AH Challenge: A Habsburg Pope

This is an idea I've been tossing around for awhile now, but how could we give a Habsburg the Papal Tiara? The Medici's had it several times, so why not a Habsburg, after all they were the great defenders of Catholicism.
 
I've wondered that myself. I suppose that Curia was rather wary of giving spiritual power to the already very temporally-powerful Habsburgs.
 

Philip

Donor
Perhaps if HRE Charles V established lasting influence in Roman politics rather than sacking Rome. I doubt he could establish a Habsburg pope immediately -- I don't think there were any good candidates. However, if he could bring Rome into the political orbit of the Habsburgs...
 
Perhaps if HRE Charles V established lasting influence in Roman politics rather than sacking Rome. I doubt he could establish a Habsburg pope immediately -- I don't think there were any good candidates. However, if he could bring Rome into the political orbit of the Habsburgs...

I dont know how France would react to that... Francis I would have been enraged...
 

Philip

Donor
I dont know how France would react to that... Francis I would have been enraged...

I am not sure it is possible for Francis and Charles to hate one another any more than IOTL.

How 'bout this: There is no Treaty of Madrid. Charles holds on to Francis for another year. The pope still manages to organize a League of Cognac.As OTL, the Habsburgs win. Rome is sacked. Francis submits (at least momentarily) to the Habsburgs' influence in Rome in exchange for his freedom and, say, keeping Burgundy.
 
I've wondered that myself. I suppose that Curia was rather wary of giving spiritual power to the already very temporally-powerful Habsburgs.

Spot on. There was a constant kind of rivalry between pro-French and pro-Spanish cardinals in this era, to the point where any neutrals essentially found themselves powerless and insignificant as the Spanish and French factions dominated the College and just ignored anyone who didn't take sides. They also used their power to have ethnic Spanish and French cardinals appointed to strengthen their side, which further reduced the numbers of neutral parties. But an actual Hapsburg candidate would be too much. Even the pro-Spanish party didn't want the Papal States to become a Hapsburg territory, the Pope's sovereignty was supposed to be sacrosanct. I think cardinals would baulk from appointing a Pope with actual direct blood ties to either reigning monarch, for fear of how badly he might rule.

On top of that, try persuading a member of the most powerful noble house in Europe, who is probably in line for a fiefdom which on its own might be on a par with an average Italian state, just for being a younger brother, to give it all up and become a relatively unimportant Bishop in the hope that, when you are senior enough, politics will advance you to the Cardinals College. And even then you would not be guaranteed the Papal position to make it worthwhile...
 
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