The Mutual Pact of Succession. Part II.

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Battle of Pfaffenhofen, Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria, Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria, Emperor Charles VI, Emperor Charles VII, Emperor Franz Stefan, Emperor Joseph, Empress Maria Theresa, François Étienne of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Mutual Pact of Succession, Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Treaty of Füssen, War of the Austrian Succession

When Emperor Joseph I died on April 17, 1711he left behind two daughters, Archduchesses Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia. Charles, who was at the time still unsuccessfully fighting for the crowns of Spain, succeeded him as King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia and Archduke of Austria according to the Mutual Pact of Succession and returned to Vienna.

Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

On October 12, 1712 Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

In 1708, Archduke Charles had married Princess Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel the eldest daughter of Ludwig Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen.

At age 13 Elisabeth Christine became engaged to the future Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, through negotiations between her ambitious grandfather, Anthon Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Charles’ sister-in-law, Empress Wilhelmine Amalia, whose father was Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg and thus belonged to another branch of the House of Guelph.

However, the Lutheran Protestant bride opposed the marriage at first, since it involved her converting to Roman Catholicism, but finally she gave in. She was tutored in Catholicism by her mother-in-law, Empress Eleonore, who introduced her to the religion and made a pilgrimage with her to Mariazell in 1706.

Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles VI and his wife Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by whom he had his four children: Archduke Leopold Johann (who died in infancy), Archduchess Maria Theresa (the last direct Habsburg sovereign), Archduchess Maria Anna (Governess of the Austrian Netherlands), and Archduchess Maria Amalia (who also died in infancy).

According to the Mutual Pact of Succession the heir presumptive to the Habsburg realms was, at that moment, Charles’s niece, Archduchess Maria Josepha, who was followed in the line of succession by her younger sister, Archduchess Maria Amalia.

Four years before the birth of Archduchess Maria Theresa, faced with his lack of male heirs, Charles provided for a male-line succession failure with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.

The future Emperor Charles VI favoured his own daughters over those of his elder brother and predecessor, Joseph I, in the succession, ignoring the decree he had signed during the reign of his father, Leopold I.

The Mutual Pact of Succession was finally superseded
by the Pragmatic Sanction on April 9, 1713, the Emperor Charles VI announced the changes in a secret session of the council. The Pragmatic Sanction was to ensure the succession of Charles’s own daughters instead of Joseph.

The hereditary crowns belonging to the House of Habsburg were thus to be inherited by Charles’s elder surviving daughter, Archduchess Maria Theresa (born in 1717), rather than by Joseph’s elder daughter, Maria Josepha.

Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Archduchess of Austria

Charles sought the other European powers’ approval. They demanded significant terms, among which were that Austria close the Ostend Company. In total, Great Britain, France, Saxony-Poland, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Venice, States of the Church, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Savoy-Sardinia, Bavaria, and the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire recognised the sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged.

Since the hereditary Habsburg lands were under a Semi-Salic Law which excluded women from the inheritance until all male members of the Imperial House became extinct, this agreement required approval by the various Habsburg territories and the Imperial Diet.

The main reason for Saxony-Poland and Bavaria did not support the Pragmatic Sanction and instead still supported the Mutual Pact of Succession was due to the fact that the daughters of Emperor Joseph I, Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, married August III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (Friedrich August II) and
Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, married Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria, future Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor.

Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor

Prior to their respective marriages to Friedrich August II of Saxony (August III of Poland) and Charles Albrecht of Bavaria in 1719, both women were obliged to formally renounce their rights to the inheritance. Charles assumed the rivalry between Saxony and Bavaria would secure his daughter’s rights to the throne, since neither would be prepared to allow the other to inherit, but instead he gave his two greatest rivals a legitimate claim to the Habsburg lands.

Charles died in 1740, sparking the War of the Austrian Succession, which plagued his successor, Maria Theresa, for eight years.

The immediate cause of the war of the Austrian Succession was the death in 1740 of Emperor Charles VI (1685–1740) and the inheritance of the Habsburg Monarchy, often collectively referred to as Austria, by the Emperor’s daughter Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria who became Queen Regnant of Hungary, Bohemia Croatia and Archduchess of Austria.

