History of the Kingdom of East Francia: Conclusion

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Bavaria, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, Emperor Maximilian I, Franconia, Hohenstaufen Dynasty, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, House of Habsburg, House of Hohenstaufen, House of Wittelsbach, King of the Romans, Kingdom of East Francia, Kingdom of Germany, Lotharingia (Lorraine), Saxony, Stem Duchy, Swabia (Alemannia).

I would like to briefly summarize not only the History of the Kingdom of East Francia but also it’s relevant and associated titles.

In 800 Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned “Emperor of the Romans” by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day. This Empire, which was to be a restart of the old Roman Empire, is known as the Carolingian Empire. When Emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left this Empire fully intact to his son Louis the Pious.

However, upon Louis’s death in 840 he divided the empire amongst his three surviving sons. After a brief Civil War between the royal brothers, it lead to the signing of the Treaty of Verdun in 843 which effectively divided the Empire. The third son of Louis the Pious, known as Louis the German, inherited the eastern portion of the Empire, logically known as the Kingdom of East Francia.

After the Carolingian Dynasty died out in the Kingdom of East Francia, the elective monarchy became the possession of the Dukes of Saxony with Heinrich the Fowler as the first German elected King of East Francia.

When his son, King Otto I of East Francia, was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope John XII in 962 we see a transition from a Frankish Kingdom into a Germanic Kingdom, and from there the title of the monarch transitioned from King of East Francia to the King of Germany. Although as noted elsewhere in the series the title King of East Francia was still in usage for many many more years.

In other words, during the time of the Ottonian Dynasty there seems to be overlap with the titles “King of East Francia”, “King of Germany” and “King of the Romans” with these titles being used interchangeably, at least by modern historians.

Therefore, from the reign of King/Emperor Heinrich II the title King of the Romans was used by the German King following his election by the princes within the Empire, until he was crowned Emperor by the Pope.

In 1508, Emperor Maximilian I, adopted the title “Emperor Elect”, with papal approval, and dispensed with the Papal Coronation. Subsequent rulers adopted that title after their elections as kings. Using the title ” King of the Romans” became unnecessary due to the fact that the elected monarch did not need that title prior to a Papal Coronation that no longer existed.

Emperor Maximilian I

At the same time, the custom of having the heir-apparent elected as “King of the Romans” in the emperor’s lifetime resumed. For this reason, the title “King of the Romans” (Rex Romanorum) came to mean heir-apparent, the successor elected while the emperor was still alive.

Thus far I have been mostly talking about titles. However, the Kingdom of East Francia was not just a title. The kingdom had borders and land associated with the titles. But with the transformation from a Frankish Kingdom to a Germanic Kingdom and later the Holy Roman Empire, what became of the land known as the kingdom of East Francia?

The Kingdom of East Francia consisted of a series of tribal regions known as the Stem Duchies.

A stem duchy meaning “tribe”, in reference to the Franks, Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians was a constituent duchy of the Kingdom of East Francia at the time of the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty (death of Louis the Child in 911) and through the transitional period leading to the formation of the Ottonian Empire or, the Holy Roman Empire.

The Carolingians had dissolved the original tribal duchies of the Empire in the 8th century. As the Carolingian Empire declined, the old tribal areas assumed new identities. The five stem duchies (sometimes also called “younger stem duchies” in contrast to the pre-Carolingian tribal duchies) were: Bavaria, Franconia, Lotharingia (Lorraine), Saxony and Swabia (Alemannia).

Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa

The Salian Emperors (reigned 1027–1125) retained the stem duchies as the major regions of the lands that compromised the Kingdom Germany or corresponding to the Kingdom of East Francia. The rest of the regions of the Holy Roman Empire lay outside the German territories which mainly consisted of Italian lands such as the Kingdom of the Lombards, also known as the medieval Kingdom of Italy.

As the stem duchies became increasingly obsolete during the early high-medieval period, under the Hohenstaufen Dynasty, specifically Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, who finally abolished the Stem Duchies in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies.

An example of the fate of one Stem Duchy, Swabia, mirrors the fate of many of the Stem Duchies. In the 13th century the Duchy of Swabia was in complete disarray, with its territories falling to the Wittelsbach, Württemberg, and Habsburg families. The main core territory of Swabia continued its existence as the County of Württemberg, which was raised to the status of a Duchy in 1495, which in turn became the Kingdom of Württemberg within 19th-century Germany.

With new territories rising from the ashes of the abolished Stem Duchies, these new territories became increasingly autonomous; and with that occurrence the Kingdom of East Francia can be considered to have drifted into the shadows of history by this time.

Nevertheless, there are relatively few references to a German kingdom distinct from the Holy Roman Empire.

December 15, 1447: Birth of Albrecht IV, Duke of Bavaria-Munich.

