Book Series Courts and Courtiers in a Global Context, vol. 1

On the steps of the throne

The King's family and its political and cultural role in the Spanish monarchy (16th-18th centuries)

Santiago Martínez Hernández, Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez, Jonathan Spangler (eds)

  • Pages: approx. 200 p.
  • Size:178 x 254 mm
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2025


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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-60280-6
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The chapters that make up this volume deploy diverse interdisciplinary perspectives to rethink the dynastic and political role played by consorts, siblings and royal cousins queens and princes and princesses in the Hispanic monarchy and its subsidiary European kingdoms.

BIO

Santiago Martínez Hernández is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. His research is focused on the Iberian nobility and the court of the Spanish Habsburgs. He is author, among many other studies, of Rodrigo Calderón. La sombra del valido. Privanza, favor y corrupción en la corte de Felipe III (2009) and Escribir la corte de Felipe IV: el Diario del Marqués de Osera, 1657-1659 (2013).

Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez is Assistant Professor in History at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid. She has published the monograph A la sombra de la reina. Poder, patronazgo y servicio en la corte de la Felipe IV (1615-1644) (2020).

Jonathan Spangler is Senior lecturer in History at Manchester Metropolitan University and a specialist on the history of monarchy and dynasticism. His most recent book is Monsieur. Second Sons in the Monarchy of France, 1550-1800 (2021).

Summary

During the Early Middle Ages male primogeniture became established as the underlying principle that ensured the continuity of Western European dynastic-hereditary monarchies; by establishing this clear parameter for succession, royal families were able to maintain their control of the throne over successive generations. Thereby the monarch and his successor became the corner stone of the monarchy. However, this system could only be sustained by all the members of the ruling family, different degrees depending on their precise status and rank, loyally participating in implementing monarchical rule, whether in merely ceremonial roles at court or by undertaking governmental roles. From amongst the diverse protagonists in this system it has undoubtedly been the male non-regnant members of the royal family, whether legitimate or illegitimate – siblings, cousins or monarchs’ bastard children – who have prompted increasing scrutiny from historians, despite the fact that their dynastic relevance lacked any specific political status beyond their being blood relatives of the monarch. Nevertheless, these members of the royal family were frequently deemed problematic due to the difficulty of balancing their interests and the responsibilities they assumed as dynastic agents. This volume brings together twelve contributions by specialists from a range of countries with a dual aim: on the one hand, to examine the dynastic role these members of the royal family played at the heart of the Hispanic Monarchy and the European states under its influence; and, on the other, to analyse how the problematic nature of these family members and the diverse roles they were expected to play were addressed and represented within the Hispanic Monarchy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 

Part I. Queens Consort: the role of the queen in the political construction of the Spanish Monarchy 

Sergio Bravo Sánchez, Isabel of Portugal and Charles V’s system of delegating royal power (1526–1539) 

José Antonio López Anguita, Queenship, politics and the image of power during the War of the Spanish Succession: Queen Marie Louise of Savoy as governor 

Cécile Vincent-Cassy, Pearls of the Spanish Crown: Queenship, Sainthood and Portraiture in the Seventeenth Century 

Part II. The King of Spain’s relatives: his daughters and siblings in context 

Sergio Ramiro Ramírez, ‘Narrowed’ and ‘Retired’ as Synonyms of ‘Virtuous’. The Role of Domestic Architecture in the Education of María and Juana of Austria (1539–1552) 

Elisa García Prieto, A court without a consort: Isabella Clara Eugenia of Austria’s role at the court of Philip II between 1580 and 1598 

Diego Pacheco Landero, Ferdinand of Habsburg (1503-1564) and the rank of Infante of Castile at the beginning of the Spanish Monarchy 

Marion Duchesne, ‘Que los infantes con el rey pareciesen vasallos y con los vasallos reyes’: Negotiating the Status of the King’s Brothers, a Political Challenge for the Spanish Monarchy 

Part III. The King’s other relatives: bastards and nephews on the margins of the dynasty 

Jaime Elipe, Frustrated Inheritance? The role of the infantes and royal bastards in the succession of the Crown of Aragón at the beginning of the 16th century 

Silvia D’Agata, Glorious ‘Bastard’: The Case of Ana of Austria 

B. Alice Raviola, ‘Hermanos’. Princes Emanuele Filiberto, Tommaso and Maurizio of Savoy between politics and personal relationship