Joan of Austria
Joan of Austria, daughter of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, was born in Madrid in 1535. The sister of the future Philip II, married in 1552, at just seventeen years old, with her first cousin, the crown prince of Portugal, Juan Manuel two years younger. The marriage is short due to the premature death of her husband from tuberculosis in 1554. Joan is pregnant and a few days after being widowed, her son Sebastian is born, destined to be the future king of Portugal.
Joan returns to Spain a few months later and entrusts the care of her newborn son to her mother-in-law Catalina de Austria, mother of the late Juan Manuel and sister of her father, Charles V (hence aunt).
Joan assumes the regency of the kingdom in the absence of her brother, Prince Philip, from 1554 to 1556 and from 1556 to 1559. With an energetic character, she surrounds herself with trustworthy people, many of Portuguese origin.
Joan establishes a relationship with Francisco de Borja shortly after becoming a widower and the fruit of their first conversations is the desire to make him her confessor. In the summer months of 1554, once she had been appointed Regent and under the influence of Francisco de Borja, the idea of entering the Society of Jesus grew in her. In the frequent correspondence on this subject, the regent appears under the pseudonym of Mateo Sánchez (although in much later letters she used Montoya's) so that her relationship with the religious order is not publicly known.
At all times Joan contributes to the growth and expansion of the Jesuits in Spain, supporting them in the persecution against the Jesuits of Zaragoza, defending them against the attacks of the Dominican Melchor Cano, influencing Charles V and his brother Philip so that they can settle in Flanders. .
She had to put up with the insidious comments made at court about possible illicit relations with her confessor, Francisco de Borja, and in 1559, on the return of Philip II, she retired from political life to dedicate herself even more to religious life, preserving until her death, on September 7, 1573, the lifestyle that had characterized her: half religious and half courtly.
