Habsburg Dynasty Family Tree

today I'm going to show you the family tree of the Habsburg dynasty I'll be using my European royal family tree West chart which is available for purchase from my website useful charts calm I'll be starting with the earliest known Habsburg ancestors continuing through the period when the family controlled both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire and going all the way down to the current head of the house today so we're going to start with Vernor the first who was the first person to hold the title count of habsburg his father rad bought was a german count from a region near switzerland known as clack ow rad bought build a castle in that area and named it Habsburg which is where the family gets its name from Vernors mother came from an even more prestigious lineage her mother was the sister of Hugh Capay who is often considered to be the first King of France she was also a descendant of Charlemagne through a female line which means that the entire Habsburg dynasty can be traced to him as well for many generations the Hapsburgs were merely counts but this changed with rudolph the first following the death of holy roman emperor frederick ii more than twenty years passed without a new emperor and english prince had been chosen but never crowned when he died the german nobles then elected rudolph note that prior to being crowned emperor the person elected was given the title king of the romans but rudolph had a rival autocar the first of Bohemia eventually the rivalry came to a head and there was a massive battle between the Germans and the Czechs rudolf won that battle and as a result gained control over austria which became the Center for Habsburg power from this point forward but Rudolf was never crowned Emperor and after he died a count from the house of Nassau was chosen as king of the Germans instead at least until some of the nobles decided to help Rudolf son Elbert take back the title by force but then Elbert was assassinated by his own nephew and account from the House of lexan Berg was elected as his replacement and finally someone managed to be crowned emperor but the Habsburgs remained influential after Henry the seventh died the nobles were split between this third-generation Habsburg and this neutral candidate from the house of Wittelsbach eventually the vittles Bock candidate won out and was crowned Emperor after which power swung back to the Luxembourg dynasty for almost 100 years but the Habsburgs came back into play during the 1400s because of this marriage here when Emperor Sigismund died with no male heirs his son-in-law Albert was elected King of the Germans after he died his cousin Frederick was then elected and it is at this point that we finally get the first person from the House of Habsburg to officially become Holy Roman Emperor in fact Frederick the third had a nice long reign of 53 years and from this point forward although the title of Emperor was technically still an elected position the imperial crown basically stayed within the Habsburg family and was passed down in a hereditary manner so following Frederick the third we get his son Maximilian the first and then after Maximilian it goes to Maximilian's descendants now it's at this point that we have to move to the other side of the chart this is because it's from this point forward that the Habsburgs become an important part of the history of Spain so Maximilian had a son named Philip who ended up having one of the most important marriages in European history he married Joanna daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella often referred to as the Catholic Monarchs in essence that marriage had United the crowns of Aragon and Castile forming the kingdom of Spain but originally the odds of the Spanish Thrones passing to Johanna and Philips line were low Johanna actually had an older brother who was married to Phillip sister and the Spanish royal line was supposed to continue through them in addition to this she also had an older sister who married the king of Portugal so basically she was third in line but both of her older siblings died before having children so suddenly the Habsburgs were in a position to inherit both Austria and Spain now Phillip actually died before both his father and his father-in-law so when they both died their titles passed straight to this guy here who became both Charles the first king of Spain and Charles v Holy Roman Emperor so Charles v from the House of Habsburg ended up ruling over more land in Europe than any monarch had since Charlemagne but before he died he made a pretty wise decision he decided to split up his realms giving his son Phillip Spain and his younger brother Ferdinand Austria so from this point forward the house divides into two branches we'll look at the Spanish branch first as that one was the more senior of the two for the first two years of his reign in Spain philip ii was also king of england by right of his wife Queen Mary at the time though he had a son through his first marriage so there wasn't really ever a strong possibility of Spain and England uniting as it happened though that first son died he and Mary never had any children and it was a son through his fourth marriage that ended up inheriting the throne and this is where the infamous Habsburg inbreeding begins you see his fourth wife was his niece in other words his sister's daughter now in those days a few cousin marriages here and there was not uncommon even among the common everyday people but an uncle nice marriage well like I once said in one of my other videos that's not only gross it's unhealthy but what made matters even worse was that the Habsburgs continued to marry close family members generation after generation a single cousin marriage in one generation of a family doesn't actually make that much of a difference genetically speaking but if you get repeated cousin marriages generation after generation that's when things become a problem anyway I should point out that the Habsburgs also came to rule Portugal during Philip the seconds reign this is because Portugal ran out of male heirs and after a brief war of the Portuguese succession the throne fell to Philip because of his mother the Spanish Habsburgs kept that throne until 1640 doing a period known as the Iberian Union but in 1640 Portugal won its independence under the house of Braganza so we get Philip the second Philip the third and Philip the fourth all of whom reigned during the peak of the Spanish empires power but by the time we get to charles ii all the inbreeding had taken its toll and Charles turned out to be very unhealthy he was unable to have a child and died at age 39 there were no other males on the Spanish side of the family and this created a crisis which turned into the war of the Spanish Succession basically there were two options the first option was to give the throne of Spain to the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg the Holy Roman Emperor at the time Leopold the first had two sons Joseph and Charles so the idea was to make Joseph the heir to the Austrian branch and to make Charles the head of the new Spanish branch the second option was to have the throne passed through charles the second's younger sister maria to her second son Philip it couldn't go to her eldest son because he was set to inherit France and the other European leaders