As the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon, Mary inherited the Burgundian lands at the age of 19 upon the death of her father in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477.

The marriage kept large parts of the Burgundian lands from disintegration, but also changed the dynasty from Valois to Habsburg (the Duchy of Burgundy itself soon became a French possession).

Mary of Burgundy was born in Brussels at the ducal castle of Coudenberg, to Charles the Bold, then known as the Count of Charolais, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon.

The king's move angered the duke, who seemed to lose control and restarted conflicts with his brother, which ultimately led to his death.

[9][10][11] King Louis XI of France seized the opportunity to attempt to take possession of the Duchy of Burgundy proper and also the regions of Franche-Comté, Picardy and Artois.

[13] The king of France was anxious that Mary should marry his son Charles and thus secure the inheritance of the Low Countries for his heirs, by force of arms if necessary.

The negotiation ended in failure as Louis XI demanded unacceptable terms, including the surrender of the Duchy of Burgundy and the French territories acquired by Philip the Good and Charles the Bold.

[16] Mary was compelled to sign a charter of rights known as the Great Privilege in Ghent on 10 February 1477, the occasion of her formal recognition as her father's heir (the "Joyous Entry").

Under this agreement, the provinces and towns of Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut, and Holland recovered all the local and communal rights that had been abolished by the decrees of the dukes of Burgundy in their efforts to create a centralised state on the French model out of their disparate holdings in the Low Countries.

The duchess also had to undertake not to declare war, make peace, or raise taxes without the consent of these provinces and towns and only to employ native residents in official posts.

[23][24] Mary cheered for her husband in tournaments, during which he proved a magnificent jouster, not just in feats of strength but in the luxury he lavished on the equipments, horses, accessories and ornaments as well.

Although he came with no money nor army, nor support from the Empire, and no prior experience in governance, his competence in military matters and his prestige as the son of an emperor boosted the stability of her realms.

[50] Moreover, according to Philippe de Commines, Maximilian was too young, in a foreign land, had been "brought up very badly" and thus did not have the slightest idea how to conduct affairs of the state.

Burgundian coinage showed that Maximilian was never endowed with the official rank that contemporary royal husbands such as Ferdinand of Aragon achieved in their wives' possessions.

In one case, recounted by Maximilian in the manuscript of the Weisskunig, his advisors tried to prevent him from unleashing war against a stronger French army who had concentrated at the front, but he was determined to carry it out.

She adopted a more pacifistic image than her father, but her position as the rightful ruler was emphasized while Maximilian, armored and armed, tended to be shown behind his wife.

[57][58] The 1482 winter was harsh and France had declared a salt blockade, but the political situation in the Netherlands was overall positive; the French aggression was temporarily checked, and internal peace was in large measure restored.

[59] Towards the end of her rule, there was an event that exarcebated the division between the central government and other factions: the murder of Jehan (or Jan) van Dadizeele, on 20 October 1481.

Haemers opines that she herself seemed to be preparing to kill Dadizeele (in the case van Horn was honest about Mary's letter – at the time, he was trying to justify his act and get a pardon), but in reality, was not the perpetrator.

Mary loved riding and was hunting with Maximilian and knights of the court when her horse tripped, threw her in a ditch, and then landed on top of her, breaking her back.

When he continued to display uncontrollable grief, she had to force him out of her chamber so that she could discuss matters of the state with her nobles, concerning which she asked them to keep their loyalty oath to him and their children.

[69] Her two-year-old daughter, Margaret of Austria, was sent in vain to France, to marry the Dauphin, in an attempt to please Louis XI and persuade him not to invade the territories owned by Mary.

Mary's marriage into the House of Habsburg proved to be a disaster for France because the Burgundian inheritance later brought it into conflict with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.

A somewhat ambiguous figure, whose image hovers somewhere in the space limited by two opposing concepts — an inexperienced and weak duchess, a mere pawn in the great political game played between France and the Holy Roman Empire, and a self-determined young princess who knew what she wanted and managed to dictate her will, praised by her biographers, Mary still remains generally in the shade of her nearest kinsmen despite the abundant publications concerning the Duchy of Burgundy.

[83] Also according to Roberts, the posthumous portraits produced during her husband's later reign (which were much more numerous) show a completely different image: he tended to utilize the profile portraits that portrayed her as a young (with less personal features and only recognizable by her items, such as the hennin, the brocaded garment, necklaces and brooches), virtuous, pious, passive bride whose wealth he possessed and could do with as he wanted and for whom he constructed a mythology of romantic love between the two.

[87] There was also a type of iconography created for the emperor's private use (instead of being used as a political declaration to the public), created by Bernhard Strigel: Mary, also presented in the imperial style as his empress, queen Ehrenreich and eternal companion, was shown with falcons outside the window and a hunting scene on her corsage, which seemed to imply courtly love and the days of happiness for the emperor.

Karaskova suggests that the coincidence that combined the Duchess's favourite mode of portrayal and the manner of her death must have had an impact on the illustrator as well as the commissioner, in this case Maximilian.

Noa Turel argues that Mary and her step-mother Margaret of York did willingly join the courtly "theater of devotion" that cast Margaret as Saint Anne and Mary as the Virgin, which are demonstrated by their actions and their self-insertions in the manuscripts associated with the Baptism of Philip the Fair (whose claims to territories through matrilineal inheritance would be strengthened through this association, which also cast him as the infant Jesus).

[108] Turel opines that the reason the chronicler Olivier de la Marche only offered a brief description of this important event was that as Premier maître d'hôtel, he likely had to accompany Maximilian to the battlefield at the time of the baptism.

The Antwerp (later, his loyal ally in his later turbulent regency) community seemed to welcome Maximilian as their saviour, but also wanted to subtly remind him of limits to his powers and his responsibilities as ruler together with Mary.