Largest possible empire ruled by one Hapsburg

Just as it say on the tin what is the largest possible empire that can be ruled by one Hapsburg. It doesn't have to be the most efficient empire just have a single hapsburg rule it all. What does the empire include and how do the hapsburgs get it?
 
Just as it say on the tin what is the largest possible empire that can be ruled by one Hapsburg. It doesn't have to be the most efficient empire just have a single hapsburg rule it all. What does the empire include and how do the hapsburgs get it?
PLC, Austrian crownlands (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia), Netherlands, Iberia, the Sicilies, Sardinia and Milan. Through the election somehow of a Habsburg to the PLC.
Highly catastrophic to deal with due to France being in the middle (the Salic Law cannot be overturned, it's the fundamental law).
 
PLC, Austrian crownlands (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia), Netherlands, Iberia, the Sicilies, Sardinia and Milan. Through the election somehow of a Habsburg to the PLC.
Highly catastrophic to deal with due to France being in the middle (the Salic Law cannot be overturned, it's the fundamental law).

What about a straight out conquest of France?
 
What about a straight out conquest of France?

Would result in almost the entirety of Europe siding with the Bourbons. Neither the smaller members of the HRE, such as the Wittelsbachs, nor outside powers, such as Russia, would want the Habsburgs to be THAT powerful.
 
Let's say Charles V manages to politically outmaneuver his brother Ferdinand and passes on his Austrian holdings along with his Burgundian, Italian and Spanish realms to Philip II, with Ferdinand retaining Hungary and Bohemia. Philip II marries Mary I of England and that produces a daughter (gender is important), with no sons in any future marriages.

Philip II doesn't screw up his Netherlands policy and secures the Iberian Union with Portugal in 1580. Without the need to spend resources on suppressing the Dutch revolt, Philip's empire intervenes more effectively in the French Wars of Religion and also in the Spanish-Ottoman wars (esp. in North Africa).

Philip's daughter marries into the Austrian Habsburgs and produces a son. This son will inherit all Iberia, England + Ireland, Naples, Milan, Austria + HRE, Low Countries, Bohemia, Hungary and whatever conquests have been made in France, North Africa and Germany. Assuming the Habsburg genetic legacy doesn't compromise the line too much, future sons and daughters can add to the inheritance through strategic marriages (though a union with France is highly unlikely) or election, though daughters would complicate the Austrian inheritance.

Said Empire would be highly catastrophic... for the Habsburgs themselves. The split of 1521 still produced massively unwieldy states, with the 'Spanish' portion itself comprised of various legally-distinct entities (Castile, Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, Italy, Flanders) whose individual wants and needs had to be tended to by the Crown, one by one - and with Castile ultimately shouldering most of the burden. France will be a major pain in the rear for this Empire, opening up fronts in Spain, Italy and the Low Countries as well as sponsoring rebellious princes in the HRE.
 
PLC, Austrian crownlands (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia), Netherlands, Iberia, the Sicilies, Sardinia and Milan. Through the election somehow of a Habsburg to the PLC.
Highly catastrophic to deal with due to France being in the middle (the Salic Law cannot be overturned, it's the fundamental law).

Does France have the population to win a war with an empire of this magnatuid?
 
Does France have the population to win a war with an empire of this magnatuid?
Maybe not, but the Habsburg Empire itself does.

AKA, if this big an empire forms, its biggest problem will be its own subdivisions. Rebellious Dutchmen, Poles, Italians, Germans or Spanish, etc. etc.
 
I could easily see a union between Austria/Bohemia/Poland/ Hungary with an early POD of Duke William marrying Jadwiga daughter King Louis of Poland-Hungary and heir to kingdom of Hungary and with the possible death of her sister heir to Poland as well. From there the Habsburgs do what they've always done expand, gobbling up pieces of Central and Western Europe over the centuries till it's more or less how you wish it to be.
 
I could easily see a union between Austria/Bohemia/Poland/ Hungary with an early POD of Duke William marrying Jadwiga daughter King Louis of Poland-Hungary and heir to kingdom of Hungary and with the possible death of her sister heir to Poland as well. From there the Habsburgs do what they've always done expand, gobbling up pieces of Central and Western Europe over the centuries till it's more or less how you wish it to be.

Oh interesting scenario but I thought Catharine was heir to hungery?
 
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