A secret knot in the Habsburg family was tied sometime in January 1557. The groom was Archduke Ferdinand II of Further Austria, the second son of Emperor Ferdinand I and Anna of Bohemia. The bride, Philippine Welser, came from a bourgeois family — wealthy and respected, but without noble connections.
The first contact between Ferdinand, then Governor of Bohemia, and the Welser family may have been of an official nature, involving administrative or business matters. When and where he met Philippine, how long their acquaintance lasted before marriage, and how they came to such a — quite radical, after all — decision remain matters of speculation, as no contemporary evidence has survived. A year later, Philippine gave birth to their first son.
It took more than a year before the Imperial family learned that there were members of the dynasty of whom they had previously been unaware. Emperor Ferdinand’s outcry against his favourite son, however, did not last long. The procedure devised for mesalliances was put into effect: the couple’s two sons — Andreas and Karl— were provided with estates and financial support but excluded from the succession and officially registered as ‘foundlings’. The marriage of their parents was kept secret for several years, until the time came to determine their careers. Andreas became a bishop, while Karl served in the Imperial army.
According to contemporary accounts, Ferdinand and Philippine’s marriage was considered a happy one and lasted for twenty-three years, until her death.
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