Practical, if not always fiscal, considerations, rather than doctrinaire humanitarianism, guided all of Maria Theresa’s reforms. Maria was the oldest surviving child of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, and Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. [155] Joseph argued that it was difficult to find a middle way between the interests of the peasants and nobles; he suggested instead that the peasants negotiate with their landlords to reach an outcome. [17] In 1725, he betrothed her to Charles of Spain and her sister, Maria Anna, to Philip of Spain. This was a product of deep religious devotion and was not kept secret in her time. "[34], Maria Theresa found herself in a difficult situation. Maria Theresa was devastated. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In 1773, she entrusted her minister Franz Anton von Raab with a model project on the crown lands in Bohemia: he was tasked to divide up the large estates into small farms, convert the forced labour contracts into leases, and enable the farmers to pass the leaseholds onto their children. She has, as you well know, a terrible hatred for France, with which nation it is most difficult for her to keep on good terms, but she controls this passion except when she thinks to her advantage to display it. The invasion of Silesia by Frederick was the start of a lifelong enmity; she referred to him as "that evil man". They exacted harsh terms: in the Treaty of Vienna (1731), Great Britain demanded that Austria abolish the Ostend Company in return for its recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. The oath of fealty to Maria Theresa was taken on the same day in the Ritterstube of the Hofburg. Predictably, some of this came from peasants who wanted the children to work in the fields instead. [149], An additional prompt to reform was the famine which afflicted the empire in the early 1770s. [48] Her coronation as Queen of Hungary took place in St. Martin's Cathedral, Pressburg (today's Bratislava), on 25 June 1741. They were also poorly trained and discipline was lacking. [41] The resulting war with Prussia is known as the First Silesian War. [137] The need for the reform became evident after the census of 1770-71, which revealed the widespread illiteracy of the populace. [97][98] She was probably the most anti-Jewish monarch of her time, having inherited the traditional prejudices of her ancestors and acquired new ones. He had ignored the advice of Prince Eugene of Savoy who had urged him to concentrate on filling the treasury and equipping the army rather than on acquiring signatures of fellow monarchs. The eldest surviving daughters of Maria Theresa's children were, In a letter to Joseph, she wrote: "What, without a dominant religion? Maria Theresa led Austria through this and two other wars, preserving the bulk of Habsburg territory in the face of a series of militarily superior opponents. Maria Theresa kept up a fortnightly correspondence with Maria Antonia, now called Marie Antoinette, in which she often reproached her for laziness and frivolity and scolded her for failing to conceive a child. [45] Marshall Belle-Isle joined Frederick at Olmütz. Maria Theresa's ally, the Elector of Saxony, now became her enemy,[51] and George II declared the Electorate of Hanover to be neutral. The dowager empresses, her aunt Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg and grandmother Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg, were her godmothers. Five more children were born during the war: (the second) Maria Elisabeth, Charles, Maria Amalia, Leopold and (the second) Maria Carolina (b. Prussia would adopt this form of government only after 1807. Though she was expected to cede power to her husband, Emperor Francis I, and her eldest son, Emperor Joseph II, who were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled with the counsel of her advisers. Maria Theresa took a thoroughly pragmatic approach to the reforms. [140][139] The curriculum focused on social responsibility, social discipline, work ethic and the use of reason rather than mere rote learning. However, Charles IV managed to gain endorsement for t… Kann asserts that she nevertheless possessed qualities appreciated in a monarch: warm heart, practical mind, firm determination and sound perception. Ironically, for this purpose, she was aided by Gerard van Swieten who was considered to be an "enlightened" man. Born on May 13, 1717, in Vienna, the imperial capital, Maria Theresa was the eldest daughter of Charles VI and Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. The dazzling ideas of her new chancellor, Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, fired her determination to recover Silesia, indeed, to destroy Prussia. Vienna was in a panic, as none of Maria Theresa's advisors had expected France to betray them. & d. 1748). [10] Unlike many other members of the House of Habsburg, neither Maria Theresa's parents nor her grandparents were closely related to each other. The eldest of the surviving children was Maria Anna (1738–1789), who developed strong intellectual interests and was very similar in character to her father. At the time of her birth, females were not allowed to inherit the throne. [30], Charles VI died on 20 October 1740, probably of mushroom poisoning. Although this law came into force in Austria and Bohemia, it was not valid in Hungary. Thus, the birth of Maria Theresa was a great disappointment to him and the people of Vienna; Charles never managed to overcome this feeling.[4]. [100], In December 1744, she proposed to her ministers the expulsion of Jews from Austria and Bohemia. [8] The portraits of the imperial family show that Maria Theresa resembled Elisabeth Christine and Maria Anna. After the loss of Silesia, they implemented subsidies and trade barriers to encourage the move of Silesian textile industry to northern Bohemia. The Jesuits were powerful and influential in the early years of Maria Theresa's reign. Hungarian and Croat light hussars led by Count Hadik raided Berlin in 1757. The most enigmatic regent of the House of Habsburg has remained unforgotten until today. Besides, Maria Theresa herself agreed with the partition when she realised that Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine II of Russia would do it with or without Austrian participation. [153], However, Maria Theresa´s attempts to extend the Raab system to the great estates belonging to the Bohemian nobles were fiercely resisted by the nobles, who claimed that it was not the right of the crown to interfere with the serf system, since the nobles were the original owners of the land, who had allowed the peasants to