Margaret of Austria

Governor of the Netherlands and Early 16th-Century Europe's Greatest Diplomat

By: Rozsa Gaston

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

An Amazon Top 25 Biographies of Royalty Best Seller

FIRST PLACE WINNER - 2023 CHAUCER Book Awards - Early Historical Fiction

WINNER - 2023 READERS' FAVORITE Awards - Fiction-Historical-Personage

◆ Royalty ◆ Power ◆ Politics ◆ Love ◆ Struggle

Bestselling biographer and historian Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens and The Tudors in Love, calls this tale of early 16th-century Europe's most brilliant power broker “Compelling and wholly convincing—at once a vividly readable novel and a long-overdue presentation of Europe's unsung heroine to the broad audience she deserves.”

Margaret of Austria was the most significant political negotiator of early 16th-century Europe. About as Austrian as French fries are French, she was born in Brussels in 1480, raised in France, married and widowed in Spain, then married and widowed again in Savoy by age twenty-four.

In 1506 Margaret’s life turned upside down when her brother Philip of Burgundy unexpectedly died in Spain. With their mother Juana of Castile insane, four children, heirs to the Habsburg empire, were left behind in the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands.

Margaret stepped in and took the reins.

Appointed by her father, Maximilian I, Margaret became governor of the Netherlands, then widened her role to broker the 1508 Treaty of Cambrai where Europe’s princes united against Venice.

Ferdinand of Spain, Henry Tudor then Henry VIII of England, Louis XII of France, and Louise of Savoy for Francis I all came to Margaret’s negotiation table. Under her deft diplomacy princes saw reason and wars were averted.

Enjoying political power, Margaret avoided remarriage. Then Henry VIII's right-hand man Charles Brandon turned her world upside down.

Margaret's court attracted Europe's brightest, including the young Anne Boleyn. Yet halfway through her rule Margaret was ousted by enemies. She won back her position with a comeback strategy as astute today as it was in 1517.

Journey to the Renaissance with Margaret of Austria, who shot the fortunes of the House of Habsburg to the stars while setting a winning precedent for female rule in the Netherlands.

“A must-read for fans of The Other Boleyn Girl and Agincourt.”—T. Pine

Hard to listen

The cadence of the virtual voice is impossible to listen to, I could not follow the story because the vv is so distracting.