Mary of Burgundy, Ancestress of the Habsburgs

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for watching this! I know the volume is terrible, and one person pointed out that I got the name of Mary's grandfather wrong - I called him Peter, but his name was actually Philip the Good. For better audio quality and some subtitles, check out my redo of this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ol6VimZpZ9WCbNU

[@SyIe12]

👍⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐EXCELLENT WORK!! THANK YOU FOR THE EXPLANATION. I LOOK FORWARD TO NEW VIDEOS!

[@AnthonyGarcia-se2yd]

Aww, that's sad ! I have three daughters no sons and they're much closer to me than their mother. I couldn't imagine be like these guys.

[@beth7935]

Very interesting! I've learned a tiny bit lately about people connected to Mary, but not her, so it was good to hear her story. I'll watch the updated version too tho.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

I'm glad you learned something, thank you for commenting!

[@GreatGreebo]

Great video…(technical note: your audio is very low. I find that editing with headphones on gives me a good sense of if my audio is appropriately adjusted on my videos) Thanks!!!

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Thanks for the advice! I hope I can make my videos better, the audio was really bad in this :)

[@GreatGreebo]

@@TheRoyalWomen I learned the hard way because I was editing with my computer speakers…I finally learned to ONLY use headphones when doing my audio ❤️ it’s still a great video..lit just has to be turned up a bit. Don’t worry about it!

[@bethanne1221]

Yeah it’s a great video, don’t sweat it lol

[@thunguyen-sn2vb]

If Maximilian was the second founder of the Habsburgs, Mary/Marie could certainly be called their ancestress. I always think it was his destiny to rise through one marriage or another though. It was an interesting time. Beatrice of Naples, the widowed queen of Matthias Corvinus in Hungary, had powerful influence over Hungarian nobles and she initially promised Maximilian to support him as candidate for the throne, but he insisted on calling her (she was Mary's age) "Mother" so she changed her mind... Maximilian could have a happy marriage with Anne de Bretagne too. She kept a liking for him long after (even though they never met) and even tried to betroth her daughter (who she intended to become her heir in Bretagne) to his grandson. But the Fates pushed him towards the woman who befitted him the most and then seemed to decide that they were too generous to him. They were both so reckless. Before her death, one of their knights warned Mary about adventurous sport activities already (she did some tricks on ice in the absence of Max). And then Max thought it was a good idea that a pregnant woman should go hunting. After her death, he seemed to lose the ability to romantically love another woman, and compensate for this with sexual adventures. It seemed he was a man many women actually fell for (he had many things going for him, other than being an emperor) and nobody among them ended up happy. His last wife Bianca Maria waited for his return and his letters in vain, got eating disorders and died a neglected, childless woman. Mary was remarkable as a ruler on her own, not just because she was the ancestress of others though. She was naive, spoiled and an easy target of powerful people at the beginning of her reign, but she learned very quickly. There are different opinions on the matter "who hold the reins in her reign", but I think it was her, not Max. Max did not know the languages, nor the customs. She used Max as her bad cop/stick (when people pressed her on some point she did not like, she said she could not decide if he did not like it), but it was her to whom people came, not him. Except when it came to military campaigns, of course. Her propaganda images showed this. Max was the powerful military man with arms and armor but she was always in the more prestigious position holding her falcon - she was peaceful, but she was in control, kind of how our powerful Asian monarches treated their main general: You are glorious and all but it will always be "Us" who are in control. . That did not mean she did not love him or trust him. Because one month after the wedding, she secretly made a document (with her and Margaret of York's signatures), that changed their marriage contract and allowed him to succeed her in the case they had no children! I think both the feminist historians and the scholars (likely male) from Max's camp go overboard with emphasizing one over another. Certainly circumstances forced them to utilize the other's image in propaganda in ways that promoted their own positions (Max, too, later did that. Although I think he did compensate for her in very subtle ways), but that did not mean they did not like each other. After one week or so following his marriage with Bianca, Max began comparing the two women (not very chivalrous to Bianca, really), and we can know his opinion from the accounts of Margaret of Savoy as well as his friends. Bianca was more physically beautiful, but was just "a child", who lacked intelligence (this seemed unfair, as Bianca was actually an educated person) and could neither rule nor decide anything, while Mary was a grand "Dame", who had "spirit" and "power" in her eyes that "surpassed any other woman". He could not pretend that he liked Bianca. He could not pretend that he was in a harmonious relationship with his son Philip (although certainly he loved him), I do not think he could have pretended that he had loved Mary, if he had not. By all accounts, not least of all that of Maximilian himself, had she lived a long life, she would have become a great ruler. And Maximilian's style of ruling (he was modern in many things, but this was not one of them) demanded the presence of a great female counterpart (Margaret of Austria/Savoy could only fulfill this partially, because she only had authority in Burgundy). Stay-at-home monarches need great chancellors, warrior-kings need great queens.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Thank you for the comment! I mainly focused on her marriage, and I’m thinking about making another video about Mary that’s not so focused on her marriage to Maximilian, because Mary herself was such an awesome woman. She truly was an amazing ruler, and she and Maximilian both did very good things for the Habsburg dynasty. :)

