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Isabella of Habsburg

Isabella of Habsburg (also known as Isabella or Elisabeth of Burgundy, of Austria, or of Castile (18 July 1501–19 January 1526), Archduchess of Austria, Infanta of Spain and Princess of Burgundy by birth and Queen of Denmark and Norway by marriage, was the daughter of Philip I and Joanna of Castile and the sister of Emperor Charles V. She was born at Brussels.

At the age of fourteen, Isabella was married by proxy to King Christian II of Denmark (12 August 1515). A year later, the Archbishop of Norway was sent to escort her to Copenhagen.

Isabella was crowned Queen of Denmark and given the name Elisabeth, but the relationship between her family and king Christian was quite cool during the first year of the marriage. The King's mistress, Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, had been with him since 1507, and he was not about to give her up for a teenaged girl.

This angered the Emperor, and caused some diplomatic strife between him and king Christian, but the matter was resolved when Dyveke died in 1517, and Isabella's relationship with her husband improved vastly over the next few years. She bore him three children, Hans, Christina and Dorothea, and when king Christian was deposed in 1523 by disloyal noblemen supporting his ageing uncle duke Frederick, the new king wanted to be on good terms with her family. He wrote her a personal letter in her native German, offering her a dowager queen's pension and permitting her to stay in Denmark under his protection while king Christian fled to the Netherlands.

But Isabella wrote back to duke Frederick in Latin, touchingly stating that "ubi rex meus, ibi regna mea", that is "where my king is, there is my kingdom". She then left Denmark with her husband and their children. The young queen died at Ghent at just twenty-four years of age.

Note: Isabella's daughter was the Christina, Duchess of Milan made famous in Holbein's portrait, painted when Henry VIII of England was looking for his fourth wife.