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Anna of Brunswick-Grubenhagen-Einbeck, Bavaria, Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich, Emperor Frederick III, Emperor Maximilian, Grünwald Castle, Holy Roman Empire, Kunigunde of Austria

Albrecht IV (December 15, 1447 – March 18, 1508) was duke of Bavaria-Munich from 1467, and duke of the reunited Bavaria from 1503.

Albrecht IV was a son of Albrecht III, Duke of Bavaria and Anna of Brunswick-Grubenhagen-Einbeck, a daughter of Duke Eric I of Brunswick-Grubenhagen and his wife, Elisabeth of Brunswick-Göttingen.

Albrecht IV, Duke of Bavaria-Munich

Albrecht was born in Munich. After the death of his older brother Johann IV, Duke of Bavaria he gave up his spiritual career and returned from Pavia to Munich. When his brothers Christoph and Wolfgang had resigned Albrecht became sole duke, but a new duchy Bavaria-Dachau was created from Bavaria-Munich for his brother Duke Sigismund in 1467. After Sigismund’s death in 1501, it reverted to Bavaria-Munich.

The marriage of Kunigunde of Austria to Albrecht IV, was a result of intrigues and deception. Kunigunde of Austria was Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor and his wife Infanta Eleonor of Portugal, the daughter of King Duarte of Portugal and Infanta Lenore of Aragon.

This marriage must be counted as a defeat for Emperor Friedrich III.

Albrecht IV illegally took control of some imperial fiefs and then asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father), offering to give her the fiefs as a dowry. The Emperor Friedrich III agreed at first, but after Albrecht took over yet another fief, Regensburg, Emperor Friedrich III withdrew his consent.

On January 2, 1487, however, before the Emperor’s change of heart could be communicated to his daughter, Kunigunde married Albrecht. A war was prevented only by intermediation by the Emperor’s son, Maximilian.

For Albrecht’s wedding, Grünwald Castle was extended in 1486/87 under the direction of Jörg von Weikertshausen. Albrecht finally decided to return territorial acquisitions in Swabia in 1492 to avoid a war with the Habsburg and the Swabian League. He then also had to release Regensburg, which had been reunited with Bavaria in 1486, and had to reluctantly renounce Further Austria when Archduke Sigismund of Austria tried to make it over to Albrecht.

After the death of the last duke of Bavaria-Landshut, Georg in 1503, Albrecht managed to reunite the whole of Bavaria in a dreadful war against Georg’s heirs, the Palatinate line of his Wittelsbach family but had to transfer the most southern districts of Bavaria-Landshut to his brother-in-law Emperor Maximilian I as compensation for his support: Kufstein, Kitzbühel and Rattenberg passed to Maximilian in 1506 and were united with Tyrol. For the Palatinate branch a new duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg was created.

To avoid any future division of Bavaria, Albrecht decreed the everlasting succession of the firstborn prince in 1506. Nevertheless, his oldest son and successor Wilhelm IV, Duke of Bavaria had to share his power from 1516 onwards with his younger brother Ludwig X, Duke of Bavaria. After the death of Ludwig X in 1545, the edict became effective until the end of Bavarian monarchy in 1918.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part IX: The Confederation of the Rhine.

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Baden, Battle of Austerlitz, Bavaria, Berg, Cleves, Confederation of the Rhine, Emperor of the French, Hesse, Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte, President of the College of Kings, Württemberg

From the Emperor’s Desk: although I dealt with the Confederation of the Rhine in yesterday’s post, I thought today I would dig a little deeper.

After the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. A collection of German states intended to serve as a buffer zone between France and Central Europe, the creation of the Confederation spelled the end of the Holy Roman Empire and significantly alarmed the Prussians.

The brazen reorganization of German territory by the French risked threatening Prussian influence in the region, if not eliminating it outright. War fever in Berlin rose steadily throughout the summer of 1806. At the insistence of his court, especially his wife Queen Louise, Friedrich Wilhelm III decided to challenge the French domination of Central Europe by going to war.

The founding members of the confederation were German princes of the Holy Roman Empire. They were later joined by 19 others, altogether ruling a total of over 15 million subjects. This granted a significant strategic advantage to the French Empire on its eastern frontier by providing a buffer between France and the two largest German states, Prussia and Austria (which also controlled substantial non-German lands).

Formation

After Prussia lost to France in 1806, Napoleon cajoled most of the secondary states of Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine. Eventually, an additional 23 German states joined the Confederation. It was at its largest in 1808, when it included 36 states—four kingdoms, five grand duchies, 13 duchies, seventeen principalities, and the Free Hansa towns of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen.

On July 12, 1806, on signing the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine in Paris, 16 German states joined together in a confederation (the treaty called it the états confédérés du Rhinelande, with a precursor in the League of the Rhine).

