Emperor Maximilian I
Although he never lived in his capital, one remarkable Hapsburg transformed the family from a secondary European royal house in to a world power within fifty years. More remarkable still, is that he was able to expand his lands primarily through marriages, money and diplomacy. Maximilian I (1459-1519) was the picture of the Renaissance Prince. He was very religious, spoke seven languages, humorous, skilled in arms crafting, and loved tournaments and hunting. He was a patron of the sciences and arts and insisted on demonstrating his dynasty's dominance with processions and portraits. Though his empire has crumbled of time, his legacy remains as Austrians look to diplomacy, rather than war, as the true maker and most positive element of Austrian culture.
After his marriage to the heiress, Mary of Burgundy, in 1477 Maximilian lived in the Netherlands to secure the Burgundy patrimony for his children. Then, when he was elected Roman King, he purchased Tyrol and the forelands, and reoccupied Lower Austria. He had himself proclaimed "Elected Roman Emperor" and claimed Bohemia and Hungary under the Treaty of Inheritance of 1463. In 1493 he inherited the rest of the Habsburg countries from his father and united them all.
Maximilian secured his possessions at the Vienna Conference of Princes in 1515 with the double marriage of the heir of Hungary throne, Louis, and Maximilian's granddaughter Mary; and between her brother, Archduke Ferdinand, and the Hungarian king’s daughter, Anna. While all parties of this marriage were minors at the time of the double knot, this wedding became the ground work of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and stretched Hapsburg lands east to Bohemia and Hungary. It is not surprising, then, that Austria was tagged with the saying, “Let others wage war; you, happy Austria, marry.”
Charles of Europe
Maximilian also married off his only son, Philip the Fair, to the Princess Joanna of Spain in 1496. Philip and Joanna’s son, Emperor Charles V, inherited all the Austrian, Portuguese and Spanish lands, including vast lands in the Americas, creating a true world power. While this broadened the power of the Hapsburgs, such large expanses only continued to separate the Austrian heartland from its sovereigns. In fact, Charles V is said to have only visited Vienna once in his life. In the Edicts of Worms and Brussels he divided his territories, giving the traditional Hausmacht of Austria to his brother Ferdinand I in 1521. Charles V kept the Imperial title until 1556 when he abdicated, passing it over to the Austrian Habsburg line in 1558.
