15 Facts About Habsburgs

1.

The arms displayed in their simplest form were those of Austria, which the Habsburgs had made their own, at times impaled with the arms of the Duchy of Burgundy .

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2.

Habsburgs expanded their influence through arranged marriages and by gaining political privileges, especially countship rights in Zurichgau, Aargau and Thurgau.

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3.

Habsburgs then led a coalition against king Ottokar II of Bohemia who had taken advantage of the Great Interregnum in order to expand southwards, taking over the respective inheritances of the Babenberg and of the Spanheim .

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4.

The Bohemian kingship was an elected position, and the Habsburgs were only able to secure it on a hereditary basis much later in 1626, following their submission of the Czech lands during the Thirty Years' War.

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5.

Habsburgs was able to restore the unity of the house's Austrian lands, as the Albertinian line was now extinct.

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6.

The Spanish Habsburgs ruled Portugal for a time, known there as the Philippine dynasty .

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7.

Habsburgs sought to consolidate their power by frequent consanguineous marriages, resulting in a cumulatively deleterious effect on their gene pool.

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8.

The Habsburgs did not formally abandon all hope of returning to power until Otto von Habsburg, the eldest son of Charles I, on 31 May 1961 renounced all claims to the throne.

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9.

Habsburgs was native in French and knew Dutch from his youth in Flanders.

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10.

Habsburgs later added some Castilian Spanish, which he was required to learn by the Castilian Cortes Generales.

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11.

Habsburgs could speak some Basque, acquired by the influence of the Basque secretaries serving in the royal court.

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12.

Habsburgs gained a decent command of German following the Imperial election of 1519, though he never spoke it as well as French.

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13.

Under Maximilian, the possessions of the Habsburgs would be united again under one ruler, after he had re-conquered the Duchy of Austria after the death of Matthias Corvinus, who resided in Vienna and styled himself duke of Austria from 1485 to 1490.

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14.

Mary and the Habsburgs lost the Duchy of Burgundy to France, but managed to defend and hold onto the rest what became the 17 provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands.

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15.

The Habsburgs controlled the 17 Provinces of the Netherlands until the Dutch Revolt in the second half of the 16th century, when they lost the seven northern Protestant provinces.

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