On ficathons and promos

[selenak]

Firstly,

Comments

[kathyh]

A master promo post for the Hapsburgs. I did not know about Charles V and his step-grandmother I must say. I know the Hapsburgs went in for some slightly unusual inter-generational marriages but I didn't know it extended to affairs as well.

Stepgrandmother/Stepgrandson

[selenak]

To explain the circumstances somewhat: he was 17, she was 29, and they had more than a few things in common. Old Ferdinand of Aragon had remarried after Isabella the Catholic's death, remember, to avoid just what would eventually happen - the Habsburgs inheriting both Castile and Aragon via Juana. His new bride, Germaine de Foix, did produce a son, but the boy lived only a day, and then Ferdinand himself died, leaving Germaine widowed in a country where she was seen as an unwanted French foreigner (not to mention unwanted successor of the great Isabel). Meanwhile, teenage Charles, who had grown up in the Netherlands (not exactly the same thing as the Netherlands today - the territory encompassed Belgium as you might recall), not in Spain, and who btw thus had French as his first language, was seen as an unwanted foreigner by a great many Aragonese and Castiles upon arrival, too. (Some wanted his younger brother Ferdinand who had grown up with Granddad, and some were rooting for his mother and refusing to believe in her madness.) They

RE: Stepgrandmother/Stepgrandson

[kathyh]

The relationship makes more sense now if they were both viewed as French outsiders. It makes an intriguing "what if" to wonder what would have happened if Germaine's son by Ferdinand had lived. War between Castile and Aragon, infanticide, the possibilities are endless!