The “Protector of the Confederation” was the hereditary office of the Emperor of the French, Napoleon. On August 1, the members of the confederation formally seceded from the Holy Roman Empire,

According to the treaty, the confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies, but the individual states (in particular the larger ones) wanted unlimited sovereignty. Instead of a monarchical head of state, as the Holy Roman Empire had had, its highest office was held by Karl Theodor von Dalberg, the former Arch Chancellor, who now bore the title of a Prince-Primate of the confederation.

As such, he was President of the College of Kings and presided over the Diet of the Confederation, designed to be a parliament-like body although it never actually assembled. The President of the Council of the Princes was the Prince of Nassau-Usingen.

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French

In return for their support of Napoleon, some rulers were given higher statuses: Baden, Hesse, Cleves, and Berg were made into grand duchies, and Württemberg and Bavaria became kingdoms. Several member states were also enlarged with the absorption of the territories of Imperial counts and knights who were mediatized at that time.

They had to pay a very high price for their new status, however. The Confederation was above all a military alliance; the member states had to maintain substantial armies for mutual defense and supply France with large numbers of military personnel. As events played out, the members of the confederation found themselves more subordinated to Napoleon than they had been to the Habsburgs when they were within the Holy Roman Empire.

The rest of the history of the Confederation of the Rhine goes beyond the scope of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire so I’ll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say, the Confederation of the Rhine collapsed in 1813, in the aftermath of Napoleon’s failed invasion of the Russian Empire. Many of its members changed sides after the Battle of Leipzig, when it became apparent Napoleon would lose the War of the Sixth Coalition.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part VIII: Peace of Pressburg

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Austria, Baden, Battle of Austerlitz, Bavaria, Confederation of the Rhine, France, Napoleon Bonaparte, Peace of Pressburg, The Holy Roman Empire, The War of the Third Coalition, Württemberg

Peace of Pressburg

The War of the Third Coalition came too soon for Austria, which moved against France in September 1805. Defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, Austria had to accept terms dictated by Napoleon in the Peace of Pressburg (December 26).

These created deliberate ambiguities in the imperial constitution. Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg were granted plénitude de la souveraineté (full sovereignty) while remaining a part of the Conféderation Germanique (Germanic Confederation), a novel name for the Holy Roman Empire.

Likewise, it was left deliberately unclear whether the Duchy of Cleves, the Duchy of Berg and the County of Mark—imperial territories transferred to Joachim Murat—were to remain imperial fiefs or become part of the French Empire. As late as March 1806, Napoleon was uncertain whether they should remain nominally within the Empire.

The Free Imperial Knights, who had survived the attack on their rights in the Rittersturm of 1803–04, were subject to a second attack and a spate of annexations by those states allied to Napoleon in November–December 1805.

In response, the knights’ corporation (corpus equestre) dissolved itself on January 20, 1806. With the dissolution of the Empire, the knights ceased to be either free or imperial and were at the mercy of the newly sovereign states.

Contemporaries saw the defeat at Austerlitz as a turning point of world-historical significance. The Peace of Pressburg, too, was perceived as radical shift. It did not affirm previous treaties in the usual way and its wording seemed to raise Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg into equals of the empire while downgrading the latter to a merely German confederation.

Nevertheless, Bavaria and Württemberg reaffirmed to the Reichstag that they were subject to imperial law. Some commentators argued that plénitude de la souveraineté was just a French translation of Landeshoheit (the quasi-sovereignty possessed by imperial estates) and the treaty had not altered the relationship between the members and the empire.

Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine

Throughout the first half of 1806, Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg attempted to steer an independent course between the demands of the empire and Napoleon. In April 1806, Napoleon sought a treaty whereby the three states would ally themselves to France in perpetuity while forswearing participation in future Reichskriege (imperial war efforts) and submitting to a commission de méditation under his presidency to resolve their disputes. Despite all of this, they were to remain members of the empire. Württemberg ultimately refused to sign.

In June 1806, Napoleon began pressuring Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg for the creation of confédération de la haute Allemagne (Upper German confederation) outside the empire. On July 12, 1806, these three states and thirteen other minor German princes formed the Confederation of the Rhine, effectively a French satellite state.

On August 1, the Reichstag was informed by a French envoy that Napoleon no longer recognized the existence of the Holy Roman Empire and on the same day, nine of the princes who had formed the Confederation of the Rhine issued a proclamation in which they justified their actions by claiming that the Holy Roman Empire had already collapsed and ceased to function due to the defeat in the Battle of Austerlitz.

Princess Elizabeth Stuart of England, Scotland and Ireland, Queen of Bohemia. Part II.

