Póquer de damas: Las mujeres que rigieron el destino Flandes

This book, which you now hold in your hands, tells the story of the four great women who ruled Flanders for a century and a half. Though not queens, they wielded political power and were every bit as capable as the sovereigns of their time. They were examples of courage, hard work, loyalty, intelligence, and respect for the mission destiny had entrusted to them. The accounts I present of Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), Mary of Hungary (1505-1558), Margaret of Parma (1522-1586), and Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633) refer to events that took place from the end of the 15th century to the first third of the 17th. I have tried to describe the events they faced during their lives, neither easy nor pleasant, in those territories then known simply as Flanders, which extended roughly across what are now the kingdoms of Belgium, the Netherlands, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and part of France. During those times, those places served as the stage for all kinds of diplomatic maneuvers, alliances respected or violated, love affairs and betrayals, repudiations and marriages, wars and peace treaties, acts of nobility or abject treachery. Complicated circumstances that also marked the history of Europe and Spain.