Maria Theresa of Spain (; ; 10 September 1638 – 30 July 1683) was Queen of France from 1660 to 1683 as the wife of King Louis XIV. She was born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal as the daughter of King Philip IV and Elisabeth of France, and was also an Archduchess of Austria as a member of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg.
Her marriage in 1660 to King Louis XIV, her double first cousin, was arranged with the purpose of ending the lengthy war between France and Spain. Famed for her virtue and piety, she saw five of her six children die in early childhood, and is frequently viewed as an object of pity in historical accounts of her husband's reign, since she was often neglected by the court and overshadowed by the King's many mistresses.
Without any political influence in the French court or government (except briefly in 1672, when she was named regent during her husband's absence during the Franco-Dutch War, making her the last Queen of France to hold a regency), she died aged 44 due to complications from an abscess on her arm. Her grandson Philip V inherited the Spanish throne in 1700 after the death of her younger half-brother, Charles II. The resulting War of the Spanish Succession established the House of Bourbon as the new ruling dynasty of Spain, where it has reigned with some interruption until the present time.
At the Spanish court Birth and early life
Born at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial on 10 September 1638, Maria Theresa was the eighth child and seventh daughter of Philip IV of Spain and his first wife Elisabeth of France. As a member of the House of Habsburg, Maria Theresa was entitled to use the title Archduchess of Austria. She was baptized on 7 October by Cardinal Gaspar de Borja y Velasco, with Francesco I d'Este, Duke of Modena and Marie de Bourbon, Princess of Carignan, as godparents.
Maria Theresa was named after Teresa of Ávila, who her mother Elisabeth chose to protect her youngest daughter: all her six elder sisters died in infancy, with the only son and heir, Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias living. The Queen, born a princess of France and suffering greatly from being far from her native country, described to her daughter the beauties of France. She had promised that she would marry her cousin the Dauphin, born only five days before her. But on 6 October 1644, Elisabeth died following complications after another miscarriage, and left an immense void in the heart of the six-year-old Maria Theresa.
Education and youth
After the death of her mother, the young Infanta became closer to her father and received a strict and religious education in the sense of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. However, her education was careful and she was not deprived of affection and entertainment: she was surrounded by a multitude of pets and dwarves.
It was the royal governess Luisa Magdalena de Jesus who took care of her during her early years, a responsibility which later fell to Margarita Zapata de Mendoza, who as her Aya (governess) and Camarera Mayor (head lady-in-waiting) was to accompany her to France during her wedding.Moral Roncal, A. M. (2020). La Camarería Mayor en la corte de Fernando VII: Un espacio nobiliario de poder informal y capital simbólico. Hispania, 80(264), 139–167. https://doi.org/10.3989/hispania.2020.005
From the age of five, Maria Theresa's religious education was first carried out by Juan de Palma, commissioner of the Indies who had been the confessor of Elizabeth of France. He was charged by Philip IV with caring for his daughter, as he had cared for the Infanta's mother. Later, Father Vasquez, a man recognised in Spain for being highly educated and of great virtue, was entrusted with Maria Theresa's spiritual education.
Heiress to the Spanish throne The death of her brother Balthasar Charles in 1646 left Maria Theresa as heiress presumptive to the vast Spanish Empire. Although women were recognized as having the right to ascend the throne, Philip IV feared that the absence of a male heir could cause profound unrest that could destabilize the Catholic Monarchy. He thus remarried in 1649 to his niece, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, the union being intended to continue the matrimonial and political alliance between the Austrian and Spanish branches of the House of Habsburg. The proximity in age between Maria Theresa and her cousin (now her stepmother) fostered a deep affection and friendship between them.
Due to the fact that she was now his only heir, Philip IV taught the young Infanta notions of history and politics. She would once in France reveal her skills in this field, notably during her regency during the Dutch War. Maria Theresa also accompanied her father on his official trips and played a crucial role of representation. The Infanta enjoyed great popularity in Spain, especially because she did not have the seriousness of character of her Habsburg ancestors, she knew how to be cheerful and charming like her mother, who was also very popular.
On 12 July 1651, the new Queen gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Margaret Theresa. Maria Theresa became her godmother and the two half-sisters remained very close, particularly through correspondence, until Margaret Theresa's death in 1673.
The birth of her half-brother Philip Prospero, Prince of Asturias on 30 November 1657 marked a turning point for Maria Theresa, who was no longer the heiress presumptive to the Spanish throne and found herself in second position. The reaction of the young Infanta, who reportedly nearly choked on an egg with rage when she was told of the birth of the heir to the throne, seems to prove her desire to seize the Spanish crown. From this point, the relationship between Maria Theresa and her stepmother became strained.
