1697
The Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian II receives a letter from Madrid, demanding that he dispatch his only surviving child from his first wife the Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria –the Bavarian Electoral Prince, Josef Ferdinand (b. 1692), who has just recovered from smallpox[1]– post-haste, to Madrid where he will be placed in the custody of the King of Spain, Carlos II.
Maximilian naturally refuses. He knows his son is the heir, through his mother, to the vast Spanish Empire. And yet in the orders, Carlos has insulted him by insisting the child only goes to Spain.
Carlos writes to his former brother-in-law, Maximilian’s liege lord, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and between Vienna and Madrid, Maximilian is forced to send the child.
Except, Maximilian refuses to let them go alone. Not out of any fatherly love, but out of self-interest. Josef will need a regent when Carlos dies. And Maximilian sees the vision of standing as the power behind the throne of Spain for the next few years hovering before him.
1698
In late September, having journeyed from Munich, Maximilian arrives with his second wife, Teresa Sobieska, (daughter of the late king of Poland, and sister of the present king[2]) the requested child; as well as his three children by Teresa: Maria Anna (b. 1696), Karl Albrecht (b.1697) and the few month old Philipp Maria Möritz (b.1698); as well as the suite of a king.
Carlos, feeble-minded as he is, is too blind to see this, he’s simply too thrilled with the Electress and with the little boy who will one day inherit Spain: he is a Hapsburg after all.
However, Carlos’ nephew, Don Carlos (the son of the late Regent, Don Juan José of Austria)[3] sees through the honeyed words of Maximilian and his suite. He knows why Max is here. And as President of the Council of Castile, he wants to see the Elector’s dreams crumble.
Meanwhile, Louis XIV, king of France, is already in “secret” negotiations with Max. It would suit Louis very well to have Max’s son as the new king of Spain – with him being the nephew of the late Dauphine and all.
1699
The Spanish court is rocked by a scandal. In addition to the Bavarian Electress being pregnant again (it will be stillbirth as the result of this), Maximilian is being rumored to be conducting an affair with the Queen. This is utter rubbish of course. Maximilian would hardly harm his own chances of being regent for his son if the Queen were to fall pregnant with a baby that would displace his child.
But, the rumors are enough to let Max wear out his welcome with the King. Carlos orders him to the Alcazar at Toledo under house-arrest.
Max, sensing that Carlos is near his deathbed (the way he has been for the past thirty-eight years), ignores the order. He and the Electress with their three youngest children are thus placed under house arrest inside of the Palace of Buen Retiro for now, under the orders of Don Carlos d’Austria.
Max’s behavior is enough to irritate the King enough that he is ordered to leave the realm at once. Again, Max refuses, sensing his moment nearing.
No matter, the King turns to his very capable nephew, Don Carlos, and Max, Teresa and their three children are put on the next carriage train to Brussels.
1700
Since the death of his beloved second wife in childbed in October 1699, the King of Portugal, Pedro II, has been in a rather deep funk. He is depressed and cannot bring himself to even sign his name to official papers. Pedro’s eldest son, Joao, is a boy of eleven – and is unlikely to be allowed onto the regency.
Ordinarily, the king’s wife would fulfil the power void – except she’s dead. His eldest daughter, Isabel [4], a young woman of thirty-one, is in Florence.
Therefore, as a solution to the problem, his sister, Catherine of Braganza, the widow of Charles II of England, steps in.
Granted, she has very little political experience – she was never allowed to meddle like Lady Castlemaine did in London; but she learnt a lot of tact from being married to man like Charles. Tact which will stand her in good stead with the thorny matters of Portuguese politics.
And one of her first acts as Queen-Regent is to sign a treaty with Spain. Many Portuguese politicians, (indeed many Spanish politicians) are shocked. However, due to the possible death of the present king of Spain et al, and a therefore a regency for both the king of Spain et al, and the future king of Portugal et al, she sees this as the best solution.
Spain cannot afford a war, and Portugal – albeit able to finance a war – is not looking for one.
Therefore, she agrees to a treaty with Spain. Albeit only a mutual nonaggression treaty that stipulates that for the next ten years – the end of the regency for Josef Ferdinand, and by which time Joao will be able to rule in his own right in Portugal – Spain and Portugal will be bound together to support the other against an aggressor.
It’s a splendid triumph for Catherine, since she achieves Spanish recognition for the Braganzas rule in Portugal. Something the late queen of Portugal was never able to do, despite being sister to the Spanish queen.
King Carlos finally, and exhaustedly (and much to the relief of the rest of Europe) dies at the age of 39. The Queen-Dowager, long-disliked for the train of Germans that she had brought with her and on whom she relied, is promptly – much like her cousin Max et al – expelled from Madrid, and exiled to Bayonne, over the border, in France.
Josef Ferdinand, now eight-years-old, is acclaimed King of Castile by the Cortes of that realm as Don Fernando VI. Don Carlos d’Austria is installed as his regent, much like his father had been for the late king.
1) He survives the smallpox/mysterious illness he died from
2) After his glorious victory at Vienna in '83, the Polish Sejm unanimously declared the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth hereditary in King Jan III's descendants in the male line
3) Don Calos d’Austria, son of the much-lauded Juan of Austria the Younger, the bastard son of Felipe IV of Spain. In real life Juan only had three bastard daughters. But after a couple of coin tosses I married Juan to a Spanish heiress and gave him three LEGITIMATE children instead
4) Princess Isabel of Beira, la Sempre Noiva, has survived and is living in Florence as the wife of Gian'Gastone de Medici
