March 2, 1835: Death of Emperor Franz I of Austria, Last Holy Roman Emperor

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Austrian Hereditary Lands, Bohemia, Croatia, Emperor of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, House of Austria, House of Habsburg, Hungary, Napoléon of France, Treaty of Pressburg, War of the Third Coalition

Franz II or I (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Franz II (from 1792 to 1806), and the founder and Emperor of the Austrian Empire as Franz I (from 1804 to 1835).

Franz was a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of King Carlos III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Franz was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Franz was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Joseph had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.

After the death of Emperor Joseph II in 1790, Franz’s father became Emperor. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold’s deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother’s policies.

The strain took a toll on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of March 1, Emperor Leopold II died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor, much sooner than he had expected.

As the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruler of the vast multi-ethnic Habsburg hereditary lands, Franz II felt threatened by the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon’s expansionism as well as their social and political reforms which were being exported throughout Europe in the wake of the conquering French armies.

Emperor Franz II had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign, although, on the whole, he was indifferent to her fate.

Later, he led the Holy Roman Empire into the French Revolutionary Wars. He briefly commanded the Allied forces during the Flanders Campaign of 1794 before handing over command to his brother Archduke Charles. He was later defeated by Napoleon. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, he ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France in exchange for Venice and Dalmatia. He again fought against France during the War of the Second Coalition.

In the face of aggressions by Napoleon I, who had been proclaimed “Emperor of the French” by the French constitution on May 18, 1804, Franz II feared for the future of the Holy Roman Empire and wished to maintain his and his family’s Imperial status in case the Holy Roman Empire should be dissolved.

Therefore, on August 11, 1804 he created the new hereditary title of “Emperor of Austria” for himself and his successors as heads of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. For two years, Franz carried two imperial titles: being Holy Roman Emperor Franz II and “by the Grace of God” (Von Gottes Gnaden) Emperor Franz I of Austria.

The move of taking the title Emperor of Austria technically was illegal in terms of imperial law. Yet Napoleon had agreed beforehand and therefore it happened.

The reason Franz’s assuming the Imperial title for Austria was against imperial law was due to the fact the title of Holy Roman Emperor provided the highest prestige among European monarchs. Because at it’s onset the empire was considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Thus, in theory and diplomacy, the Emperors were considered primus inter pares, regarded as first among equals among other Roman Catholics, and after the Reformation, the monarchs across Europe.

Therefore, the taking of another imperial title when the title of Holy Roman Emperor was considered primus inter pares was deemed taking a lesser title.

For the two years between 1804 and 1806, Francis used the title and style by the Grace of God elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria and he was called the Emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire and Austria.

Members of the House of Austria, the Habsburg Dynasty, had been the elected Holy Roman Emperors since 1438 (except for a five-year break from 1740 to 1745) and mostly resided in Vienna. Thus the term “Austrian emperor” may occur in texts dealing with the time before 1804, when no Austrian Empire existed.

In these cases the word Austria means the composite monarchy ruled by the dynasty, not the country. A special case was Maria Theresa; she bore the imperial title Empress as the consort of Emperor Franz I (r. 1745–1765), but she herself was the monarch of the Austrian Hereditary Lands including the Kingdoms of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

During the War of the Third Coalition, the Austrian forces met a crushing defeat at Austerlitz, and Emperor Franz II had to agree to the Treaty of Pressburg, which greatly weakened Austria and brought about the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire.

In July 1806, under massive pressure from France, Bavaria and fifteen other German states ratified the statutes founding the Confederation of the Rhine, with Napoleon designated Protector, and they announced to the Imperial Diet their intention to leave the Empire with immediate effect.

Then, on July 22, Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Francis demanding that he abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor by August 10. Five days later, Emperor Franz II bowed to the inevitable and, without mentioning the ultimatum, affirmed that since the Peace of Pressburg he had tried his best to fulfil his duties as emperor but that circumstances had convinced him that he could no longer rule according to his oath of office, the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine making that impossible.

He added that “we hereby decree that we regard the bond which until now tied us to the states of the Empire as dissolved” in effect dissolving the empire. At the same time he declared the complete and formal withdrawal of his hereditary lands from imperial jurisdiction. After that date, he reigned as Franz I, Emperor of Austria.

On March 2, 1835, 43 years and a day after his father’s death, Franz died in Vienna of a sudden fever aged 67, in the presence of many of his family and with all the religious comforts.

