Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy

Margaret was the daughter of Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy. Betrothed in childhood to Charles VIII, she was raised at the French court before being displaced by his marriage to Anne of Brittany. She later married John, Prince of Asturias, and Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, and after both marriages ended she became governor of the Habsburg Netherlands.

From Mechelen she educated and supervised young Habsburg relatives, including the future Charles V, while acting as a skilled regent and diplomat. She is especially important to fiction about Anne Boleyn’s continental education, Habsburg statecraft and women exercising delegated sovereignty in Renaissance Europe.

In Rozsa Gaston’s Margaret of Austria, Returned to her Habsburg family, Margaret is sent into two further dynastic marriages: first to John, Prince of Asturias, and then to Philibert II of Savoy. Rozsa Gaston’s Maid of Honour is set in 1513 the young Anne Boleyn leaves England for Mechelen to join the sophisticated household of Margaret of Austria.