May 5, 1747: Birth of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Empress Maria Theresa, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King Carlos III of Spain, Louis XVI of France and Navarre

Leopold II (Peter Leopold Josef Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard; May 5, 1747 – March 1, 1792) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790.

He was a son of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria in her own right and her husband, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I.

Leopold was also and the brother of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre as the wife of King Louis XVI of France and Navarre; Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies; Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma by her marriage to Ferdinand, Duke of Parma; and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (left) with his brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. He granted the Academy of Georgofili his protection. Despite his brief reign, he is highly regarded. The historian Paul W. Schroeder called him “one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown”.

Unusually for his time, he opposed capital punishment and abolished it in Tuscany in 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to do so.

As his parents’ third son, he was initially selected for a clerical career, he received education with focus on theology.

In 1753, he was engaged to Maria Beatrice d’Este, heiress to the Duchy of Modena and the eldest child of two monarchs, Ercole III d’Este, Duke of Modena and Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, reigning duchess of Massa and princess of Carrara.

As heiress to four states (Modena, Reggio, Massa and Carrara), she was a very attractive wedding partner. Empress Maria Theresa sought to arrange a marriage between Maria Beatrice and Archduke Leopold, but this never materialised. Instead she married Leopold’s brother, Archduke Ferdinand Charles bof Austria, in a union through which the Austrians aimed to expand their influence in Italy.

Upon the early death of his older brother Archduke Charles in 1761, the family decided that Leopold was going to succeed his father as Duke of Tuscany. Tuscany had been envisioned and designated as a Secundogeniture, a territory and title bestowed upon the second born son, which was greater than an Appanage.

Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain

On August 5, 1765 Leopold married the Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, daughter of Carlos III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Upon the death of his father, Franz on August 18, 1765, he became Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother’s innovations.

He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as “the pillars of the monarchy”, pacified the Hungarians and Bohemians, and divided the insurgents in the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium) by means of concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into the country and re-established his own authority, and at the same time the historic franchises of the Flemings.

Young Leopold as the Grand Duke of Tuscany

Yet he did not surrender any part that could be retained of what Maria Theresa and Joseph had done to strengthen the hands of the state. He continued, for instance, to insist that no papal bull could be published in his dominions without his consent (placetum regium).

One of the harshest actions Leopold took to placate the noble communities of the various Habsburg domains was to issue a decree on May 9, 1790 that forced thousands of Bohemian serfs freed by his brother Joseph back into servitude.

Leopold lived for barely two years after his accession as Holy Roman Emperor, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI, and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of subversive agitation. His sister sent him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist émigrés, who were intriguing to bring about armed intervention in France.

From the east he was threatened by the aggressive ambition of Empress Catherine II of Russia and by the unscrupulous policy of Prussia. Catherine would have been delighted to see Austria and Prussia embark on a crusade in the cause of kings against the French Revolution.

While they were busy beyond the Rhine, she would have annexed what remained of Poland and made conquests against the Ottoman Empire. Leopold II had no difficulty in seeing through the rather transparent cunning of the Russian empress, and he refused to be misled.

To his sister, he gave good advice and promises of help if she and her husband could escape from Paris. The émigrés who followed him pertinaciously were refused audience, or when they forced themselves on him, were peremptorily denied all help.

Leopold was too purely a politician not to be secretly pleased at the destruction of the power of France and of her influence in Europe by her internal disorders. Within six weeks of his accession, he displayed his contempt for France’s weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with Great Britain to impose a check on Russia and Prussia.

Leopold put pressure on Great Britain by threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France. Then, when sure of British support, he was in a position to baffle the intrigues of Prussia. A personal appeal to King Friedrich Wilhelm II led to a conference between them at Reichenbach in July 1790, and to an arrangement which was in fact a defeat for Prussia: Leopold’s coronation as king of Hungary on November 11, 1790, preceded by a settlement with the Diet in which he recognized the dominant position of the Magyars.

Leopold II. Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria, and Grand Duke of Tuscany

He had already made an eight months’ truce with the Turks in September, which prepared the way for the termination of the war begun by Joseph II. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with Britain and the Netherlands.

