The first member of the Austrian House of Habsburg to become a ruler of the Netherlands was Maximilian I, who married Mary of Burgundy(1457–1482) in 1477. Their grandson Charles V succeeded him in 1515 as lord of the Netherlands and, in 1519, as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (German Reich). During the reign of Charles’s son Philip II, the northern part of the Netherlands broke away in 1581 to become in due course the independent Dutch Republic.
Historical Dictionary of the Netherlands. EdwART. 2012.