[@thunguyen-sn2vb]

@@TheRoyalWomen Thank you, and please do it :) I do think that the marriage aspect is important (so please do not think that I criticized you or something). Our current fashion is "We do not need no man/woman" (and some historians show this tendency too), but rulers, male or female, need partners and supporters. When the important partner/supporter happens to be the husband/wife, is it not a good thing? And both of them were so interesting. I think that as the case with many ruler couples, the mutual trust between the two allowed them to be capable of things they would not have managed to do as lone rulers. Mary's and Max's lone reigns before and after their marriage showed that. They both lacked experience, while the situation after Charles's death was disastrous and Louis XI was one of the shrewdest politicians Europe had ever seen. It was certainly fairytale-like that the young couple was able to slowly take control. Mary was an educated woman but it seemed Charles the Bold did not prepare her to become his successor. Max by nature seemed to lean towards the "genius" type (even "polymath", rather than pure "politician"), the more I read about him, and at this point he was very naive. She was certainly the calmer, more matured one. When she fell from the horse, he became frantic and she calmed him down by pretending that the injury was not serious. Later, as her death was near, she had to order him to leave her chamber while she discussed matters of the state with her nobles (she asked them to keep their oath of loyalty to Max, and in that situation it would not have been a good idea to show them that he could not keep his composure), so she was not able to say her last words to him at all. The poor woman was certainly a wise stateswoman and at the same time, she had something about her, that was like a romance heroine. I like arts and the two of them certainly had this artist-like aspect. That was just too much. In our country, we have a saying "Wife and husband cannot both be dragons" for that situation.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

@@thunguyen-sn2vb I definitely don't think you criticized me, and I'm definitely going to make another video about Mary :) Maximilian and Mary certainly were fond of each other, and after I made this video, I read more about Mary, and I realized that there's so much I didn't include about how simply amazing Mary was. Thanks so much for watching the video and giving me some extra information!

[@alexandramsh4740]

@@thunguyen-sn2vb Thank you! I enjoy reading about Mary and Max, down to their descendants.

[@kaloarepo288]

The Habsburgs were around and very big long before Mary of Burgundy -they provided all of the Holy Roman emperors from about the mid 1200's onward and were involved in everything from the Swiss War of Independence to the securing of Bohemia to be part of their realm.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

They were around and did a lot before Mary, but it was her and her descendants who saw the Habsburg become as powerful as we think :). Thanks for the comment!

[@thunguyen-sn2vb]

During the last years of the reign of Friedrich III though, they lost even their hereditary lands to Matthias Corvinus. The situation with their ancestral lands in Switzerland was also hopeless. The marriage certainly was a new start.