His funeral was magnificent, with his Viennese subjects respectfully filing past his coffin in the chapel of Hofburg Palace for three days. Franz was interred in the traditional resting place of Habsburg monarchs, the Kapuziner Imperial Crypt in Vienna’s Neue Markt Square. He is buried in tomb number 57, surrounded by his four wives.

His eldest son succeeded him as Emperor Ferdinand of Austria and as King Ferdinand V of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

June 21, 1528: Birth of Archduchess Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia

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and Croatia, Archduchess Maria of Austria, Archduchess of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Infanta of Spain, King Carlos I of Spain, Kingdom of Spain, Queen of Bohemia

Archduchess Maria of Austria (June 21, 1528 – February 16, 1603) was the empress consort and queen consort of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. She served as regent of Spain in the absence of her father Emperor Charles V from 1548 until 1551.

Early life

Maria was born in Madrid, Spain to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, (Carlos I of Spain) and Isabella of Portugal, the second child and first daughter of King Manuel I of Portugal and his second wife, Maria of Aragon, herself the the third surviving daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Fernando II-V of Aragon and Castile (the Catholic monarchs).

As a member of the House of Habsburg she was both an Archduchess of Austria and an Infanta of Spain.

Archduchess Maria grew up mostly between Toledo and Valladolid with her siblings, Archduke Philipp and Archduchess Joanna of Austria. They built a strong family bond despite their father’s regular absences. Maria and her brother, Philipp, shared similar strong personal views and policies which they retained during the rest of their lives.

Regent of Spain

On September 15, 1548, aged twenty, she married her first cousin Archduke Maximilian of Austria the eldest son of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, younger brother of Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Jagiellonian Princess Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547).

The couple had sixteen children during the course of a twenty-eight-year marriage.

While her father was occupied with German affairs, Maria and Maximilian acted as regents of Spain from 1548 to 1551 during the absence of Infante Felipe I of Spain. Maria stayed at the Spanish court until August 1551, and in 1552, the couple moved to live at the court of Maximilian’s father in Vienna.

In 1558, Maria returned to Madrid and acted as regent of Spain during the absence of her brother, now King Felipe II, from 1558 to 1561.

Empress

After her return to Germany, her husband eventually succeeded his father Ferdinand I, at his death, as Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia which he ruled from 1564 to his death in 1576.

Maria was a devout Catholic and frequently disagreed with her religiously ambiguous husband about his religious tolerance.

During her life in Austria, Maria was reportedly ill at ease in a country which was not entirely Catholic, and she surrounded herself with a circle of strictly Catholic courtiers, many of whom she had brought with her from Spain. Her court was organized by her Spanish chief lady-in-waiting Maria de Requenes in a Spanish manner, and among her favorite companions was her Spanish lady-in-waiting Margarita de Cardona.

In 1576, Maximilian II died. Maria remained at the Imperial Court for six years after his death. She had great influence over her sons, the future emperors Rudolf and Matthias.

Return to Spain

Maria returned to Spain in 1582, taking her youngest surviving child Archduchess Margaret with her, promised to marry Felipe II of Spain, who had lost his fourth wife, her oldest daughter, Archduchess Anna in 1580. Margaret finally refused and took the veil as a Poor Clare. Commenting that she was very happy to live in “a country without heretics”, Maria settled in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where she lived until her death in 1603.

She was the patron of the noted Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, and the great Requiem Mass he wrote in 1603 for her funeral is considered among the best and most refined of his works.

Maria exerted some influence together with Queen Margaret, the wife of her grandson/nephew, Felipe III of Spain. Margaret, the sister of the future Emperor Ferdinand II, would be one of three women at Felipe III’s court who would apply considerable influence over the king.

Margaret was considered by contemporaries to be extremely pious – in some cases, excessively pious, and too influenced by the Church, and ‘astute and very skillful’ in her political dealings, although ‘melancholic’ and unhappy over the influence of the Duke of Lerma over her husband at court. Margaret continued to fight an ongoing battle with Lerma for influence until her death in 1611. Felipe had an ‘affectionate, close relationship’ with Margaret, and paid her additional attention after she bore him a son, also named Felipe in 1605.

Maria, the Austrian representative to the Spanish court – and Margaret of the Cross, Maria’s daughter – along with queen Margaret, were a powerful Catholic and pro-Austrian faction in the court of Felipe III of Spain.

