ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how Royal parents should teach their children the natural dictum of loving and fearing them. Habsburg women, with their substantial rights to inheritance and succession and as political partners with their husbands, children, or relatives were central to the establishment, consolidation, expansion, and survival of Habsburg rule in Spain. Another Habsburg woman by birth and marriage, the king's mother, Queen Mariana of Austria, dominated the political stage for more than a decade both during and after her son's minority. The political discourse that circulated in Madrid during this crossroads in Marianas and Carlos's political trajectory offers an ideal opportunity to probe into the nature and extent of her power. Don Juan pressured Mariana to dismiss her confessor and favorite with the threat of violence. A careful reading of contemporary texts produced during this period, including official documents, manuscripts, and correspondence, however, reveals that the influence Mariana exerted over Carlos was within conventional cultural and social norms.
