Mary of Hungary (1505–1558)

Queen Consort of Hungary (1522–26). The younger sister of Emperor Charles V, she was known as Mary of Austria before her marriage to King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in 1522. She was appointed regent of the Netherlands in 1531, a post that she held until 1556, the year of Charles's abdication: she retired with him to Spain. Though discontent with the Spanish rule was growing in the Netherlands, she ruled with a moderation that successfully avoided provocation.

With the death of her husband at the battle of Mohács in 1526, Mary remained childless and Louis' realms passed to her family, the Habsburgs. It was Mary who persuaded an assembly of Hungarian nobles at Pressburg to elect her brother Ferdinand (later Emperor Ferdinand I) as their king, and she later mediated between Ferdinand and Charles in their quarrel over the succession to the empire.

She was a keen patron of the arts, employing Jacques Dubroeucq as architect at her castles of Binche and Mariemont and furnishing them with pictures by the great Flemish masters and by Titian. She also received dedications from Erasmus (Vidua Christiana/Christian Widow 1528) and – more worringly to her staunch Catholic family – from Luther (Vier trüstliche Psalmen 1526).