Magdalena of Bavaria

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Early life
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Duchess of Bavaria
The late Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I held until his death the Duchy of Upper Bavaria alongside his other holdings and joint-holdings, including the duchies of Austria and Carniola. Among his Babenberg cousins was Duke Leopold of Lower Bavaria; in 1448, Magdalena consented to become his heir at the age of fourteen. A series of well-timed coincidences precipitated this agreement: a distant Wittelsbach cousin, who inherited Upper Bavaria upon the emperor’s death, died at a young age with no children; his relatives conspired publicly to divide Upper Bavaria amongst themselves, prompting Duke Leopold to make a peculiar petition to Empress Apollonia; together, they finalized a plan recognizing Magdalena as the rightful claimant to Upper Bavaria—according to agnatic-cognatic primogeniture—and deputized Leopold as her guardian. Implicit was that this agreement would unite Bavaria into a single duchy once again. Given Leopold's advanced age and apparent impotence, his line faced extinction. Upon his death, his hereditary claim to Lower Bavaria would default to Magdalena. An important caveat within the agreement was that Magda would share the title with her husband, who would be selected by the Duke with the empress’s explicit approval.

Epon her arrival in Bavaria, Magdalena found her cousin, Leopold, to be in poor health. This detail was not known to the general public, and the duke’s household had further endeavored to conceal the extent of his illness from the empress herself. In the couple years preceding his death, Leopold engaged in a preemptive war against the Wittelsbachs so as to prevent any claim upon the freshly united Bavaria. He simultaneously entered talks with a group of Lower Bavarian nobles aspiring to become the duchy’s nascent parliamentary body. The crux of the negotiation centered on tax revenue. Magdalena involved herself in these discussions under the auspices of her uncle, both hindered by the fact that she was a teenage girl and afforded legitimacy by her parentage and impressive knowledge of local Bavarian economics, socio-, and geopolitics. The neighboring Duke of Styria, meanwhile, soon entered the picture for the first time; he took a role similar to Magdalena’s, acting on behalf of Leopold in conflicts with the Wittelsbach forces.

The duke’s death proved a turning point. Magdalena completed negotiations with the nobles—first promising the establishment of estates with chartered rights, then abruptly employing the now-united Bavaria’s full military force to coerce a more favorable compromise. At the same time, she became indebted to the Duke of Styria whose efforts kept the Wittelsbachs at bay. Once the dust settled, the newly minted duchess agreed to support the Duke's long-shot aspiration to claim Castile's throne. These efforts subsequently consumed Magdalena’s year as duchess, almost eclipsing her priority of managing the still-restless Lower Bavarian nobility. Her mother’s intervention on behalf of King Alfonso of Castile ultimately arrived with another succession agreement; in betrothing Magdalena to Castile, the House of Wittelsbach received the duchy, a move which effectively wiped away Magdalena’s historic landtag reform and partitioned Bavaria for the second time in as many years.

Magdalena harbored a soreness regarding her mother, believing whispers of the empress’s illegitimate reign and resenting how little of her father’s legacy Magda herself was able to claim. Escaping Vienna to Bavaria—her Bavaria, and her birthplace like her father before her—allowed both a reprieve and purpose upon which she might train her ambitions. Here, she found a home where she was welcomed, appreciated, and able to exercise her resourcefulness. She intended to fight for the duchy, aware only dimly of the many parallels such efforts drew with her mother, and to rule it independently. Briefly, this goal was realized; she stood at the heart of Bavaria following Leopold's death, reaping praise and resentment alike for triumphing. The Duke of Styria nonetheless cast an inescapable shadow; her youth and immaturity further obscured stability’s future. In the end, the empress collapsed all that Magdalena helped to build with shocking ease, and Magda's soreness returned with a vengeance. Though she entered her Castilian marriage intrepid and proud, she felt like a plant ripped from its roots. Nonetheless, she resolved to thrive rather than wilt. The pressures of her circumstances hardened the resentment into a cold, calculating respect—once Magda realized the purpose of her mother’s gamble. She has since come to prioritize what she could have—indeed, what is her birth right—over what was lost.

Marriage
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Personality and appearance
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Family and personal life
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