Queen's Apprentice: Archduchess Elizabeth, Empress María, the Habsburgs, and the Holy Roman Empire, 1554–1569

This book recounts the first fifteen years, early education and marriage negotiations of the Habsburg Archduchess, Elizabeth, who grew up in the Royal and Imperial Courts of Vienna and Wiener Neustadt in the latter half of the sixteenth century. It portrays life at the court of Elizabeth's mother, the Empress Maria, and describes tournaments, coronations, plays, medals, chivalric literature, music, art, sewing, and saints' lives, as well as urban contexts. Ideas of political space and travel are discussed against the settings of Prague, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Bratislava, Munich and Augsburg. Elizabeth's story reveals specific structures of the Habsburg Courts, featuring Spanish, Austrian, Hungarian, Low Country, Italian, and Bohemian courtiers, and sets her personal story against the background of larger international events, such as the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and the Ottoman Wars.