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Bavaria, Elizabeth Stuart, Frederick V of the Rhine, Holy Roman Empire, House of Wittelsbach, Prince-Elector, Princess of England, Scotland and Ireland

The man chosen for Elizabeth was Friedrich V, Count Palatine of the Rhine. Friedrich was of undeniably high lineage. His ancestors included the kings of Aragon and Sicily, the landgraves of Hesse, the dukes of Brabant and Saxony, and the counts of Nassau and Leuven. He and Elizabeth also shared a common ancestor in Henry II of England. He was “a senior Prince of the Empire” and a staunch defender of the Protestant faith.

Here is some background information on Friedrich and how the two became to be betrothed. He was an intellectual, a mystic, and a Calvinist. He was responsible for the construction of the famous Hortus Palatinus gardens in Heidelberg.

On September 19, 1610, Friedrich’s father, Friedrich IV, Prince-Elector of the Palatinate, died from “extravagant living”; his son being 14 years old at the time. Under the terms of the Golden Bull of 1356, Friedrich’s closest male relative would serve as his guardian and as regent of the Palatinate until Friedrich reached the age of majority.

However, his nearest male relative, Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuburg, was a Catholic, so, shortly before his death, Friedrich IV had named another Wittelsbach relative, Johann II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, as his son’s guardian. Friedrich V welcomed Johann to Heidelberg, whereas Wolfgang Wilhelm was denied entry. This led to a heated dispute among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1613, Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor intervened in the dispute, with the result being that Friedrich V was able to begin his personal rule in the Palatinate even though he was still underage.

Friedrich IV’s marriage policy had been designed to solidify the Palatinate’s position within the Reformed camp in Europe. Two of Friedrich V’s sisters were married to leading Protestant princes: his sister Luise Juliane to his one-time guardian Johann II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, and his sister Elizabeth Charlotte to Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg. Friedrich IV had hoped that his daughter Katharina would marry the future Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden, although this never came to pass.

In keeping with his father’s policy, Friedrich V sought a marriage to Elizabeth Stuart of England. James had initially considered marrying Elizabeth to Louis XIII of France, but these plans were rejected by his advisors. Friedrich’s advisors in the Palatinate were worried that if Elizabeth were married to a Catholic prince, this would upset the confessional balance of Europe, and they were thus resolved that she should marry Frederick V. Hans Meinhard von Schönberg, who had served as Frederick V’s Hofmeister since his return to Heidelberg, was sent to London to court the princess in spring 1612. After intense negotiations, a marriage contract was signed on May 26, 1612.

Courtship

Friedrich arrived in England on October 16, 1612, and the match seemed to please them both from the beginning. Their contemporaries noted how Friedrich seemed to “delight in nothing but her company and conversation”. Friedrich also struck up a friendship with Elizabeth’s elder brother, Prince Henry, which delighted his prospective bride immensely.

King James did not take into consideration the couple’s happiness, but saw the match as “one step in a larger process of achieving domestic and European concord”. The only person seemingly unhappy with the match was Elizabeth’s mother Queen Anne (born a princessof Denmark). As the daughter of a king, the sister of a king, the wife of a king, and the mother of a future king, Queen Anne also desired to be the mother of a queen. She is said to have been somewhat fond of Friedrich mild manner and generous nature but simply felt that he was of too low of stock.

On November 6, 1612 Henry, Prince of Wales, died. His death took an emotional toll on Elizabeth, and her new position as second in line to the throne made her an even more desirable match. Queen Anne and those like-minded who had “always considered Friedrich of the Rhine to be an unworthy match for her, were emboldened in their opposition”. Elizabeth stood by Friedrich, whom her brother had approved, and whom she found to have the sentiments of a fine gentleman. Above all, he was “regarded as the future head of the Protestant interest in Germany.

The wedding took place on February 14, 1613 at the royal chapel at the Palace of Whitehall and was a grand occasion that saw more royalty than ever visit the court of England. The marriage was an enormously popular match and was the occasion for an outpouring of public affection with the ceremony described as “a wonder of ceremonial and magnificence even for that extravagant age”.

It was celebrated with lavish and sophisticated festivities both in London and Heidelberg, including mass feasts and lavish furnishings that cost nearly £50,000, and nearly bankrupted King James. Among many celebratory writings of the events was John Donne’s “Epithalamion, Or Marriage Song on the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine being married on St Valentine’s Day”. A contemporary author viewed the whole marriage as a prestigious event that saw England “lend her rarest gem, to enrich the Rhine”.

Electress Palatine

After almost a two-month stay in London for continued celebrations, the couple began their journey to join the Electoral court in Heidelberg. The journey was filled with meeting people, sampling foods and wines, and being entertained by a wide variety of performers and companies. At each place the young couple stopped, Elizabeth was expected to distribute presents. The cash to allow her to do so was not readily available, so she had to use one of her own jewels as collateral so that the goldsmith Abraham Harderet would “provide her with suitable presents on credit.

