Charles V’s Bastards
By: Laura, L.E. Van Altfeldt
Tags: Lifestyle, Life, Culture, History, Life Lessons

Charles V’s Bastards

Of which there were four; three daughters and a son, two famous and one died young.

The eldest of all Charles V’s children: Margaret of Austria/Parma.

Emperor Charles V was far from a model father at the best of times when it came to personally looking after his offspring, yet he would form a daunting model of behaviour for his son Philip II of Spain, who would struggle to live up to his father’s legacy his entire life. What people don’t often tend to think about are his numerous bastard children, and with two of said children later becoming governor of the Low Countries/Netherlands, I can’t help but know them from my secondary school history books. What surprised me more was that there were two beyond the two that get prominently mentioned in specific country’s historical circumstances, and I thought it worthwhile to devote some attention to all four of the emperor’s ‘naturally born’ children.

Margaret of Parma

As Charles V’s eldest child, both he and his paternal aunt Margaret of Austria/Savoy (who was like a mother to Charles and was also the person his daughter was named after), took a great interest in her. She was born in 1522, the child of a servant girl of Charles I de Laliang (the emperor’s chamberlain) in Flanders. Charles I de Laliang’s grandsons the count of Rennenberg and the count of Hoogstraten would be as prominent in the early phase of the Eighty Years’ War as Margaret of Parma in the role of governess of the Low Countries. Margaret of Parma was governess for her half-brother Philip II of Spain like her paternal great-aunt and namesake Margaret was for her nephew Charles V before her.

Johanna Maria van der Geynst, Margaret’s mother, was forced to part with her daughter after her birth, but would for the rest of her life receive a handsome pension for her services. She would be one of two former mistresses of Charles’s that he would remember fondly, and he was apparently even upset when he heard she had died in 1541. Margaret would first stay with two different noble families, and after being formally acknowledged by the emperor in 1529 she’d stay with her great-aunt Margaret until 1530, when her great-aunt died of infected abscesses in her legs (from gout). After her great-aunt, Margaret’s paternal aunt (Charles’s sister) Marie would become governess, and cared for her niece as if she were her own daughter (Marie was childless).

Margaret would later be married off by her father to Alessandro de Medici in 1536 (in the year she turned thirteen), but scarcely more than a year into her marriage, her husband would be assassinated. She had been engaged to Alessandro, the nephew of Pope Clement VII (the pope that later crowned her father emperor), since she was around five years of age. A year after her husband’s death, Margaret would be sent to marry Ottavio Farnese, the duke of Parma. Ottavio was two years younger than her and had failed to consummate their marriage on the night of their wedding. Margaret henceforth refused to sleep with him.

She wrote angry letters about her dissatisfaction to her father, showcasing that she’d inherited this aspect of his personality, and even managed to provoke a personal response from the emperor written in his own hand (which was a unique feat, as Charles dictated letters even to his son and heir Philip). Charles scolded her for her behaviour towards him in her correspondence, urging her to remember that he was her father and she ought to behave better. He had also not been too pleased that during the period between her marriages, she did not come home every evening when she did the typically Habsburg thing of hunting long and often, which Charles V was no stranger to in his own life either.

Still, Charles was one to acknowledge when things were not going as they should, and sent for his son-in-law to join his court for a few years, leaving Margaret on her own in Italy for a while. He even took him to war campaigns, and when Ottavio returned to his bride a few years later, an agent of the emperor’s gloated in his letter that the union had now well and truly been consummated. Before long, Margaret would get pregnant, giving birth to two healthy boys in 1545 — seven years after the year of her second wedding. The boys were named Charles and Alexander in honour of Charles and likely of Pope Clement VII, whose given name was Alessandro. Charles enjoyed asking after his grandsons, often asking how chubby they were getting and how they were getting along in their development.

Though he’d never met them as children, Charles could well be described as a happy grandfather at age forty-five. (Noteworthy that this is also the year that Philip II’s son (Don) Carlos was born, making Charles become a grandfather twice that year.) Unfortunately for his little grandson Charles, the baby would die hardly a year after his birth. His twin brother Alexander would grow up — partially in Spain with his nephew (Philip’s son) and his half-uncle Juan, the latter of whom will be brought up later in this article — and marry with a princess of Portugal and have children of his own. That wedding ceremony incidentally marked the last time that the Netherlandish nobles celebrated together, as the wedding was in 1565 right before the troubles which led to the Eighty Years’ War began.