Marriage

The question of Maria Theresa’s marriage was raised early in her childhood. Leopold Clement of Lorraine was first considered to be the appropriate suitor, and he was supposed to visit Vienna and meet the Archduchess in 1723. These plans were forestalled by his death from smallpox that year.

Leopold Clement’s younger brother, François Étienne; (French, German: Franz Stefan) was invited to Vienna. Even though François Étienne was his favourite candidate for Maria Theresa’s hand, the Emperor Charles VI considered other possibilities.

Religious differences prevented him from arranging his daughter’s marriage to the Protestant Prince Friedrich of Prussia (future King Friedrich II of Prussia). In 1725, he betrothed her to Infante Carlos of Spain (future King Carlos III) and her sister, Infanta Maria Anna, to Infante Felipe of Spain and Duke of Parma. Other European powers compelled him to renounce the pact he had made with the Queen of Spain, Elisabeth Farnese. Maria Theresa, who had become close to François Étienne was relieved.

Franz Stefan, Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany

François Étienne remained at the imperial court until 1729, when he ascended the throne of Lorraine, but was not formally promised Maria Theresa’s hand until January 31, 1736, during the War of the Polish Succession.

King Louis XV of France and Navarre demanded that Maria Theresa’s fiancé surrender his ancestral Duchy of Lorraine to accommodate his father-in-law, Stanislaus I, who had been deposed as King of Poland.

In this arrangement François Étienne was to receive the Grand Duchy of Tuscany upon the death of childless Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’ Medici. The couple were married on February 12, 1736.

After her accession to the Habsburg hereditary domains Queen Maria Theresa dismissed the possibility that other countries might try to seize her territories and immediately started ensuring the imperial dignity for herself; since a woman could not be elected Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa wanted to secure the imperial office for her husband, but François Étienne 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 François Étienne co-ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands on November 21, 1740.

It took more than a year for the Diet of Hungary to accept François Étienne 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.

During the War of the Austrian Succession, Charles Albrecht of Bavaria invaded Upper Austria in 1741 and planned to conquer Vienna, but his allied French troops under the Duc de Belle-Isle were instead redirected to Bohemia, and Prague was conquered in November 1741.

That meant that Charles Albrecht was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague on December 19, 1741, when the Habsburgs had not yet been defeated. He was unanimously elected “King of the Romans” on January 24, 1742 and became Holy Roman Emperor upon his coronation on 12 February 1742.

Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria

Suffering severely from gout, Charles VII died at Nymphenburg Palace in January 1745. His brother Clemens August then again leaned towards Austria. After the decisive defeat in the Battle of Pfaffenhofen on April 15, Elector Maximilian III Joseph, son and heir of Emperor Charles VII (former Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria) quickly abandoned his imperial pretenses and made peace with Maria Theresa in the Treaty of Füssen, in which he agreed to support her husband, Grand Duke François Érienne of Tuscany, in the upcoming imperial election.

With the Treaty of Füssen, Austria recognized the legitimacy of Charles VII’s previous election as Holy Roman Emperor.

Also according to the Treaty of Füssen, Maria Theresa secured her husband’s election as Emperor, which took place on 13 September 1745. He succeeded Charles VII as Emperor Franz I Sefan.

Though Emperor Franz Stefan was well content to leave the wielding of power to his able wife, she was expected to cede power to her husband and later her eldest son, Emperor Joseph II, who were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

Empress Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled with the counsel of her advisers. Maria Theresa promulgated institutional, financial, medical and educational reforms, with the assistance of Wenzel Anton of Kaunitz-Rietberg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz and Gerard van Swieten.

The Mutual Pact of Succession. Part I.

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Emperor Charles VI, Emperor Joseph I, Emperor Leopold I, House of Habsburg, King Carlos II of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, The Mutual Pact of Succession, War of the Spanish Succession

Joseph I (July 26, 1678 – April 17, 1711) was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy from 1705 until his death in 1711. He was the eldest son of Emperor Leopold I from his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. Joseph was crowned King of Hungary at the age of nine in 1687 and was elected King of the Romans at the age of eleven in 1690. He succeeded to the thrones of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire when his father died.

Marriage and lack of heirs

Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and Archduke of Austria

On February 24, 1699, he married Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Vienna. Wilhelmine Amalia was the youngest daughter of Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg, and Princess Benedicta Henrietta of the Palatinate of the Rhine.

