ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political and diplomatic role that Margaret de la Marck played during the tumultuous early years of the Dutch Revolt, which were so devastating for many aristocratic families. The widowed countess of Arenberg, Margaret de la Marck was not an official ambassador, charged with negotiating treaties or facilitating trade relations. She was, however, a sovereign countess of the empire and a member of the Marck dynasty, which had branches in France. In order to ascertain how the countess of Arenberg was able to participate in international politics, the chapter examines how and where international politics were shaped in the sixteenth-century Low Countries. In many ways, the concept of international politics does not entirely seem to encompass the nature of sovereignty in early modern Europe. Forging dynastic links, however ineffective they often turned out to be, remained the primary focus of international or as one should say inter-dynastic political relations.