Treaty of the Pyrenees After the birth of her half-brother, it was possible to find a husband for the Infanta without risking upsetting the Spanish monarchy. For the same reasons that had led her father to remarry within the House of Habsburg, Maria Theresa was for a time promised to her first cousin (and brother of her stepmother), Archduke Ferdinand, elected King of the Romans, and then, upon his death, to his brother Archduke Leopold, future Holy Roman Emperor. Although Maria Theresa had no real say in her own marriage, she hinted several times to her father that she was not interested in these matches and that she preferred to become Queen of France or retire to a convent.
Fortunately for Maria Theresa, the vagaries of politics prevented this union from coming to fruition. Indeed, the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of France had been at war since 1635. In 1658, as war with France began to wind down, a union between the royal families of Spain and France was proposed as a means to secure peace.
Maria Theresa and the French King were double first cousins: Louis XIV's father was Louis XIII, who was the brother of Maria Theresa's mother, while her father was brother to Anne of Austria, Louis XIV's mother. Spanish procrastination led to a scheme in which France's chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, pretended to seek a marriage for his master with Margaret Yolande of Savoy. When Philip IV heard of a meeting at Lyon between the Houses of France and Savoy in November 1658, he reputedly exclaimed of the Franco-Savoyard union that "it cannot be, and will not be". The Spanish King then sent a special envoy to the French court to open negotiations for peace and a royal marriage, who reportedly told Cardinal Mazarin: "the Savoyard marriage is not worthy of the King of France, Philip IV King of Spain proposes his daughter, the Infanta Maria Theresa of Austria who has all the qualities to become the wife of Louis XIV".
The negotiations for the marriage contract were intense. Eager to prevent a union of the two countries or crowns, especially one in which Spain would be subservient to France, the diplomats sought to include a renunciation clause that would deprive Maria Theresa and her children of any rights to the Spanish succession. A marriage contract was eventually arranged in November 1659 as one of the provisions of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The contract specified that Maria Theresa was to renounce all claims to Spanish territory for herself and all her descendants. Mazarin and Lionne, however, made the renunciation conditional on the full payment of a Spanish dowry of 500,000 écus. As it turned out, Spain, impoverished and bankrupt after decades of war, was unable to pay such a dowry, and France (who never received the agreed upon sum), therefore considered that Maria Theresa still had her rights of succession to the Spanish throne, which caused the War of Devolution (1667-1668).
Marriage
On 2 June 1660, Maria Theresa was married by proxy to Louis XIV at Fuenterrabia. Luis Méndez de Haro acted as bridegroom. On 7 June her father and the entire Spanish court accompanied her to the Isle of Pheasants on the border in the Bidassoa river, that serves as the border between France and Spain. There she met her husband for the first time, as well as the French royal family and court, who became fond of her.
Maria Theresa then said goodbye to her father, both knowing that they would never see each other again; their farewells were deeply emotional, so much so that Louis XIV and his brother Philip of Orléans also shed a few tears. But Philip IV insisted to his daughter that she was now French, saying: "You must forget that you were an infanta and remember only that you are Queen of France".
The marriage of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Austria took place on 9 June 1660 at the recently rebuilt church of Saint Jean the Baptist in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a town near the border between Spain and France where she stayed at the Joanoenia house, now called the "House of the Infanta"). While the French King wanted to consummate the marriage as quickly as possible, Maria Theresa initially expressed her hesitations to her mother-in-law Anne of Austria about the idea of sleeping with her husband immediately. But after the couple arrived at their intended house, the bride announced that the King was waiting for her and, already half undressed, she urged her ladies-in-waiting to finish undressing her. The next morning, both spouses seemed completely satisfied.
Later, after her marriage, Maria Theresa was asked one day if she had felt any girlish inclinations while she was still in Spain. "But no, of course not," she answered candidly, "there was only one King and he was my father!".
At the French court Arrival in Paris
On 26 August 1660, the newlyweds made the traditional Joyous Entry into Paris, where the Queen was greeted by the nobility, ecclesiastical dignitaries and professors from the Sorbonne. The royal couple was acclaimed in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators who had come to attend the ceremony. Maria Theresa made a very good impression both by her appearance and by her character. Once installed at the court of France, at the time located at the Louvre, her mother-in-law (and paternal aunt), Anne of Austria took her under her wing. Maria Theresa learned with her the duties of the Queen, the customs of the country as well as the French language. She would attain a good command of French, but would retain a strong Spanish accent until the end of her life.
The Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, cared for the young Queen as if she were her own daughter and attempted to protect her from court intrigues. A close and mutual friendship developed. Maria Theresa often retreated to her mother-in-law's circle, where she could speak Spanish and drink hot chocolate, away from the eyes of the court. Together, they prayed, did charitable works, made donations to the poor, and visited monasteries and churches. Some courtiers criticized Anne of being too protective of Maria Theresa and thus developing her natural inclination toward withdrawal.