During 1791, the emperor remained increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January, he had to dismiss the Count of Artois (afterwards Charles X of France) in a very peremptory way. His good sense was revolted by the folly of the French émigrés, and he did his utmost to avoid being entangled in the affairs of that country.

The insults inflicted on Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, however, at the time of their attempted flight to Varennes in June, stirred his indignation, and he made a general appeal in the Padua Circular to the sovereigns of Europe to take common measures in view of events which “immediately compromised the honour of all sovereigns, and the security of all governments.” Yet he was most directly interested in negotiations with Turkey, which in June led to a final peace, the Treaty of Sistova being signed in August 1791.

On August 25, 1791, he met King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia at Pillnitz Castle, near Dresden, and they drew up the Declaration of Pillnitz, stating their readiness to intervene in France if and when their assistance was called for by the other powers.

The declaration was a mere formality, for, as Leopold knew, neither Russia nor Britain was prepared to act, and he endeavored to guard against the use which he foresaw the émigrés would try to make of it. In face of the reaction in France to the Declaration of Pillnitz, the intrigues of the émigrés, and attacks made by the French revolutionists on the rights of the German princes in Alsace, Leopold continued to hope that intervention might not be required.

When Louis XVI swore to observe the constitution of September 1791, the emperor professed to think that a settlement had been reached in France. The attacks on the rights of the German princes on the left bank of the Rhine, and the increasing violence of the parties in Paris which were agitating to bring about war, soon showed, however, that this hope was vain.

Leopold meant to meet the challenge of the revolutionists in France with dignity and temper, however the effect of the Declaration of Pillnitz was to contribute to the radicalization of their political movement.

Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito was commissioned by the Estates of Bohemia for the festivities that accompanied Leopold’s coronation as king of Bohemia in Prague on September 6, 1791.

Leopold died suddenly in Vienna, in March 1792.

His mother Empress Maria Theresa was the last Habsburg. His brother Joseph II died without any surviving children, but Leopold in turn had also 16 children, just like his mother, and became the founder of the main line of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

The eldest of Leopold II’s eight sons being his successor, Emperor Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor and first Emperor of Austria. Some of his other sons were prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany; Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, a celebrated soldier; Archduke Johann of Austria, also a soldier; Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary; and Archduke Rainer, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.

November 11, 1748: Birth of King Carlos IV of Spain.

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Age of Enlightenment, House of Bourbon, King Carlos III of Spain, King Carlos IV of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, King Louis XV of France, King Louis XVI of France, Kingdom of Spain, Manuel de Godoy, Maria Louisa of Parma, Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen Marie Antoinette, Spanish Empire

From the Emperor’s Desk: Due to technological difficulties I was unable to post this yesterday.

Carlos IV (November 11, 1748 – January 20, 1819) was King of Spain and the Spanish Empire from 14 December 14, 1788, until his abdication on March 19, 1808.

The Spain inherited by Carlos IV gave few indications of instability, but during his reign, Spain entered a series of disadvantageous alliances and his regime constantly sought cash to deal with the exigencies of war. He detested his son and heir Fernando, who led the unsuccessful El Escorial Conspiracy and later forced Carlos’s abdication after the Tumult of Aranjuez in March 1808, along with the ouster of his widely hated first minister Manuel de Godoy.

Summoned to Bayonne by Napoleon Bonaparte, who forced Fernando VII to abdicate, Carlos IV also abdicated, paving the way for Napoleon to place his older brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain. The reign of Carlos IV turned out to be a major turning point in Spanish history.

Early life

Carlos was the second son of Carlos III and his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. He was born in Naples (November 11, 1748), while his father was King of Naples and Sicily. His elder brother, Don Felipe, was passed over for both thrones, due to his learning disabilities and epilepsy.

In Naples and Sicily, Carlos was referred to as the Prince of Taranto. He was called El Cazador (meaning “the Hunter”), due to his preference for sport and hunting, rather than dealing with affairs of the state. Carlos was considered by many to have been amiable, but simple-minded. In 1788, Carlos III died and Carlos IV succeeded to the throne, and ruled for the next two decades.

