Toll Free 800-650-9030 International 239-948-6915
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Toll Free 800-650-9030 International 239-948-6915
Order By Fax 239-949-9537
© 2007 Atocha Treasure Company LLC All Rights Reserved
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Old Spanish Scuttlebutt ‘Let the strong make war; Thou, happy Austria, marry. What Mars accords to others, Venus gives to thee.” This snippy little verse is attributed to Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary who, dying without male heirs, envisioned the realms bed struggled, negotiated, and bled for falling once more into the insatiable maw of the ever-prolific Hapsburgs. |
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The arms of Charles V, (Carlos I of Spain), co-regent of Spain and the Indies, Holy Roman Emperor, never appeared on the coins minted in the New World during his reign, nor on the early coins of his son, Felipe II. To refresh your memory, have a look at the first coin illustrated here. Carlos took as his emblem ‘Plus Ultra”, which emblem appeared on the reverse of the silver coins minted during his reign in Mexico and Peru. The obverse was lie simple emblem of the Catholic Monarchs 1-t’rdrnand and Isabella, featuring the arms of Castille and Leon at upper left and lower right, and the arms of Araqon, next to those of Naples and Sicily (annexed to Aragon before the time of Ferdinand) at tipper right and lower left, with Granada in its typical triangle at the bottom of the shield. |
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These realms were inherited by Juana (‘The Mad’), daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and mother of Carlos, and were during her lifetime the only insignia legitimately belonging to the Crown of Spain. The Hapsburg Empire she had married in the person of Felipe the Fair would only fall to Spain on the coronation of their son and heir, Carlos I. And her lifetime went on, and on, and on until May of 1555, where she died as she had lived in one musty room in her gloomy castle at Tordesillas. Carlos had devoted almost 40 years to trying to hold the Empire together, fighting off France with one hand and with the other the dynastic ambitions of his brother Ferdinand. Those who remember hack to the Sons of Ferdinand I will not he surprised that his namesake, not satisfied with the crown of Germany, managed by hook and crook to secure for his own heirs the claim for succession to the title of Holy Roman Emperor, a title Carlos felt should go to his son Felipe. Even so, Felipe got the rest, since Carlos, who had lived with one foot on the neck of Martin Luther and the other on that of the successive leaders of the Turks~ was the s-ole ruler of Spain for only live months before he abdicated in Felipe’s favor. Maybe lie felt he should get his metaphorically spread eagled limbs back in order so he could he laid out Straight. |
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Historians and legend-makers alike have found it next to impossible to climb the Hapsburq family tree without getting tang(ed in its branches. By the time Felipe was looking around for a bride (and he had to go through four of them to secure the dynasty), it had become increasingly difficult to find one with the right qualifications outside the family. Mary Tudor, years his senior and his second wife, proved to have been chosen by destiny for a role other than that of bearing more }-{apsburqs into the world What with smallpox. plague. bad roads. bandits, and failing treasuries, marriages many times were formalized by pro ~y in order to make it possible for the bride to travel to her husband’s realm with the appropriate modesty and under the appropriate protection, the marriage havinq been symbolically consummated by an appropriate courtier joining the bride in bed with one leg bared and a sword between the couple, all this in the presence of the appropriate witness. |
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| How to produce a throne heir? Don Carlos, born of Felipe’s first marriage, was a degenerate monster whose escapades and grisly end would overstuff a Gothic novel. Papa Felipe saw fit to cut him off from the succession and imprison him in his room at El Escorial. Where in due time he died violently of overeating, a result of his having inherited the undershot Hapsburg jaw to an extent so | |||
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