Her arrival in Heidelberg was seen as “the crowning achievement of a policy which tried to give the Palatinate a central place in international politics” and was long anticipated and welcomed. Elizabeth’s new husband transformed his seat at Heidelberg Castle, creating between 1610 and 1613 the Englischer Bau (i.e., English Building) for her, a monkey-house, a menagerie, and the beginnings of a new garden in the Italian Renaissance garden style popular in England at the time. The garden, the Hortus Palatinus, was constructed by Elizabeth’s former tutor, Salomon de Caus. It was dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by contemporaries.

Although Elizabeth and Friedrich were considered to be genuinely in love and remained a romantic couple throughout the course of their marriage, problems already had begun to arise. Before the couple had left England, King James had made Friedrich promise that Elizabeth “would take precedence over his mother, of Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, the daughter of Willem I the Silent, Prince of Orange, and Charlotte de Bourbon-Montpensier. James further had Friedrich promise his daughter would always be treated as if she were a Queen”. This at times made life in the Palatinate uncomfortable for Elizabeth, as Friedrich’s mother Louise Juliana had “not expected to be demoted in favour of her young daughter-in-law” and, as such, their relationship was never more than cordial.

Issue:

Elizabeth gave birth to three children in Heidelberg, Heinrich Friedrich, Hereditary Prince of the Palatinate, was born in 1614, Charles Ludwig in 1617, (the future Prince-Elector Palatine of the Rhine) and Elisabeth in 1619.

The rest of the children born to Friedrich and Elizabeth were:

Prince Rupert, Duke of Cumberland (fought with his uncle King Charles I of England in the English Civil Wars)
Prince Maurice
Louise Hollandine, Abbess of Maubuisson
Prince Ludwig
Prince Eduard, Count Palatine of Simmern
Princess Henriette Marie
Prince Philipp Friedrich
Princess Charlotte
Sophia, Electress of Hanover (mother of King George I of Great Britain)
Prince Gustavus Adolphus

May 13,1779: Treaty of Teschen, ending the War of the Bavarian Succession

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Bavaria, Charles IV Theodore of Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Prince-Elector of Bavaria, Duke Charles II August of Zweibrücken, Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Maria Theresa of Austria, Treaty of Teschen, War of the Bavarian Succession

The Treaty of Teschen, i.e., “Peace of Teschen”; was signed on May 13, 1779 in Teschen, Austrian Silesia, between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia, which officially ended the War of the Bavarian Succession.

Background

When the childless Wittelsbach Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria died in 1777, the Habsburg Holy Roman Joseph II sought to acquire most of the Electorate of Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate, and incorporating into his hereditary Austrian lands. The basis for the claims on these lands was his marriage with the late elector’s sister, Maria Josepha, who had died in 1767.

Maximilian III’s direct heir was his distant cousin Charles IV Theodore, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Prince-Elector of Bavaria (1724–1799). Charles IV Theodore united both electorates through prior succession agreements between the Bavarian and Palatinate branches of the Wittelsbach dynasty.

Charles IV Theodore was amenable to an agreement with Emperor Joseph II that would allow him to acquire parts of the Austrian Netherlands in exchange for parts of his Bavarian inheritance. From January 16, 1778 Austrian troops moved into the Lower Bavarian lands of Straubing. Ultimately, both parties envisioned a wholesale exchange of the Bavarian lands for the Austrian Netherlands, but the final details were never concluded by treaty due to outside intervention.

Charles IV Theodore too had no legitimate heir despite two marriages. On January 17, 1742 he married Elisabeth-Auguste, daughter of Count Palatine Joseph-Charles of Sulzbach and his consort Countess Palatine Elizabeth-Augusta of Neuburg. There was one child of this marriage who died in infancy, Franz-Ludwig (June 28 – June 29, 1761).

Charles IV Theodore, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Prince-Elector of Bavaria

On February 15, 1795, in Innsbruck, he married Archduchess Maria-Leopoldine of Austria-Este, the fourth child and third (but second surviving) daughter of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este and of his wife, Princess Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d’Este. Her father was the second youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa, and therefore brother of Emperor Joseph II. She and her mother were the founders of the House of Habsburg-Este. There were no children of this marriage.

Charles IV Theodore’s his prospective successor was his Palatine cousin, Duke Charles II August of Zweibrücken (1746–1795), the oldest of five children of Friedrich-Michael, Count Palatine of Birkenfeld-Bishwiller-Rappoltstein and Countess Palatine Maria Franziska of Sulzbach. He inherited the duchy of Zweibrücken from his paternal uncle, Duke Christian IV, in 1775.