In 1567, Margaret was replaced as governess of the Low Countries by the duke of Alva (the Iron Duke), as he’d been sent by her half-brother Philip II of Spain to restore order by means of force. Margaret was recalled and returned to Italy. Ottavio and her hadn’t had any more children as Ottavio had contracted ‘French disease’ (syphilis) after fathering his sons, and Charles V had forbidden the couple from sleeping together for fear that Margaret would contract the disease. At the time, people thought ‘French disease’ would spread through shared bed sheets, which was close enough to the truth of it being an STD that avoiding to share a bed worked to avoid contracting it. Margaret and Ottavio both died in 1586.

Margaret of Parma in 1562, aged 39/40, painted by Antonis Mor.

Poor Little Juana

Born 1522, died 1530. Juana was paid little heed by her father, but was remarkably enough raised by her mother at a convent. Unfortunately, this would also be the reason why she died so young, seeing as the emperor had neither guards nor servants to really watch her. In stark contrast to how his daughter Margaret was treated, not a single family member of the emperor appeared to know about Juana’s existence. In spite of her mother’s requests, the emperor himself also never paid much attention to her, and after her death even less so.

What is remarkable is that an illegitimate daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragón, and thereby Charles’s aunt, was the prioress of this convent. She was the one keeping Charles up to date on his daughter’s health, reporting that she had a ‘marvellous body for her age’ and that as the days went by, she began looking like the emperor more and more. She’s also the one that reported the sadness of Juana’s mother that Charles never sent anyone to see how his daughter was doing, nor asked after her to begin with.

Juana’s paternal grandmother Juana of Aragón, known to history as Juana or Joanna the Mad, painted here around 1496 when she was married at age 17.

Tadea the Nun

Born roughly around 1523, Tadea’s early life was similar to her older half-sister Juana. The key difference lies in the fact that she at some point, aged around six, met her father, who in a rather public ceremony for some baffling reason wished to have an abbreviation of the name of Jesus (IHS) marked under his daughter’s knee. Why he did so remains unclear, as well as the effects this had on his daughter. Whatever the case, Tadea became a nun later in life, and her father neglected to mention her existence to her younger half-brother (and Charles’s legitimate son) Philip II of Spain. Twice she met her father as a child, and the second time Charles had even sent her back with instructions that she was not to be given to her mother unless he specifically allowed it.

What happened to Tadea is that her mother’s half-brothers broke into the convent, took their niece, and forced her to marry a local nobleman, thereby greatly angering the emperor. Charles might have been powerful, but the power to annul marriages was not one of his abilities. In 1550, Tadea’s mother and husband were dead, and so she became a nun in Rome. Later, she heard that Charles had abdicated, and she wished to see him in Spain, but received no reply from anyone. A few years after her father’s death is where she contacted Philip II with the request that she be allowed to live in Spain. She sent him documents to prove that she was the emperor’s daughter, but Philip only archived her request and sent no reply.

Similarly to his father, he could be cold towards certain family members, though in Philip’s case (and contrary to his reputation in the English-speaking world) this behaviour was rather rare. Yet in Tadea’s case it was not all the emperor’s fault necessarily. He had used Margaret as a dynastic pawn in marriage before, and it would seem that he had once had the same plans for Tadea, but that the girl’s half-uncles ruined this future for her. In general, Charles had never told his son that he had more than one half-sibling, leading us to the next person that was only mentioned by Charles in a document that was to remain sealed until after his death.

Pope Clement VII and Charles V in his imperial garb on horseback upon their entry into Bologna in 1530, a painting done by Jacopo Ligozzi around 1580. This depicts the day Emperor Charles V was crowned emperor, at last being elevated from his pre-imperial title of king of the Romans (which he was elected into in 1520).

Juan of Austria

Juan, born in 1547 on the day his father Charles V turned forty-seven, was the son of a German commoner whom the emperor had met while staying at an inn in Regensburg. In his early life, Juan formed some source of embarrassment for his aged father, and as a result he knew of neither of his parents’ identities and was raised by a nobleman called Luis de Quijada and his wife. Quijada was also there to provide his services for the emperor in his last days, and as a result of this closeness, Juan — who at this point was still called Geronimo — had met his father once. He was in disguise, though there were nothing but rumours as to his parentage going around, and met the emperor who was similarly disguised. No one told Juan who he was meeting, whether we be referring to the emperor’s identity as Charles V or Charles’s identity as Juan’s father.

Barbara Blomberg, Juan’s mother, had similarly to Margaret’s mother Johanna van der Geynst been paid for her services to the emperor after parting with her child, and would continue to receive a generous pension on behalf of the emperor long after the emperor had died. (Johanna hadn’t outlived her former lover, but Barbara died in 1597, outliving even her son.) Also similarly to Johanna, it was thanks to this money that she could find herself a suitable husband with whom she would have more children. Charles might have been selective in his treatment of former paramours, but with at least two of them we can call him a most generous and grateful man. She had met her son only once in his adulthood, but it seems to have made little impression on Juan.

