An enlarged central administration-from which the judiciary was separated in 1749-and a repeatedly reorganized treasury required knowledgeable civil servants and judges and their training was, to her mind, the sole purpose of higher education. Practical, if not always fiscal, considerations, rather than doctrinaire humanitarianism, guided all of Maria Theresa’s reforms. Upon the death of Charles Albert (1745), she secured for her husband, Francis, the imperial crown, which the law denied to women. When the elector Charles Albert of Bavaria-one of the princes who had joined Frederick in assaulting Habsburg territories-was elected emperor, Maria Theresa was mortified that dignity, little more than titular by then, had in practice been hereditary in her family for 300 years. Her successful appearance before the refractory Hungarian Estates, ending with an appeal for a mass levy of troops, gave her a European reputation for diplomatic skill. Her refusal to negotiate with Frederick II (later the Great) of Prussia, who had invaded Silesia, her most prosperous province, appalled the senescent councillors of her late father. The naive courage with which Maria Theresa assumed her heritage (and made her husband co-regent) astounded Europe’s chancelleries. Charles left the Habsburg state at the lowest point of its prestige, its coffers empty, its capital beset by unrest. On October 20, 1740, Charles VI died, and the war of succession he had striven so hard to forestall broke out before the end of the year. The marriage was a love match, and 16 children were born to the couple, of whom 10 survived to adulthood. Because of French objections to the union of Lorraine with the Habsburg lands, Francis Stephen had to exchange his ancestral duchy for the right of succession to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In 1736 she married Francis Stephen of Lorraine. (Since nearly every major European nation coveted some part of the Habsburg domains, their consent to the Pragmatic Sanction must be taken as nothing more than an act of convenience.) Maria Theresa thus became a pawn on Europe’s political chessboard. The death of an only son prompted Charles, the only living prince of his line, to promulgate the so-called Pragmatic Sanction, a royal act, eventually recognized by most powers, whereby female issue was entitled to succeed to the domains of the Habsburgs. Maria Theresa was the eldest daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI and Elizabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. This contest with Prussia was followed by two more, the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) and the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–79), which further checked Austrian power. Upon her accession, the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) erupted, challenging her inheritance of the Habsburg lands. ![]() Maria Theresa, German Maria Theresia, (born May 13, 1717, Vienna-died November 29, 1780, Vienna), archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia (1740–80), wife and empress of the Holy Roman emperor Francis I (reigned 1745–65), and mother of the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II (reigned 1765–90).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |