Margaret, nicknamed Margarete Maultasch (1318 – 3 October 1369), was the last Countess of Tyrol from the House of Gorizia (Meinhardiner), and an unsuccessful claimant to the Duchy of Carinthia. Upon her death, Tyrol became united with the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburg dynasty. Biography Descent Margaret was the only surviving daughter of Duke Henry of Carinthia, also landgrave of Carniola, Count of Tyrol and former King of Bohemia, with his second wife Adelaide, a daughter of the Welf duke Henry I of Brunswick. As her father's three marriages had produced no male heirs, he reached an agreement with the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV in 1330 that enabled Margaret to succeed him in his Carinthian and Tyrolean estates, while Carniola would be handed over to the Habsburgs. In the ongoing struggle between the rivalling Habsburg, Wittelsbach and Luxembourg dynasties, Emperor Louis had assured his position by defeating his Habsburg rival Frederick the Fair at the 1322 Battle of Mühldorf – a fact that prompted his former Luxembourg ally King John of Bohemia to explore possibilities to increase his own power base. He approached Henry of Carinthia, his former brother-in-law whom he had defeated in the struggle for the Bohemian throne in 1310, and arranged the engagement of his younger son John Henry, brother of the future Emperor Charles IV, to Henry's heiress Margaret in 1327. John Henry was sent to Tyrol and in 1330, upon approval by Emperor Louis, he and Margaret celebrated their wedding in Innsbruck at the age of eight and twelve, respectively. According to contemporary sources, the children disliked each other from the beginning. Reign By the marriage, King John secured access to the Alpine mountain passes to Italy, which in turn drove the Wittelsbach emperor to break the arrangements he had made with Margaret's father. When Henry of Carinthia died in 1335, Louis thus gave Carinthia to the Habsburg duke Albert II of Austria, who had raised inheritance claims as the eldest son of King Albert I of Germany and Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, Margaret's paternal aunt. Tyrol, in turn, would be taken by the Wittelsbachs themselves, thus squeezing out Margaret and her Bohemian (Luxembourg) husband entirely. Nevertheless, when the Tyrolean lands were claimed by the Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty, she cleverly played on her affiliation with the rivalling Luxembourgs. She sent for her husband's capable brother Charles who, backed by local nobles, at least enforced Margaret's