They had three children and their only son, Archduke Leopold Joseph, died of hydrocephalus before his first birthday. Joseph had a passion for love affairs (none of which resulted in illegitimate children) and he caught a sexually transmittable disease, probably syphilis, which he passed on to his wife while they were trying to produce a new heir. This incident rendered her sterile.

The Mutual Pact of Succession was devised by Emperor Leopold I, on the occasion of Archduke Charles’s departure for Spain. It stipulated that the claim to the Spanish realms was to be assumed by Archduke Charles, while the right of succession to the rest of the Habsburg hereditary dominions would rest with his elder brother Archduke Joseph, thereby again dividing the House of Habsburg into two lines.

The Pact also specified the succession to the brothers: they would both be succeeded by their respective heirs male but should one of them fail to have a son, the other one would succeed him in all his realms.

Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and Archduke of Austria

However, should both brothers die leaving no sons, the daughters of the elder brother (Joseph) would have absolute precedence over the daughters of the younger brother (Charles) and the eldest daughter of Joseph would ascend all the Habsburg thrones.

The Mutual Pact of Succession was secretly signed by archdukes Joseph and Charles of Austria, the future emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1703.

In 1700 the senior line of the House of Habsburg became extinct with the death of King Carlos II of Spain. The War of the Spanish Succession ensued, with Louis XIV of France and Navarre claiming the throne of Spain for his grandson Philippe, Duke of Anjou and Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I claiming them for his son Archduke Charles.

The Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and the majority of the Holy Roman Empire endorsed Archduke Charles’s candidature for the Spanish throne.

King Felipe V of Spain

Archduke Charles, as King Carlos III, as he was known, disembarked for his kingdom in 1705, and stayed there for six years, only being able to exercise his rule in Catalonia.

During the smallpox epidemic of 1711, which killed Louis, le Grand Dauphin and three siblings of the future Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Emperor Joseph became infected. He died on April 17 in the Hofburg Palace. He had previously promised his wife to stop having affairs, should he survive.

At this point Archduke Charles “Carlos III of Spain” returned to Vienna to assume the imperial crown where he was elected as Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

Not wanting to see Austria and Spain in personal union again, the new Kingdom of Great Britain withdrew its support from the Austrian coalition, and the War of the Spanish Succession culminated with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt three years later. The former, ratified in 1713, recognised Philippe, Duke of Anjou as King Felipe V of Spain.

October 20, 1740: Death of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor

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Emperor Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, House of Habsburg, King Carlos II of Spain, War of the Spanish Succession

Charles VI (October 1, 1685 – October 20, 1740) was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy from 1711 until his death, succeeding his elder brother, Joseph I. Archduke Charles was the second son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and of his third wife, Princess Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg, Archduke Charles was born on October 1, 1685. His tutor was Anton Florian, Prince of Liechtenstein.

Following the death of Carlos II of Spain, in 1700, without any direct heir, Charles declared himself King of Spain—both were members of the House of Habsburg. The ensuing War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted France’s candidate, Philippe, Duke of Anjou, Louis XIV of France’s grandson, against Austria’s Charles, lasted for almost 14 years. The Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and the majority of the Holy Roman Empire endorsed Charles’s candidature.

Carlos III, as he was known, disembarked in his kingdom in 1705, and stayed there for six years, only being able to exercise his rule in Catalonia, until the death of his brother, Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor; he returned to Vienna to assume the imperial crown.

Not wanting to see Austria and Spain in personal union again, the new Kingdom of Great Britain withdrew its support from the Austrian coalition, and the war culminated with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt three years later. The former, ratified in 1713, recognised the Duke of Anjou as King Felipe V of Spain; however, the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the Austrian Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sardinia – all previously possessions of the Spanish—were ceded to Austria.

To prevent a union of Spain and France, Felipe was forced to renounce his right to succeed his grandfather’s throne. Charles was extremely discontented at the loss of Spain, and as a result, he mimicked the staid Spanish Habsburg court ceremonial, adopting the dress of a Spanish monarch, which, according to British historian Edward Crankshaw, consisted of “a black doublet and hose, black shoes and scarlet stockings”.

Charles’s father and his advisors went about arranging a marriage for him. Their eyes fell upon Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the eldest daughter of Louis Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen. On August 1, 1708, in Barcelona, Charles married her by proxy.

