THE HABSBURG: Their Inbred Family Tree was a Circle!- Explained with Real Life Faces

Charles II's inbredded family tree is literally a circle and its branches are like a tumbleweed. They're rolling around inside rather than expanding out. Hello everyone and welcome back to another video. This video I'm going to take you through the Habsburg family tree and how it created the famously inbredded Charles II of Spain. We will also see how Charles and some of his ancestors might have looked recreated with their Habsburg shins. So if you're new to my channel, welcome. Here on Mortal Faces, I take portraits and transform them to see how individuals we read about might have looked in real life. I also talk about them to see what their deal was. So let's get started. Thank you for watching. Subscribe for more historic recreations. And let me know in the comments who you'd like to see in real life. Charles II's family tree begins with Joanna and Philip of Castile about 200 years before Charles II was born. Joanna was the mother to Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife. Along with Catherine, she had a whole bunch of other kids including Charles, Ferdinand, and Isabella. And that's where the entanglement of the inbreeding comes from. These three children. If you want to know about the history of Joanna's Spanish family and how they united the Spanish lands, then I have a recreation video on her parents, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Also, if you want to know more about the life of Charles II and how he looked from a kid to when he died, I have a video on him as well. And that one just hit the 1 million mark. So thank you all for watching. Philip was the heir to the Holy Roman Empire and Joanna was the heiress to the Spanish lands. Their children Charles V married Isabella of Portugal. Ferdinand I married Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. And Isabella married Christian of Denmark. So they all married outsiders. But according to German government, the boys had to each take a share of their father's lands. So the second son Ferdinand I got his father's Austrian lands and the older brother Charles V got his mom's Spanish lands, including Italy. This created the two Habsburg lines. The Austrian Habsburgs and the Spanish Habsburgs. Their sister Isabella, through marriage, did her own thing up north, ruling Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. And her family comes into play later on. In the next generation, that's when we see the branches of this family tree start to converge back into a single entity. As a side note, each future parent had multiple children, but I will just introduce the relevant ones. So when I say they had two kids, they could have had 10. I'm just talking about the two. Charles V of Spain had a son and a daughter, Philip II and Maria. Ferdinand I of the Holy Roman Empire had Maximilian II, Charles, and Anna. And Isabella of Denmark had Christina. With their next generation, we see uncles marrying nieces and cousins marrying cousins. We will start off with Spain's Philip and Maria. Maria married her Austrian first cousin, Maximilian II. They had a daughter, Anna. Anna married her uncle, Philip. They had a child together, Philip III. So Philip's mom was his first cousin mother. We will put him on pause for now. The next line was Ferdinand I's. He had Maximilian, who married his first cousin, Maria. But also Charles II and Anna. Anna married a man, Albert, Duke of Bavaria. And they had two kids, Maria Anna and William V. Maria Anna was similar to her first cousin, also second cousin, Anna, in that she too married her uncle, Charles. And this uncle and niece had two kids, Margaret and Ferdinand II. We are going to put those two on hold along with their cousin, Philip III of Spain, because we're going to go over to Isabella's side to talk about how her Danish children fit. So remember, Isabella married Christian II of Denmark. Well, they had a daughter named Christina. Christina married Francis I, Duke of Lorraine. And those two had a girl, Renata. Renata married her second cousin, William V, from the Austrian Habsburgs. And they had a daughter, Maria Anna of Bavaria. So now, we've produced all four of the children for this generation. And they would become both the grandparents and great-grandparents of Charles II, the inbredded king. So, of the two boys and two girls, they each took one as their spouse. Brother and sister, Margaret and Ferdinand of the Austrian Habsburgs, each took a spouse from the other Habsburgs' line. Margaret married her first cousin once removed, slash second cousin, slash second cousin once removed, slash third cousin, Philip III of Spain. They had two kids, Philip IV and Maria Anna. But we will put them aside for now. So then, Margaret's brother, Ferdinand II, married his Uncle First Cousin's kid, Maria Anna, who was from Isabella of Denmark's side. In case you're wondering, Maria Anna and Ferdinand II were first cousins and first cousins once removed at the same time. Now, those cousins had a kid, Ferdinand III of the Holy Roman Empire. Of the two Spanish siblings, History took the daughter to her first cousin, slash second cousin once removed, twice over, slash third cousin, three times over, slash third cousin once removed, four times over, slash fourth cousin, four times over, Ferdinand III. Together, they had a daughter, Maria Anna of Austria. Maria Anna of Austria married her Uncle Philip IV of Spain and together, uncle and niece became the parents to our dearest Charles II. Just for fun, let's see their relationship. Charles II's parents were third cousins twice removed, also third cousins once removed, also third cousins twice removed again, and again, and fourth cousins once removed, then just a fourth cousin, then fourth cousins once removed again, and again, and one more time, also third cousins again, and third cousins once removed again, and again, then third cousins twice removed again, fourth cousins once removed again, second cousins once removed, left, first cousins once removed, and ultimately, uncle and niece. Finally, to add it up, that was 17 different relationships with the same relative. And that brings us to the end of this video. If your brain is still alive, then given all the intermarriages, we still did not see fathers marrying daughters and brothers marrying sisters. Well, let me tell you, that privilege is reserved for King Tut and Cleopatra. So if you want to see their family trees, I have them on my channel. Go check it out because in my opinion, it's even more crazy. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you want to see more historic recreations, please consider subscribing to my channel. Each of your subscriptions does help this channel grow and it allows me to continue making more content for you. It's the best way to support me. Let me know in the comments who you'd like to see in real life. I do make a list of all your suggestions and I will see you in the next one.