They were successful, for example, in convincing Felipe to provide financial support to Ferdinand from 1600 onwards. Felipe III steadily acquired other religious advisors. Father Juan de Santa Maria, the confessor to Felipe III’s daughter, Maria Anna, was felt by contemporaries to have an excessive influence over Felipe at the end of his life, and both he and Luis de Aliaga, Felipe III’s own confessor, were credited with the overthrow of Lerma in 1618. Similarly Mariana de San Jose, a favoured nun of Queen Margaret’s, was also criticised for her later influence over the King’s actions.

Survival of Monarchies Part IX: Russia and Austria

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Duma, Emperor Carl of Austria, Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Hungary, Romanov, World War I

In order to wrap up this series on Survival of Monarchies I will look at both Russia and the Habsburg family together. Notice I did not refer to just Austria but instead noted the dynasty that rule Austria for centuries. The reason for this was that the Habsburg family not only ruled Austria but also held the imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Right before the demise of the Holy Roman Empire the emperor, Franz II, elevated the Archduchy of Austria, to that of an Empire and consolidated all of Habsburg ruled lands (making him the only double emperor in history for 2 years). Therefore in the context of this series I believe it is more accurate to refer to the ruling family than just one nation.

There were a lot of similarities between Habsburgs and Russian style of Monarchy. Both monarchies held the imperial title and were autocratic and held considerable, if not absolute, power. One of the odd dichotomies of the Habsburg monarchy is that it was both weak and strong. The weakness of the Holy Roman Empire was that it had an ineffective and anemic central government. After the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia the multitude of smaller states within the empire gained almost complete sovereignty making the emperor an emperor in name only. However, since the Habsburg family ruled Austria and Bohemia they did also wiled some considerable power and influence.

In Russia the election of Czar Michael Romanov in 1613 was monumental not only in the hindsight that this dynasty would rule for over 300 years, it stabilized and united the country and gave Russia some powerful leaders. The two most notable were Peter I the Great (1682-1725) and Catherine II the Great (1762-1796). Russia had a tendency of being a generation or two out of sync with the rest of Europe and both Peter and Catherine brought badly needed reforms to Russia in the face of great resistance. During this time period the Russian monarchs held absolute power and Czar Peter I was even greatly feared by his people.

As mentioned the Habsburg monarchy was a consolidation of lands ruled by the this dynasty. Some of these lands were part of the Holy Roman Empire and some were outside the empire. When Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, consolidated his family lands into the Austrian Empire it created an empire that was already fragmented culturally and by language and other customs and these issues would be the ultimate reason this empire would collapse. Other than loyalty to the emperor and a shared history of belonging to the Habsburg family, there was not much left to hold this empire together.

One of the common denominators in the fall of both of these Empires is that the ruling aristocracy was out of touch with the suffering of its populace. Also, as we have seen, the Enlightenment brought democratic principles to Europe and Russia and Austria lacked these in their government and the people grew restless for a say in the process of government. In 1905 Russia attempted such reforms with the establishment of the Duma (Parliament) and a limited constitutional monarchy. Czar Nicholas II (1894-1917) had a difficult time dealing with the Duma. One reason was because he was not accustomed to having to answer to another governing authority. Another reason Nicholas had difficulty dealing with the Duma was because he had relationship problems. Nicholas II came to the throne relatively young, he was 26 years old, and he still had uncles and cousins that were very intimidating and they tried to steer the young Czar in certain directions politically. This revealed Nicholas’ indecisive character and that helped bring down the monarchy. I also want to say the Duma itself was pretty chaotic and many of its members so hungry for power and reform that they were also unwilling to work with the Czar.

Emperor Fran-Josef of Austria (1848-1916) did not have to deal with parliaments but he had to try and keep the ethnic diversity of his empire under control. In the 1860s he was ousted from the creation of a Greater German Empire, continuing the rivalry between Austria and Prussia for power in Central Europe that began in the 18^th century. The Hungarians were given equal power within the empire creating the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. Many Czech people were waiting for political changes in monarchy similar to what happened with Hungary, a move Archduke Franz-Ferdinand supported and was one of the motives for assassinating him, but the question was never addressed and World War I broke out over the assassination of the Archduke further destabilizing the nation.

Two very unstable thrones entered World War I in 1914 and neither would survive. Russia was on the verge of social and economic collapse by 1917 and even with the abdication of the Czar in 1917 it could not stop the bleeding. Franz-Josef died in 1916 and his peace loving successor, Emperor Carl I-IV of Austria-Hungary, could not win an armistice swiftly enough to avoid losing his throne at the end of 1918.

Next week: Final analysis and conclusions.