Succession to the Habsburg dominions

When Charles succeeded his brother in 1711, he was the last male Habsburg heir in the direct line. Since Habsburg possessions were subject to Salic law, barring women from inheriting in their own right, his own lack of a male heir meant they would be divided on his death.

The Pragmatic Sanction of April 19, 1713 abolished male-only succession in all Habsburg realms and declared their lands indivisible, although Hungary only approved it in 1723.

Charles had three daughters, Maria Theresa (1717-1780), Maria Anna (1718-1744) and Maria Amalia (1724-1730) but no surviving sons.

When Maria Theresa was born, he disinherited his nieces and the daughters of his elder brother, Emperor Joseph I, Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia. It was this act that undermined the chances of a smooth succession and obliged Charles to spend the rest of his reign seeking to ensure enforcement of the Sanction from other European powers.

In total, Great Britain, France, Saxony-Poland, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Venice, States of the Church, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Savoy-Sardinia, Bavaria, and the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire recognised the sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged. Charles died in 1740, sparking the War of the Austrian Succession, which plagued his successor, Maria Theresa, for eight years.

At the time of Charles’ death, the Habsburg lands were saturated in debt; the exchequer contained a mere 100,000 florins; and desertion was rife in Austria’s sporadic army, spread across the Empire in small, ineffective barracks. Contemporaries expected that Austria-Hungary would wrench itself from the Habsburg yoke upon his death.

Despite the predicaments faced by Charles, the territorial extent of his Habsburg lands was at its greatest since the days of his cognatic ancestor Emperor Charles V, reaching the Southern Mediterranean and including the Duchy of Milan.

The Emperor, after a hunting trip across the Hungarian border in “a typical day in the wettest and coldest October in memory”, fell seriously ill at the Favorita Palace, Vienna, and he died on October 20, 1740 in the Hofburg. In his Memoirs Voltaire wrote that Charles’ death was caused by consuming a meal of death cap mushrooms. Charles’ life opus, the Pragmatic Sanction, was ultimately in vain.

Maria Theresa was forced to resort to arms to defend her inheritance from the coalition of Prussia, Bavaria, France, Spain, Saxony and Poland—all party to the sanction—who assaulted the Austrian frontier weeks after her father’s death. During the ensuing War of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa saved her crown and most of her territory but lost the mineral-rich Duchy of Silesia to Prussia and the Duchy of Parma to Spain.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part V: Austrian & Prussian Rivalry

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Austria, Emperor Charles VI, Emperor Franz I of Lorraine, Empress Maria Theresa, Frederick the Great, House of Habsburg, House of Hohenzollern, Pragmatic Sanction, Prussia, Silesian Wars, Treaty of Dresden

Austria and Prussia were the most powerful states in the Holy Roman Empire by the 18th and 19th centuries and had engaged in a struggle for supremacy in Germany. The rivalry was characterized by major territorial conflicts and economic, cultural and political aspects. Therefore, the rivalry continued after the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved and was an important element of the so called German question in the 19th centure.

The Margraviate of Brandenburg was officially declared one of the seven electorates of the Holy Roman Empire by the Golden Bull of 1356. It had extended most of its territory into the eastern Neumark region, and after the War of the Jülich succession by the 1614 Treaty of Xanten also gained the Duchy of Cleves as well as the counties of Mark and Ravensberg located in northwestern Germany.

Brandenburg finally grew out of the Imperial borders when in 1618 the Hohenzollern electors became dukes of Prussia, then a fief of the Polish Crown, and the lands of Brandenburg-Prussia were ruled in personal union. In 1653, the “Great Elector” Friedrich Wilhelm acquired Farther Pomerania and reached full sovereignty in Ducal Prussia by the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau concluded with the Polish king John II Casimir Vasa.

In 1701, Friedrich Wilhelm’s son and successor Friedrich III reached the consent of Emperor Leopold I to proclaim himself a King Friedrich I “in” Prussia at Königsberg, with respect to the fact that he still held the electoral dignity of Brandenburg and the royal title was only valid in the Prussian lands outside the Empire.