[@jaejaw258]

Your audio is so low :( turn it up a bit please? I already have my volume max but it seems like you're just whispering

[@jamellfoster6029]

*Mary married her 2nd cousin, Maximilian as her Dad & his Mom were 1st cousins. Her parents were 1st cousins (her Dad's Dad & her Mom's Mom were siblings)...

[@kurt11110]

you have made a very interesting video and you have a pleasing speaking voice. if i had one wish, it would be to set the volume at least one and a half times louder. 😀

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Thank you! I'm trying to make the volume higher on my newer videos, but the volume on this was horrible

[@rosecoloredtimes]

Great video!!! I love learning about the women behind the men we usually hear about….

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Exactly, they're always so fascinating! Thank you!

[@calvinking3944]

Love these videos but the audio is way way way too low. Keep up the great work, though. Very interesting videos

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Thank you! I think the audio is better in my most recent one :)

[@MarinaKaFai]

Mary died so young, and she suffered too! Poor woman!

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Truly! At least we remember her for her wits and strength these days.

[@Pottatow]

I had known the Habsburgs were a prominent house of Austria, but I never knew the were first dukes of Burgundy.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

They weren't the first, but they were also dukes of Burgundy. Thanks for the comment! :)

[@florenceyoung1246]

Couldn't hear anything!

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Sorry about that, the music is definitely too high, but I think it’s a little better in my newer videos

[@ramonafreeman752]

@@TheRoyalWomen why don't you redo this one? Quite frankly, I am not interested in watching any of your other videos based on this one

[@lindanorris2455]

speaker is set soooooooooooooooooooooooo low cannot hear anything.

[@Books_Anime_92]

Mary’s grandfather was Philip the Good, not Peter.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

I just looked it up, and I'm so sorry, he wasn't Peter. I don't know why I thought he was Peter. I'll be making a new video about Mary soon, because this one wasn't that good, so I'll definitely say Peter there. :)

[@LariLesque]

Enjoying your videos. Maybe the music is not always necessary.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Thanks! The music in this video was way too high and my voice was way too low, but I think it’s better in my other videos :)

[@MissMarie1377]

Mary’s grandmother thought it was normal that her husband didn’t attend the baptism. Stop viewing history with modern eyes

[@oznelnavnaekal6679]

ThERe iS No HOpE UnDeR ThE BlAcK SuN.

[@uros3701]

Finally,I found a fellow Ordenstaat gamer with TNO refferences.

[@oznelnavnaekal6679]

@@uros3701 An Ordenstaat gamer? No. An Orderstaat GEHEIMER. :D

[@olyamereacre3326]

Great

[@MagdaleneDivine]

Why there no sound? That's a bummer. I was untested in learning whose fault the habsburgs were

[@TheRoyalWomen]

There is sound, but I put the background music up too high in this, so you might have to turn your volume up a little bit to hear well :)

[@MagdaleneDivine]

@@TheRoyalWomen I had to watch closed captioning

[@Lia-vw8wy]

We can't hear....

[@olyamereacre3326]

❤️

[@judithmacfadzen9516]

Can't hear a bloody thing!

[@soapyboapy]

Gurl shtap changing ya name 💀

[@TheRoyalWomen]

I'm never gonna change it again oKaY

[@rickyodom1201]

next time get some one you can hear

[@PraiseTheMostHighAlways]

Sweetheart they wouldn’t have known the gender before birth.

[@TheRoyalWomen]

Did I imply that? Sorry, obviously they didn’t.

[@milly3464]

Weow qWeEn 11K ViEws uWuuWu grEaT jObB - sincerly cake the hitman

[@TheRoyalWomen]

tYtY cAkE

[@jaejaw258]

Your audio is so low :( turn it up a bit please? I already have my volume max but it seems like you're just whispering

[@TheRoyalWomen]

The audio on this video was really bad, but I think it's better on most of my other videos! :)