didn't want France and Spain to unite into a new superpower in the end the second option one out and Philip the fifth of the house of Borbon became king of Spain and in fact the house of Borbon still reigns in Spain today but note that the current king of Spain is in fact a descendant of the Habsburgs it's just that it's through this female line here okay so now let's go back to the Austrian branch and the brother of emperor charles v who became emperor ferdinand the first but before we look at his descendants let's jump over for a moment to my european royal family tree east chart Ferdinand is also located on that chart and on there you can see his wife Ann and her family it was through an that the Habsburgs came to inherit both the thrones of Poe he Mia and Hungary as well and was the daughter of King Vladislaus ii of bohemia who in turn was the son of king cashmere the fourth of poland Vladislaus ended up inheriting the crowns of both Bohemia and Hungary through his mother however interestingly he did not inherit the Polish crown that went to his younger brothers instead so from this point forward with a few exceptions the head of the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty was Holy Roman Emperor King of Bohemia and king of Hungary among many other titles as well let's now go back to the West chart Ferdinand was followed by his son maximilian ii and then by his son rudolf ii rudolf is famous for his interest in the occult he was an ineffective ruler though setting the stage for the 30 Years War and therefore his brother Matthias ended up seizing the throne from him but neither of these two brothers had any legitimate heirs and therefore the next emperor was their cousin ferdinand ii who was also the father-in-law of king philip the 3rd of spain he and his son ferdinand the third were the emperors during the 30 Years War which led to a decline in Habsburg power and increased decentralization throughout the Holy Roman Empire this in turn would eventually lead to the rise of a second major German power Prussia we then get Leopold the first his mother was the sister of King Philip the 4th of Spain and his sister was the wife of King Philip the 4th of Spain so yeah that's another uncle nice marriage on top of a bunch of other cousin marriages that I didn't even point out Leopold the first had a long reign and then was followed first by his eldest son Joseph and then by his second son Charles the sixth remember Charles the sixth had earlier been a candidate for the throne of Spain and this is the point where we run out of male line Habsburgs after Charles the sixth there were simply none left on either branch so we get the War of the Austrian succession should the Habsburg possessions go to Joseph's daughter Amalia and her husband Charles or should they go to Charles's daughter Maria Teresa and her husband Francis note that both husbands were female line descendants of the Habsburg dynasty but paternally Charles was from the house of wittelsbach and Francis was from the house of Lorraine the argument for Maria Teresa was that her father had passed a law allowing his daughter to inherit however the argument for Amalia was based on an earlier agreement between the two brothers Joseph and Charles that should the family run out of males Joseph's daughter would be considered more senior initially Charles became Emperor as Charles the seventh but in the end maria theresa's side won out she inherited all the Habsburg lands but her husband received the title of Holy Roman Emperor so from this point for the Habsburgs are not really they Habsburgs they are the Habsburg Lorraine's after Francis the first we get two of maria theresa's sons joseph ii and leopold ii their sister marie antoinette married king louis xvi of france and famously lost her head during the French Revolution but just prior to that happening her nephew became emperor francis ii and he ended up becoming the final holy roman emperor ever that's because the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 mostly due to this guy over he Napoleon Bonaparte who became Emperor of the French soon after the French Revolution Napoleon ended up marrying Francis's daughter Marie with whom he hoped to create a new Imperial line but that of course did not work out but the Holy Roman Empire did continue in a way just under a new name the Empire of Austria emperor francis ii simply became Francis the first of Austria he was followed by his son Ferdinand the first and then Ferdinand was followed by his nephew Franz Joseph Franz Josef's younger brother even became emperor of Mexico for a few years so there's a Habsburg connection in the Americas as well but by this point the German lands no longer controlled by the Habsburgs had organized themselves into a German Confederation of which Austria was also a part but in 1866 Austria was basically kicked out of that Federation and the German Confederation led by Prussia soon evolved into the German Empire so at this point we really have two German Emperor's Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany Franz Joseph had a really long reign in fact one of the longest reigns by any monarch in history and he lived all the way up to World War one when he partnered with kaiser wilhelm ii against the Allied powers he had had a son Crown Prince Rudolf but Rudolf committed mutual suicide with his mistress in 1889 that meant that the throne would have to pass through his younger brothers line by the time 1914 ruled around his nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand was next in line it was his assassination that triggered the Great War when Franz Joseph died midway through the war he was succeeded by his brothers grandson Charles but at the end of World War one the austrian empire was dissolved and hence this is where the Habsburg rule officially comes to and but there are a few more important people to mention Charles died young in 1922 making his nine-year-old son Otto the new head of the family Otto usually referred to as Otto von Habsburg became an important figure in European affairs during the 20th century initially he supported a Habsburg restoration and during World War two he fiercely opposed the Nazis after the war he became one of the earliest supporters of European integration serving as the president of the pan European Union and as a member of the European Parliament he died in 2011 meaning that if he had been Emperor he would have reigned almost 90 years making him by far the longest reigning monarch of all time since 2011 the headship of the house has been held by his son Carl who has also served as a member of the European Parliament and who recently made the news as one of the first big names to get kovat 19 he has since recovered though Carl has three children including his oldest daughter who is a model and his eldest son who is his heir but also quite interestingly a professional racecar driver you can actually follow him on Instagram I'll leave the link to that in the description okay so that was the Habsburgs one of the most famous families in European history like I say if you want to buy a copy of this poster you can head over to my website useful charts calm thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: UsefulCharts

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Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 08 2020