Other Hapsburgs

So, the Hapsburg branch of Further Austria went extinct in 1676 with the death of Claudia Felizitas, Holy Roman Empress Consort. Her uncle, Archduke Sigismund Franz, had married in June 1665, but died twelve days later without consummating the marriage.

What if he had lived - and that side-line of the Hapsburgs had survived?

He was pretty capable ruler, but the second marriage of his wife brought forth only girls. So if Duchess Hedwig has the same luck with children, third wife of Leopold I will also be taken from the family, and Habsburgs go extinct in male line a bit earlier

Valena said:

He was pretty capable ruler, but the second marriage of his wife brought forth only girls. So if Duchess Hedwig has the same luck with children, third wife of Leopold I will also be taken from the family, and Habsburgs go extinct in male line a bit earlier

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There was a son, born in 1673, but he died after a month. Here, with a less inbred husband - the dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg rank somewhere around neck-and-neck with the Spanish Hapsburgs in terms of intermarriage-inbreeding creepiness - she might have more chance to produce a surviving son.

The house of Saxe-Lauenburg was hardly any more inbred than any other royal house of the period.

But Hedwig of Sulzbach was clearly fertile and there would be no reason to assume she could not birth a son (or two) with Sigmund Franz.

Also, it would bring in some interesting "new" blood for the Hapsburgs - Wittelsbach-Pfalz-Sulzbach and Nassau-Siegen - which might help to clean out the genepool after the half-Hapsburg and half-Valois Medici they've injected themselves with.