Even though he had a profound belief in the sanctity of the monarchy, and kept up the appearance of an absolute, powerful king Carlos IV never took more than a passive part in his own government. The affairs of government were left to his wife, Maria Luisa, and the man he appointed first minister, Manuel de Godoy.

Carlos occupied himself with hunting in the period that saw the outbreak of the French Revolution, the executions of his Bourbon relative Louis XVI of France and his queen, Marie Antoinette, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ideas of the Age of Enlightenment had come to Spain with the accession of the first Spanish Bourbon, Felipe V.

Carlos IV’s father Carlos III had pursued an active policy of reform that sought to reinvigorate Spain politically and economically and make the Spanish Empire more closely an appendage of the metropole. Carlos III was an active, working monarch with experienced first ministers to help reach decisions. Carlos IV by contrast was a do-nothing king, with a domineering wife and an inexperienced but ambitious first minister, Godoy.

Well-meaning and pious, Carlos IV floundered in a series of international crises beyond his capacity to handle. He was painted by Francisco Goya in a number of official court portraits, which numerous art critics have seen as satires on the King’s stout vacuity.

Riots, and a popular revolt at the winter palace Aranjuez, in 1808 forced the king to abdicate on March 19, in favor of his son. Fernando took the throne as Fernando VII, but was mistrusted by Napoleon, who had 100,000 soldiers stationed in Spain by that time due to the ongoing War of the Third Coalition.

Marriage and children

Carlos IV married his first cousin Infanta Maria Louisa of Parma, the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, in 1765. The couple had fourteen children, six of whom survived into adulthood:

Infanta Maria Luisa of Parma (1751 – 1819) was Queen consort of Spain from 1788 to 1808 leading up to the Peninsular War. She was the youngest daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, the fourth son of Felipe V of Spain and Louise Élisabeth of France, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV. In 1765 she married Carlos, Prince of Asturias who ascended the throne in 1788 and thus became queen.

Maria Luisa’s father, Philip (1720 – 1765) was Infante of Spain by birth, and Duke of Parma from 1748 to 1765. Born at the Royal Alcazar in Madrid as Felipe de Borbón y Farnesio, he was the third child and second son of Felipe V of Spain and his wife, Elisabeth Farnese. He founded the House of Bourbon-Parma, a cadet line of the Spanish branch of the Bourbon dynasty. He was a son-in-law of Louis XV.

Maria Luisa’s relationship with Manuel Godoy and influence over the King made her unpopular among the people and aristocrats. In total, Maria Luisa had twenty-four pregnancies of which fourteen children were born and ten miscarried.

She was rivals with the Duchess of Alba and the Duchess of Osuna attracting popular attention. The death of her daughter-in-law Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily, whom she disliked, was said to be the poisoning by the queen. When Carlos IV abdicated in 1808 he was accompanied by Maria Luisa.

Following Napoleon’s deposing of the Bourbon dynasty, the ex-King Carlos IV, his wife, Maria Luisa and former Prime Minister Godoy were held captive in France first at the château de Compiègne and three years in Marseille (where a neighborhood was named after him).

After the collapse of the regime installed by Napoleon, Fernando VII was restored to the Spanish throne. The former Carlos IV drifted about Europe until 1812, when he finally settled in Rome, in the Palazzo Barberini. His wife died on January 2, 1819, followed shortly by Carlos IV who died on January 20, of the same year.

September 23, 1713: Birth of Fernando VI, King of Spain.

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Ferdinand VI of Spain, House of Bourbon, Infanta Barbara of Portugal, Jesuits, John V of Portugal, King Carlos III of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, Kingdom of Spain, Ricardo Wall, War of the Austrian Succession

Fernando VI (September 23, 1713 – August 10, 1759), called the Learned (el Prudente) and the Just (el Justo), was King of Spain from July 9, 1746 until his death. He was the third ruler of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty. He was the son of the previous monarch, Felipe V, and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy.