Duke Charles II August objected to the agreement between Charles-Theodore and Emperor Joseph II because the arrangement would deprive him of the Bavarian inheritance. In an effort circumvent the arrangement Duke Charles II August appealed to the Imperial Diet in Regensburg. His cause was taken up by the Prussian king, Friedrich II the Great, who refused any increase in Austrian territory, and by Saxony, whose Wettin electoral house had married into the Wittelsbach family and therefore had allodial claims to parts of the inheritance.

Duke Charles II August of Zweibrücken

The War of the Bavarian Succession broke out with the invasion of the Prussian Army into Bohemia on July 5, 1778, after Austria and Prussia could not negotiate a solution to their differences. Due to difficulties in supplying the troops, the war became a stalemate: the Prussians were not able to advance far into the Bohemian lands, but the Austrians were unwilling to invade Saxony or Prussia.

This was due in part because Empress Maria-Theresa (the mother of Joseph II and his co-ruler as Queen of Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria) firmly opposed the war after it became clear that a stalemate prevailed. She dispatched peace initiatives to King Friedrich II of Prussia and forced her son to accept mediation by France and Russia. The peace came at the initiative of the Russian Empress Catherine II the Great and was guaranteed by both Russia and France.

Maria-Theresa, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria

The accord dictated that the Habsburg Archduchy of Austria would receive the Bavarian lands east of the Inn river in compensation, a region then called “Innviertel”, stretching from the Prince-Bishopric of Passau to the northern border of the Archbishopric of Salzburg.

However, one of the requirements was that Austria would recognize the Prussian claims to the Franconian margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth, ruled in personal union by Margrave Christian-Alexander a member of the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia finally purchased both margraviates in 1791. The Electorate of Saxony received a sum of six million guilders (florins) from Bavaria in exchange of its inheritance claims.

King Friedrich II of Prussia

With the accession of Elector Charles IV Theodore, the electorates of Bavaria and the County Palatine of the Rhine (i.e. the territories in the Rhenish Palatinate and the Upper Palatinate) were under the united rule of the House of Wittelsbach. Their electoral votes were combined into one per a provision in the earlier Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, thereby reducing the number of electorates in the Holy Roman Empire to eight. The Innviertel, except for a short time during the Napoleonic Wars, has remained with Upper Austria up to today.

Aftermath

In 1785 Maria-Theresa’s son and successor Emperor Joseph II made another try at attaching the Bavarian lands to his Habsburg possessions, and even contracted with Elector Charles IV Theodore to swap it for the Austrian Netherlands. However, Joseph II again did not agree to a full exchange of all provinces within the Austrian Netherlands and the agreement collapsed amidst tacit French opposition and overt Prussian hostility.

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

These plans were however once again frustrated by King Friedrich II of Prussia, who raised the opposition by the Fürstenbund, an association of several Imperial princes. The War of the Bavarian Succession, along with the War of the Austrian Succession, placed Austria and Prussia in anlong-standing rivalry for supremacy of German lands in Central Europe until 1866 when the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War which resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.

December 8, 1708: Birth of Franz-Stephen of Lorraine, Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany.

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Austria, Bavaria, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, Holy Roman Empire, Maria Therea of Austria, War of the Austrian Succession

Franz I (December 8, 1708 – August 18, 1765) was Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany, though his wife Maria Theresa effectively executed the real powers of those positions. They were the founders of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. From 1728 until 1737 he was Duke of Lorraine.

Franz-Stephen was born in Nancy, Lorraine (now in France), the oldest surviving son of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and his wife Princess Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, (brother of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre) and of his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, daughter of Carl I Ludwig, Elector Palatine of the Simmern branch of the House of Wittelsbach, and Landgravine Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel. Franz-Stephen was connected by blood to the with the Habsburgs through his grandmother Eleonore, who was the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III. He was very close to his brother Carl-Alexander and sister Anne Charlotte.

Franz I Stephen, Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany

Holy Roman Emperor Carl VI favoured the family, who, besides being his cousins, had served the House of Habsburg with distinction. He had designed to marry his daughter Maria Theresa to Franz-Stephen’s older brother Leopold Clement. On Leopold Clement’s death, Emperor Karl adopted the younger brother as his future son-in-law. Franz-Stephen was brought up in Vienna with Maria Theresa with the understanding that they were to be married, and a real affection arose between them.

When the War of the Polish Succession broke out in 1733, France used it as an opportunity to seize Lorraine, since France’s prime minister, Cardinal Fleury, was concerned that, as a Habsburg possession, it would bring Austrian power too close to France.

A preliminary peace was concluded in October 1735 and ratified in the Treaty of Vienna in November 1738. Under its terms, Stanisław I, the father-in-law of King Louis XV of France and the losing claimant to the Polish throne, received Lorraine, while Franz-Stephen, in compensation for his loss, was made heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which he would inherit in 1737.

