Spanish Habsburg dynasty came to an end.
For years, the Spanish court had wrestled with the looming succession crisis. Maria Anna had always favored her own family, the Austrian Habsburgs, as the rightful heirs. Her preferred candidate was her nephew, Archduke Charles of Austria, a choice that would maintain Habsburg rule in Spain without uniting Austria and Spain under a single ruler, a scenario the other European powers would never accept. Yet before his death, Charles II overturned his mother’s wishes.
In his final will, he named Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV of France, as his heir. Philip was also a great-grandson of Philip IV through his first marriage. This dynastic dispute ignited the War of Spanish Succession, which erupted in 1701 as Europe’s most powerful nations fought over the fate of Spain. The conflict raged for thirteen years and drew in nearly every major European power.
It ended with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which confirmed Philip V, a Bourbon, as King of Spain at a heavy price. Spain lost many of its European territories, and the Habsburgs were permanently shut out of the Spanish throne. For nearly two decades after Maria Anna’s death, the consequences of her marriage and her son’s tragic fate cast a long shadow over Europe, despite all her efforts to prevent exactly such a disaster.