The centuries-long rise of the Austrian House of Habsburg had already begun with King Rudolph’s victory at the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld and the final obtainment of the Imperial crown by Emperor Friedrich III in 1452. His descendants Maximilian I and Philipp the Fair by marriage gained the inheritance of the Burgundian dukes and the Spanish Crown of Castile (tu felix Austria nube), and under Emperor Charles V, the Habsburg realm evolved to a European great power.

Friedrich II of Prussia and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor meet at Neisse on August 25, 1769

In 1526 his brother Ferdinand I inherited the Lands of the Bohemian Crown as well as the Kingdom of Hungary outside the borders of the Empire, laying the foundation of the Central European Habsburg monarchy. From the 15th to the 18th century, all Holy Roman Emperors were Austrian archdukes of the Habsburg dynasty, who also held the Bohemian and Hungarian royal dignity.

After the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Habsburgs had to accept the 1555 Peace of Augsburg and failed to strengthen their Imperial authority in the disastrous Thirty Years’ War. Upon the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, Austria had to deal with the rising Brandenburg-Prussian power in the north, that replaced the Electorate of Saxony as the leading Protestant estate.

The efforts made by the “Great Elector” and the “Soldier-king” Friedrich Wilhelm I had created a progressive state with a highly effective Prussian Army that, sooner or later, had to collide with the Habsburg claims to power.

History

The rivalry is largely held to have begun when upon the death of the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI in 1740, King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia launched an invasion of Austrian-controlled Silesia, starting the First Silesian War (of three Silesian Wars to come) against Maria Theresa who had inherited the Habsburg royal lands as Queen of Hungry, Bohemia and Croatia as well as the Archduchy of Austria.

Friedrich II had broken his promise to acknowledge the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and the indivisibility of the Habsburg territories, whereby he sparked off the pan–European War of the Austrian Succession. He decisively defeated the Austrian troops at the 1742 Battle of Chotusitz, whereafter Maria Theresa, by the Treaties of Breslau and Berlin, had to cede the bulk of the Silesian lands to Prussia.

Friedrich II receives homage from the Silesian estates, wall painting by Wilhelm Camphausen, 1882

At the time, Austria still claimed the mantle of the Empire and was the chief force of the disunited German states. Until 1745, Maria Theresa was able to regain the Imperial Authority from her Wittelsbach rival Emperor Charles VII, her husband. Franz of Lorraine had been elected Emperor in 1742, by occupying his Bavarian lands, but, despite her Quadruple Alliance with Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Saxony, she failed to recapture Silesia.

The Second Silesian War started with Friedrich II’s invasion into Bohemia in 1744 and after the Prussian victory at the 1745 Battle of Kesselsdorf, by the Treaty of Dresden the status quo ante bellum was confirmed: King Friedrich II of Prussia kept Silesia but finally acknowledged the accession of Maria Theresa’s husband, Emperor Franz I. The terms were again confirmed by the final Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

Empress Maria Theresa, still chafing under the loss of the most beautiful gem of my crown, took the opportunity of the breathing space to implement several civil and military reforms within the Austrian lands, like the establishment of the Theresian Military Academy at Wiener Neustadt in 1751.

Her capable state chancellor, Prince Wenzel Anton of Kaunitz, succeeded in the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, allying with the former Habsburg nemesis France under King Louis XV in order to isolate Prussia.

Friedrich II, however, had completed the “stately quadrille” by the conclusion of the Treaty of Westminster with Great Britain. He again took action by a preemptive war, invading Saxony and opening a Third Silesian War (and the wider Seven Years’ War).

Nevertheless, the conquest of Prague failed and moreover, the king had to deal with Russian forces attacking East Prussia while Austrian troops entered Silesia. His situation worsened, when Austrian and Russian forces united to inflict a crushing defeat on him at the 1759 Battle of Kunersdorf.

Friedrich II, on the brink, was saved by the discord among the victors in the “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg”, when Empress Elizabeth of Russia died on January 5, 1762 and her successor Emperor Peter III, a great admirer of the Prussian king, concluded peace with Prussia.

By the 1763 Treaty of Hubertusburg, Austria, for the third time, had to acknowledge the Prussian annexations. The usurper kingdom had prevailed against the European great powers and would play a vital future role in the “Concert of Europe”.

They two states would join forces against Napoleon which I will cover in my next section on the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.