On January 31, 1736 Franz-Stephen agreed to marry Maria Theresa. He hesitated three times (and laid down the feather before signing). Especially his mother Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans and his brother Prince Carl-Alexander of Lorraine were against the loss of Lorraine. On February 1, Maria Theresa sent Franz-Stephen a letter: she would withdraw from her future reign, when a male successor for her father appeared.

They married on February 12, 1736, in the Augustinian Church, Vienna. The (secret) treaty between the Emperor Carl VI and Franz-Stephen was signed on May 4, 1736. In January 1737, the Spanish troops withdrew from Tuscany, and were replaced by 6,000 Austrians. On January 24, 1737 Franz-Stephen received the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from his father-in-law. Until then, Maria Theresa was Duchess of Lorraine. In 1744 Franz-Stephen’s brother Carl-Alexander married the younger sister of Maria Theresa, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria. In 1744 Carl became governor of the Austrian Netherlands, a post he held until his death in 1780.

Carl VII Albert of Bavaria, Holy Roman Emperor

As son-in-law of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, Carl-Albert of Bavaria rejected the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and claimed the German territories of the Habsburg dynasty after the death of emperor Carl VI in 1740. After the two year War of the Austrian Succession he was elected as Holy Roman Emperor Carl VII from January 24, 1742 until his death in 1745. As a member of the House of Wittelsbach, Carl VII was the first person not born of the House of Habsburg to become emperor in three centuries, though he was connected to that house both by blood and by marriage. Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II was his great-great grandfather.

Since a woman could not be elected Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa wanted to secure the imperial office for her husband, but Franz-Stephen did not possess enough land or rank within the Holy Roman Empire. In order to make him eligible for the imperial throne and to enable him to vote in the imperial elections as elector of Bohemia (which she could not do because of her sex), Maria Theresa made Franz-Stephen co-ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands on November 21, 1740.

Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, Empress Consort of the Holy Roman Empire

It took more than a year for the Diet of Hungary to accept Franz-Stephen as co-ruler, since they asserted that the sovereignty of Hungary could not be shared. Despite her love for him and his position as co-ruler, Maria Theresa never allowed her husband to decide matters of state and often dismissed him from council meetings when they disagreed.

The Treaty of Breslau of June 1742 ended hostilities between Austria and Prussia. With the First Silesian War at an end, the Queen Maria Theresa soon made the recovery of Bohemia her priority. French troops fled Bohemia in the winter of the same year. On May 12, 1743, Maria Theresa had herself crowned Queen of Bohemia in St. Vitus Cathedral.

Prussia became anxious at Austrian advances on the Rhine frontier, and Friedrich II of Prussia again invaded Bohemia, beginning a Second Silesian War; Prussian troops sacked Prague in August 1744. The French plans for the war fell apart when Holy Roman Emperor Carl VII Albert died in January 1745.

Franz-Stephen was elected Holy Roman Emperor on September 13, 1745 as Franz I. Prussia recognised Francis as emperor, and Maria Theresa once again recognised the loss of Silesia by the Treaty of Dresden in December 1745, ending the Second Silesian War.

Although Franz was the Holy Roman Emperor, his wife Maria Theresa was the sovereign in her own right in the Habsburg hereditary lands of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, and Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress.

Franz was well content to leave the wielding of power to his able wife. He had a natural fund of good sense and brilliant business capacity and was a useful assistant to Maria Theresa in the laborious task of governing the complicated Austrian dominions, but he was not active in politics or diplomacy. However, his wife left him in charge of the financial affairs, which he managed well until his death. Heavily indebted and on the verge of bankruptcy at the end of the Seven Years’ War, the Austrian Empire was in a better financial condition than France or England in the 1780s. He also took a great interest in the natural sciences. He was a member of the Freemasons.

Franz was a serial adulterer, many of his affairs well-known and indiscreet, notably one with Maria Wilhelmina, Princess of Auersperg, who was thirty years his junior. This particular affair was remarked upon in the letters and journals of visitors to the court and in those of his children.

Franz died suddenly in his carriage while returning from the opera at Innsbruck on 18 August 1765. He is buried in tomb number 55 in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.

Maria Theresa and Franz I had sixteen children, amongst them the last pre-revolutionary queen consort of France, their youngest daughter, Marie Antoinette (1755–1793), who married King Louis XVI of France and Navarre. Franz was succeeded as Holy Roman Emperor by his eldest son, Joseph II, and as Grand Duke of Tuscany by his younger son, Peter Leopold (later Emperor Leopold II). Maria Theresa retained the government of her dominions as their sovereign until her own death in 1780.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia, Part VI

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Baden, Bavaria, Frederick III, Frederick III of Germany, German Empire, Hesse, Kingdom of Prussia, North German Confederation, Otto von Bismark, South German Confederation, Württemberg, Wilhelm I of Germany

On January 18, 1871 the Prussian army occupied the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace and King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor. The title “German Emperor” was carefully chosen by Bismarck after heated discussions even up to and after the day of the proclamation. Wilhelm I grudgingly accepted this title grudgingly but he would have preferred “Emperor of Germany” which, however, was unacceptable to the federated monarchs, and would also have signaled a claim to lands outside his realm (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc.) and also superiority over the other monarchs within the Empire. The title “Emperor of the Germans”, as proposed in 1848, was ruled out as he considered himself chosen “by the grace of God”, not by the people as in a republic. Wilhelm I also viewed his Kingship of Prussia as much more important than the title of German Emperor. He complained to his son, Crown Prince Friedrich about having to exchange “the radiant Prussian crown for this filth-crown.”

