One of the largest and most important royal houses in Europe is the Habsburg House. Great, important, famous, with illustrious sovereigns, but today without a single king or queen in sight. While other royal houses have survived and continue as head of their estates the Austrian House of Habsburg is not among them. Habsburg, this name comes from the Swiss castle of Habichtsburg, the castle that was the family residence between the XNUMXth, XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, in what is now Switzerland but was then the Duchy of Swabia. The family grew and expanded its influences and managed to settle further into what is now Austria.
In a relatively short time, two or three generations, the family managed to establish itself as a candidate for the thrones permanently between 1272 and 1806 in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Austria and Portugal. But the family was divided into two dynasties: the Spanish Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburgs, from the delivery of lands of the Emperor Carlos V, also King of Spain to Fernando I in the Austrian area. From then on the Austrian branch would bear the title of Holy Roman Emperors with influence in the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary. For its part, the Spanish branch would rule in the Spanish kingdoms, the possessions that were had in Italy, the Netherlands and for a time Portugal.
The Spanish Habsurgs disappeared through inbreeding in the 1918th century. Marriages between relatives eventually produced mental problems and the clear example is Carlos II of Spain. As a result of this, first in Spain and later in Austria, there would be succession wars. In fact, in the Austrian branch of the family there were few marriages between close relatives and it is more said that the death by smallpox of many heiresses was a major cause of the extinction of lineages. With the marriage of the last heiress of the Austrian Habsburgs, María Teresa with Francisco Esteban, Duke of Lorraine, the Habsburg-Lorraine branch was born, a reign that would culminate in XNUMX with the defeat in the First World War.