She had had a proxy marriage back in Mechelen, including symbolically lying on a bed next to Francisco de Rojas y Escobar, acting as Spanish ambassador.

[9] In 1501, Margaret married Philibert II, Duke of Savoy (1480–1504), whose realm played a decisive role in the rivalry between France and the Habsburgs in Italy on account of its strategic position in the Western Alps.

They had a very stable relationship for those 3 years, mostly living not in Savoy proper, but in Bresse, then Savoyard territory on the eastern borders of Burgundy (today in France).

Margaret fought hard to strip away his powers and possessions, even involving Maximilian (as Holy Roman Emperor, he was overlord of Savoy) to nullify the letters that gave René legitimacy.

[12] She remained in Savoy for two years as a widow, beginning the lengthy construction of the lavishly-designed Royal Monastery of Brou in Bresse (now eastern France) to house the tombs of Philibert, his mother Margaret of Bourbon (1438–1483) and eventually herself.

After Philip's death, Charles was the new sovereign of the Low Countries, but he was only six years old, and his mother Juana could not act as regent because her unstable mental state.

Preoccupied with German affairs, her father, Emperor Maximilian I,[14] named Margaret governor of the Low Countries and guardian of Charles in 1507, along with her nieces Eleanor, Isabella and Mary (then all children, who would later marry foreign monarchs).

[18] Tupu Ylä-Anttila opines that Margaret acted as de facto queen consort in a political sense, first to her father and then Charles V, "absent rulers" who needed a representative dynastic presence that also complemented their characteristics.

[19] The authors of The Promised Lands: The Low Countries Under Burgundian Rule, 1369–1530 credit Margaret with keeping the provinces together as well as fulfilling the demands for peace from the Netherlandish Estates.

Despite Louis XII's attempts to regain control of certain territories and to interfere in Guelders, Friesland and Liege, cooperation between the regent, the Privy Council and the Estates General maintained the integrity of the Burgundian inheritance.

After Charles's brief personal rule (1514–1517), Margaret returned to witness Guelders's most stunning military success in decades, together with a horrible trail of destruction their Black Band mercenaries left through Friesland and Holland.

Many of Charles V's Netherlands subjects, including leading Humanists like Erasmus and Hadrianus Barlandus unreasonably mistrusted their government, suspecting that princes (Maximilian, in particular) were concocting clever schemes just to expand the Habsburg dominion and extracting money (in fact, Maximilian also did hope to employ the wealth of the Low Countries to finance his projects elsewhere – he hardly succeeded though).

[23][32] For the sake of his grandson Charles's Burgundian lands, he ordered Thérouanne's walls to be demolished (the stronghold had often served as a backdoor for French interference in the Low Countries).

[32][33] After Maximillian I's death in 1519, Margaret and young Charles (then 18) began to negotiate the latter's election as Holy Roman Emperor despite the opposition of the papacy and France.

Francis reneged on promises to renounce overlordship of Artois, Flanders and the Franche-Cômté, much less return the much-desired Burgundian core territory, the Duchy itself centered at Dijon, as soon as he was safely back in France.

Once again, Margaret proved a remarkably capable ruler of the Netherlands, holding off the forces of the League of Cognac – i.e. the French (1526–29) and then negotiating the "Paix de Dames/ Ladies Peace".

She negotiated the restoration of the 1496 trade agreement known as the Intercursus Magnus with England, which was favorable to Flemish textile interests and brought huge profits.

In 1524, she signed a trade agreement with Frederick I of Denmark (the condition was that Holland would not support Christian II) that ensured the regular supply of grain into the Netherlands.

Once she was declared Governor of the Netherlands, Margaret purchased the Hof van Savoye, located in the Korte Maagdenstraat (Short Virgins Street) in Mechelen, which was to be her main residence.

From 1517 to 1530, the architect Rombout II Keldermans furthered the project along the Keizerstraat (Emperor Street) and modified what became the rear wing, which faces the Palace of Margaret of York.

Margaret owned or controlled a very significant art collection, which she expanded considerably; the ownership of works inherited by her or Charles V from their Burgundian ancestors is not always clear.

[41] The 1523–24 inventory records a total of 385 paintings, sculptures, tapestries and embroideries (not counting prints and drawings), 132 exotic natural objects and artefacts such as Aztec feather work and carved coral.

It is a full-length double portrait, believed to depict the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their residence at the Flemish city of Bruges.

This was inherited by Mary of Hungary, and then Philip II of Spain, remaining in the Spanish royal collection until looted in the Napoleonic Wars by the French, and then apparently re-looted from them by the British.

[50] Like other women in the royal houses of France, Spain and Burgundy Margaret possessed a very rich library for the period, in her case including a group of illuminated manuscripts that are supreme masterpieces in several styles.

She was an important patron of the Ghent–Bruges school of manuscript painters, at the peak of their achievement in the first years of the 16th century, and inherited or was given key works from earlier periods.

[57] She possessed several chansonniers[58] that contained works by Josquin des Prez, Johannes Ockeghem, Jacob Obrecht and Pierre de la Rue, who was her favourite composer.

She decided to arrange all her affairs first, designating Charles V as her sole heir and writing him a letter in which she asked him to maintain peace with France and England.

[61] There is a standing bronze statue of Margaret of Austria in the group around the cenotaph of her father Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, in the Hofkirche, Innsbruck, which also has a relief panel of her return from France after the French marriage proposal collapsed.

Clive Holland remarks that it must have required courage to place the scene next to depictions of the father's triumphs, as at the time the rejection was a bitter experience for them both.