The unwicked Stepmother: the Dowager Empress Eleonora II Gonzaga as a swing vote at the Court of Vienna

The Dowager Empress Eleonora II Gonzaga was credited with great influence overher step-son Emperor Leopold I (r. 1657-1705). For that reason, she was not just courted byVenetian, French and Papal diplomats. Unusual for female members of the Casa d’Austria,even the minutes of official meetings of Austrian ministers show that she was a force to bereckoned with. However, Eleonora did not consistently favour one of the court factions. Themarriage of her daughter to Polish king Michal Korybut in 1670 might have been supposed toturn her into an ‘Easterner’, willing to appease the French. Indeed, Eleonora was originallyregarded as an ally by French ambassador Gremonville, but decisively turned against him in1671/72. Ten years later, with a French threat to her native Mantua (and her own inheritanceprospects in Monferrato), she once again spear-headed a drive by the pro-Spanish ‘warhawks’ against the ‘business-as-usual’ appeasers in power at the time.