Before Charles V died while in retirement at his monastery at Yuste, he signed a separate codicil (from the one he sent to Philip II) where he told his son about his little half-brother. Philip II was initially not too elated about having another half-sibling (because for the longest time, he knew only of Margaret), and he had been ordered not to open the document which revealed Juan’s existence and who to consult to confirm his father’s story and explain about Juan’s life thus far until after Charles V had died. Charles V had also ordered Philip II to at least in some way provide for his two half-siblings, though he was free to do more if he so pleased.

With Margaret, given that her existence was widespread knowledge throughout the emperor’s possessions, this was a given. With Juan, Philip was initially a tad reluctant as to the extent of his ‘generosity’ towards his half-brother. And yet, during the first chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece which he lead himself, Philip named a secret knight whose identity was to be revealed later — which was the young Juan of Austria. Also at some point after Philip’s return to Spain from the Low Countries, Philip arranged to meet Juan, and there he told him who their father was and that this meant that they were siblings, and Philip would for the rest of Juan’s life show him great favour and place a lot of faith in him as Juan proved his competence and loyalty to the king.

Juan was placed at university with Philip’s son Carlos and their half-sister Margaret’s son Alexander, who were both two years older than Juan. Particularly with Carlos (as Alexander was heir to the duchy of Parma in Italy and therefore left the country at some point to marry and have children), Juan became increasingly close, and Carlos would place a lot of trust in his half-uncle, even going as far as to tell him of a plan to escape Philip II’s reach so that he might do as he pleased. Juan then took it upon himself to speed away on horseback to inform Philip, thereby stopping Carlos’s last attempt to let his madness lead him into independence from his father at the risk of destroying his house’s prestige.

Juan was useful to Carlos because he had been made commander of the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean the same month Carlos wished to flee. It was this position which would make Juan’s name known throughout Europe, and not simply in Spain as before. Earning his half-brother the king of Spain a great victory at Lepanto in 1571, as well as managing to recapture Tunis 1573 (a development which didn’t last as Tunis was fully conquered by the Ottoman Empire the following year) solidified Juan’s reputation. At least in a militaristic and strategic sense, Juan was a better reflection of an heir to Charles V than Philip II was. This isn’t to say anything of the qualities which were more present in Philip than Juan, such as a certain groundedness in Philip and his way of transacting business which Juan didn’t seem to have.

Juan was more of a man who enjoyed life, but whose ambitions became as unrealistic as Philip and Charles could sometimes have in their messianic vision of themselves. Juan appears to have wanted to become king of England by marrying Mary, Queen of Scots, because Philip at some point concocted the unrealistic play to depose Elizabeth I through an invasion and replace her with the Catholic queen of Scotland. But Juan wasn’t known for his virtues with women in the more faithful sense of the word. He was a womaniser like his father, but unlike Charles he never lost this quality in himself through marriage. (Though Charles was faithful to the empress by all accounts, it is noteworthy that he held onto the chivalric value of wanting to charm women to earn their favour.)

When Juan was made governor of the Low Countries (which at this point were in rebellion against Philip II), he tried as much as he could to get himself out of there. Though he stuck to most of his duties as governor, he began to defy (and thereby annoy) Philip more frequently. Apart from his aim to make himself king in effect — a stunning similarity to usual Habsburg ambitiousness — he was also stubborn enough to prefer his own ways over those of others. Unlike his nephew Alexander (the aforementioned son of his half-sister Margaret), who became governor after him, Juan didn’t put as much energy into fighting the rebels. (Given that there was a truce of sorts going on here, which thwarted potential aims he might have had, but which also contributed most certainly to making Juan feel melancholic about his position.)

Juan died in his position of governor in 1578, aged 31, never to see any other country than the Low Countries in spite of his wishes. Philip was terribly struck by the death of his brother, and ordered his body to be brought to Spain. Juan still rests in El Escorial’s mausoleum — the only non-royal to have been given this honour. And what is perhaps also an interesting detail but which I’ve neglected to mention with Margaret, is that both he and his half-sister look remarkably like Charles V. In fact, they look like him in almost every sense, except the notably absent Habsburg lip.

Juan in effect showcases how handsome his father would have been were it not for the fact that Charles V had inherited his own father’s jawline, and had the emperor lived to see what his bastard son would become, he may have thought twice about initially preferring him to join one of the strict religious orders. Charles had stated to Philip that if his natural son preferred a more secular lifestyle, that he was to be provided a certain amount of money to make this possible, and so despite his personal preferences, Charles had opened the way for a bit more freedom for the future of his bastard son’s upbringing.