Born at the Royal Alcázar of Madrid, Infante Fernando endured a lonely childhood. His stepmother, the domineering Elisabeth Farnese, had no affection except for her own children, and looked upon Fernando as an obstacle to their fortunes. The hypochondria of his father left Elisabeth mistress of the palace.

Fernando was by temperament melancholic, shy and distrustful of his own abilities. When complimented on his shooting, he replied, “It would be hard if there were not something I could do.” Shooting and music were his only pleasures, and he was the generous patron of the famous singer Farinelli, whose voice soothed his melancholy.

Marriage

Fernando was married in 1729 to Infanta Barbara of Portugal, daughter of King João V of Portugal and Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, was a daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. Maria Anna was a sister of Holy Roman Emperors Joseph I and Charles VI. Through her brother Charles, she was an aunt of Maria Theresa, Austria’s only queen regnant.

Beginning of the reign

When he came to the throne, Spain found itself in the War of the Austrian Succession, which ended without any benefit to Spain. He started his reign by eliminating the influence of his stepmother and her group of Italian courtiers. As king he followed a steady policy of neutrality in the conflict between France and Britain and refused to be tempted by the offers of either into declaring war on the other.

Prominent figures during his reign were Marquis of Ensenada, a Francophile; and José de Carvajal y Lancáster, a supporter of the alliance with Great Britain. The fight between both ended in 1754 with the death of Carvajal and the fall of Ensenada, after which Ricardo Wall became the most powerful advisor to the monarch.

The most important tasks during the reign of Ferdinand VI were carried out by the Marquis of Ensenada, the Secretary of the Treasury, Navy and Indies. He suggested that the state help modernize the country. To him, this was necessary to maintain a position of exterior strength so that France and Great Britain would consider Spain as an ally without supposing Spain’s renunciation of its claim to Gibraltar.

Church relations were really tense from start of the reign of Felipe V because of the recognition of Charles of Austria as the King of Spain by the pope. A regalist policy was maintained that pursued as much political as fiscal objectives and whose decisive achievement was the Concord of 1753. From this the right of universal patronage was obtained from Pope Benedict XIV, giving important economic benefits to the Crown and a great control over the clergy.

King Fernando VI helped create the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1752. The noted composer Domenico Scarlatti, music teacher to Queen Barbara, wrote many of his 555 harpsichord sonatas at Fernando VI’s court.

During the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, Spain reinforced its military might.

The main conflict was its confrontation with Portugal over the colony of Sacramento, from which British contraband was transferred down the Río de la Plata. In 1750 José de Carvajal helped Spain and Portugal strike a deal. Portugal agreed to renounce the colony and its claim to free navigation down the Río de la Plata.

In return, Spain ceded to Portugal two regions on the Brazilian border, one in the Amazon and the other to the south, in which were seven of the thirty Jesuit Guaraní towns. The Spanish had to expel the missionaries, generating a conflict with the Guaraní people that lasted eleven years.

The conflict over the towns provoked a crisis in the Spanish Court. Ensenada, favorable to the Jesuits, and Father Rávago, confessor of the King and members of the Society of Jesus, were fired, accused of hindering the agreements with Portugal.

Death

During his last year of reign, Fernando VI was rapidly losing his mental capacity and he was held in the Villaviciosa de Odón castle until his death on 10 August 1759. That period of time between August 1758 and August 1759 is known in Spanish historiography as the year without a king, due to the absence of the royal figure as ruler.

The cause of the disease is still debated. Some authors suggest that the king suffered a depressive episode. The death of his wife Barbara, who had been devoted to him, and who carefully abstained from political intrigue, broke his heart. Between the date of her death in August 1758 and his own on August 10, 1759, he fell into a state of prostration in which he would not even dress, but wandered unshaven, unwashed and in a nightgown about his park.

Other opinion is that Fernando VI suffered a rapidly progressive clinical syndrome where behavioral disorganization with apathy and impulsivity, loss of judgment, and epileptic seizures of right frontal lobe semiology were predominant. This semiology is highly suggestive of a right frontal lobe syndrome. As the couple had no children, Fernando VI was succeeded as King by his half-brother as King Carlos III.