John of Austria - Childhood and Youth

Childhood and Youth

Born in the Free imperial city of Regensburg, Upper Palatinate, he was the progeny of a liaison between Emperor Charles V and Barbara Blomberg, a burgher's daughter and singer. Barbara was promptly married to Hieronymus Kegel, a court functionary in Brussels, and her child became known as Jeromín. Before he turned the age of three, Jeromín was taken from his mother and put in the care of an old friend of Charles, Adrien de Bois who, in counsel with his wife, Magdalen de Ulloa, placed the child as theirs, under a Flemish court musician, Franz Massy and his Spanish wife, Ana de Medina. Given money for their travel and his keep, they took him to Spain and settled in 1550 at Leganés, her village just outside Madrid, where Jeromín learned Spanish and played with village boys, starting basic school with the priest at nearby Getafe. When Jeromín turned seven, by order of the Emperor, a courtier took him from his now-widowed foster mother to the castle of Charles' majordomo, Don Luis de Quijada, which was in Villagarcía de Campos, not far from Valladolid. Quijada's wife, Doña Magdalena, took charge of Jeromín, grooming him in her household where he was given a solid curriculum of studies including Latin and French.

When Charles abdicated his Spanish crowns in 1556, he retired from Brussels to the remote monastery of Yuste in Spain. There he summoned Don Luis de Quijada to return as majordomo. In the summer of 1558, Quijada brought Magdalena and Jeromín to Yuste, where Charles, on several occasions before his death that September, saw his son, now a youth of eleven. In a codicil to his will, Charles had made provision for Jeromín, and expressed hope that he would enter the clergy and pursue an ecclesiastical career.

Charles' son and heir, Philip II of Spain, returned from Brussels in 1559, aware of his father's will. Settled in Valladolid, he summoned Quijada to bring Jeromín to a hunt. When Philip appeared, Quijada told Jeromín to dismount and make proper obeisance to his king. When Jeromín did so, Philip asked him if he knew the identity of his father. When the boy did not know, Philip embraced him and explained that they had the same father and thus were brothers. Philip, however, was strict regarding protocol: Jeromin was not to be addressed as "highness", the form reserved for royals and sovereign princes. In formal style he was "your excellency", the address used for a Spanish grandee, and known as Don Juan de Austria. Don John did not live in a royal palace, but maintained a separate household with Luis and Magdalena Quijada now heading his service. Philip allowed Don John the incomes allocated to him by Charles so that he might maintain the status proper to the son of an emperor and brother of a king. In public ceremonies, Don John stood, walked or rode behind the royal family, but ahead of the grandees.

Philip's new queen, Elisabeth of Valois, was only a year older than Juan, and his ill-fated son by his first marriage, Don Carlos, only two years older. Often in the company of the lively young set was Don John's half-sister Joan, Princess of Portugal, a dozen years his senior. At the baptisms of his nieces, Elisabeth's daughters, Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catherine Michelle, it was Don John who carried the infants to the baptismal font. During and after the battle of Lepanto Don John was addressed in letters and in person as "Highness" and "Prince".

Philip, following the directions of Charles V, sent Don John to the Complutense University in the company of Don Carlos and Alessandro Farnese, Prince of Parma and son of Charles V's other acknowledged illegitimate child, Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma (1522–86). This was meant to be a preparation for Don John his ecclesiastical career. At Alcalá in 1562, Carlos suffered a fractured skull that had a deleterious effect on his personality. In 1565, Farnese left to be married in Brussels, where his mother was Regent of the Low Countries. From Farnese, Don John is said to have learned womanizing and, in time, acknowledged two illegitimate daughters, one in Spain, the other in Naples.

The former, Ana de Austria (1568 – 1610), daughter of Ana de Mendoza y Lacerda, 1st Princess of Melito and 1st Duchess of Francavilla, became an abbess; the latter, Juana de Austria (11 September 1573 – 7 February 1630), after years in a convent, married an Italian nobleman, Francesco Branciforte, Prince of Pietraperzia (c. 1575 – 1622) in 1603. They had a daughter Margherita Branciforte, Princess of Butera (d. 24 January 1659, Rome), who married Federico Colonna (1601 – 25 September 1641) and had one son Antonio Colonna, Prince of Pietrapersia (1619 – 1623).

Don John allegedly sired an illegitimate son from a liaison with Zenobia Sarotosia while in Italy. The child is said to have died at childbirth (c. 1574), although it was rumoured that Philip had a hand in the unfortunate death of the child.