THE ALCHEMIST OF AUSTRIA
Being born into the 16th-century Habsburg dynasty carried with it great political power, territorial responsibility and, unfortunately, genetic problems. The problems were the direct result of trying to safeguard the power and the responsibility – put simply, the Habsburgs believed that one way to remain the leading European dynasty was intermarriage. They couldn’t know that inbreeding over time would produce physical and mental disorders.
Rudolf was born in Vienna, Austria on 18 July 1552 to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain and was a victim of this policy of deliberate consanguinity. In his mother’s family, an incredible 80% of marriages were between closely related partners, including Rudolf's parents, who were both grandchildren of Joanna ‘the Mad’ of Castile. Did Joanna merit her moniker? It’s an issue that historians have long debated but, for whatever reason, she suffered from depression or, as it was known then, melancholia. Rudolf suffered from the same condition.
His general wellbeing was not helped by an enforced sojourn in Spain from 1563 to 1571. While spending his early years in the relatively liberal atmosphere of the Austrian imperial court where his father ruled a patchwork empire of states – some of which were officially Lutheran or Calvinist – he had learned the political art of pragmatism. Rudolf's Spanish mother, however, had been reared in the fanatically Catholic atmosphere of the court governed by her father, Emperor Charles V, and her brother, Philip II. It was she who insisted that Rudolf complete his education under the stiffly formal and pious Spanish regime.
By the time he returned home to Austria, the heir to the Holy