work it on stipulated conditions. [110], Maria Theresa's government confirmed (1743) and continued to uphold old privileges granted to their Eastern Orthodox subjects by previous Habsburg monarchs (emperors Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI), but at the same time, new reforms were enforced, establishing much firmer state control over the Eastern Orthodox Metropolitanate of Karlovci. Her actions during the late stages of her reign contrast her early opinions. By 26 November, she asked for the last rites, and on 28 November, the doctor told her that the time had come. In 1764, she ordered the release of those Jews who had been jailed for a blood libel in the village of Orkuta. In addition to this, the Hofrechenskammer, or exchequer, was tasked with the handling of all financial accounts. [163] From then on, mother and son had frequent ideological disagreements. [106] Commissions were formed to seek out secret Protestants and intern them in workhouses, where they would be given the chance to subscribe to approved statements of Catholic faith. The first child, Maria Elisabeth (1737–1740), was born a little less than a year after the wedding. [62], Prussian ambassador's letter to Frederick the Great[g], The Treaty of Breslau of June 1742 ended hostilities between Austria and Prussia. When Maria Theresa was six years old, her mother died. To appease those who considered her gender to be a serious obstacle, Maria Theresa assumed masculine titles. At the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, Count Podewils was sent as an ambassador to the Austrian court by King Frederick II of Prussia. It takes at least a week for the smallpox rash to appear after a person is infected. [49][50], By July, attempts at conciliation had completely collapsed. She controlled the selection of archbishops, bishops and abbots. [129] In 1769, the Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana was published, and this was a codification of the traditional criminal justice system since the Middle Ages. He neglected the advice of Prince Eugene of Savoy, who believed that a strong military and a rich treasury were more important than mere signatures. Please select which sections you would like to print: While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Unlike the latter, Maria Theresa was not an autocrat who acted as her own minister. It is hardly credible how many books and productions of every species, and in every language, are proscribed by her. The only child she did not constantly scold was Maria Christina, who enjoyed her mother's complete confidence, though she failed to please her mother in one aspect – she did not produce any surviving children. Even though Francis Stephen was his favourite candidate for Maria Theresa's hand,[16] the Emperor considered other possibilities. [73] Frederick himself was startled by Lobositz; he eventually re-grouped for another attack in June 1757. [146], Maria Theresa endeavoured to increase the living standards of the people, since she could see a causal link between peasant living standards, productivity and state revenue. 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. She forbade the publication of Pope Clement XIII's bull, which was in favour of the Jesuits, and promptly confiscated their property when Pope Clement XIV suppressed the order. She was born in at the Queen Elisabeth of Spain and Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, married to Maria Theresa's deprived cousin Maria Amalia and supported by Empress Wilhelmine Amalia, coveted portions of her inheritance. She even advocated for a state church[j] and contemporary adversary travelers criticized her regime as bigoted, intolerant and superstitious. Born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, she was the daughter of Philip IV & III, and his wife Elisabeth of France, who died when Maria Theresa was six years old. Their eldest son, Joseph, became Holy Roman Emperor. [113] Furthermore, educational institutions were created to prepare officials for work in the state bureaucracy: the Theresianum was established in Vienna in 1746 to educate nobles' sons, a military school named the Theresian Military Academy was founded in Wiener Neustadt in 1751, and an Oriental Academy for future diplomats was created in 1754. She used them as pawns in dynastic games and sacrificed their happiness for the benefit of the state. The 22 million gulden that Joseph inherited from his father was injected into the treasury. The second and eldest surviving child of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Archduchess Maria Theresa was born on 13 May 1717 in Vienna, a year after the death of her elder brother, Archduke Leopold, and was baptised on that same evening. The child's sex caused great disappointment and so would the births of Maria Anna, the eldest surviving child, and Maria Carolina (1740–1741). [70] However, historians have blamed this treaty for France's devastating defeats in the war, since Louis XV was required to deploy troops in Germany and to provide subsidies of 25–30 million pounds a year to Maria Theresa that were vital for the Austrian war effort in Bohemia and Silesia. She was born in Skopje (now the capital of North Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. "[155] By 1776, the court was polarized: on one side was a small reform party (including Maria Theresa, Raab, Blanc, Gebler and Greiner); on the conservative side were Joseph and the rest of the court. Although Maria Theresa had initially been reluctant to meddle in such affairs, government interventions were made possible by the perceived need for economic power and the emergence of a functioning bureaucracy. At the time of Maria Amalia’s birth, the Empress was not yet 29-years-old. A new public-debt policy, the settlement of the empty spaces of Hungary, the drafting of a penal code to supplant the tangle of local systems, and a kind of poor law—these were but some of the innovations in which she herself took a hand, with her common sense doing service for the book learning she lacked. Maria Theresa died of pneumonia on November 29, 1780, at the age of 63 in her hometown, Vienna. Throughout her widowhood, she spent the whole of August and the eighteenth of each month alone in her chamber, which negatively affected her mental health. 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. The trial was successful, establishing that inoculation was effective in protecting against smallpox, and safe (in the case of the test subjects). Thus, in nomenclature, Maria Theresa was archduke and king; normally, however, she was styled as queen. 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