With this ceremony, the North German Confederation united with the South German Confederation and was transformed into the German Empire (“Kaiserreich”, 1871–1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares – first among equals) of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes , Mecklenburg, Hesse, Baden, as well as other principalities, duchies and the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen).

Bismarck describes Wilhelm I as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by “female influences”. This was a reference to Wilhelm’s wife, (Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 1811-1890. the second daughter of Carl-Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) who had been educated by, among others Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was intellectually superior to her husband. She was also at times very outspoken in her opposition to official policies as she was a liberal. Wilhelm however, had long been strongly opposed to liberal ideas. Despite possessing considerable power as Kaiser, Wilhelm I left the task of governing mostly to his chancellor and limited himself to representation, embodying the dignity of the state and approving Bismarck’s policies.

Here we have, in the relationship between Kaiser and Chancellor, the seeds of a limited Constitutional Monarchy. Yes, the German Empire did have a Constitution but it gave the monarch considerable power. Wilhelm I was content to allow Bismark to rule in his name. When Wilhelm won the Imperial Crown he was 74 years old an advanced age for the 19th century. He would continue to rule until 1888 when he died at the age of 91. With the precedent of allowing the Chancellor to wield the power, and the Crown Prince Friedrich being Liberal, things looked promising for the Empire to evolve into a similar system to that of Great Britain.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. In 1888 when Kaiser Wilhelm I was nearing the end of his life, his son the Crown Prince, was also near the end of his as he was dying from throat cancer. When Kaider Wilhelm I died in March of 1888 the new Emperor, Friedrich III, ruled for only 99 days and kept Bismark on and was not able to implement any of his liberal policies. The premature demise of Friedrich III is considered a potential turning point in German history; and whether or not he would have made the Empire more liberal if he had lived longer is still discussed.

Friedrich III was succeeded by his very conservative and bombastic son, as Kaiser Wilhelm II, and he would lead the German Empire to its downfall.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia part III

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Baden, Bavaria, Confederation of the Rhine, Congress of Vienna, German Confederation, Germany, Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon, Prussia

After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire the question of German unity became inevitable. But how to unify such a patchwork quilt of nation states? Prior to the end of the empire some states within its boundaries were elevated in rank. Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg became Kingdoms under the influence of Napoleon. Baden became a Grand Duchy and after the Napoleonic wars, Hanover also became a kingdom. The real question was would it be Prussia or Austria to gain the upper hand and unit Germany under their authority?

From 1806 until 1813 the German States formed the Confederation of the Rhine without the inclusion of Austria and Prussia. The Confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies, but the individual states wanted unlimited sovereignty. This loose confederation suffered some of the same problems the old Holy Roman Empire suffered from and that is there was not a strong central government.

The Holy Roman Emperor had at its head an Emperor. The Confederation, since it was not considered an empire was ruled by Karl Theodor von Dalberg, the former Arch Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and he carried the of a Prince-Primate of the confederation. This made him President of the College of Kings and presided over the Diet of the Confederation, designed to be a parliament-like body though it never actually assembled. The President of the Council of the Princes was held the Prince oef Nassau-e. At its heart the Confederation was a conservative minded military alliance. As mentioned, this body was under the influence of Napoleon who elevated many of the states to Kingdom status. During its short existence the members of the confederation found themselves more subordinated to Napoleon than they had been to the Habsburgs.

The Confederation of the Rhine collapsed in 1813, with the aftermath of Napoleon’s failed campaign against the Russian Empire. Many of its members changed sides after the Battle of Leipzig, when it became apparent Napoleon would lose the War of the Sixth Coalition. In 1814 the major European powers gathered in Vienna for the Congress of Vienna which redrew the map of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon. German unity did not come at this juncture but instead we saw the creation of the German Confederation with both Austria and Prussia included. The Habsburg Emperor of Austria was its nominal head, holding the title of President of the Confederation.

This Confederation, which was basically the old Holy Roman Empire in all but name, lasted until 1866 when Prussia began to consolidate its power among the German states and began the path of unification without Austria. Prior to that, in 1848, there was an attempt to create a more liberal unified German Empire. That is what we will look at in depth next week.