Maria Theresa: Queen and Empress

Maria Theresa by Martin van Meytens, 1759
Public domain.

Inheritance

Maria Theresa (Theresia in German) was born on 13 May 1717, the eldest surviving child of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI and his (formerly Protestant) wife, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Her sex was as big a disappointment to her parents as that of Elizabeth I had been to hers.

Emperor Charles VI, his wife
and daughters.
Martin van Meytens
Public domain

The House of Habsburg had begun in the Tyrol and its rulers had gone on to become archdukes of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and kings of Bohemia and Hungary. They had ruled Lombardy from 1706 and the southern Netherlands from 1713. From 1440 the Habsburg ruler was also elected Holy Roman Emperor, though access to the office depended on election as King of the Romans by the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne, the king of Bohemia and the Princes of Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, the Palatinate and (after 1708) Hanover. They thus had two roles, linked but distinct: rulers of their hereditary lands and Holy Roman Emperors.

The Pragmatic Sanction

At the time of Maria Theresa's birth, the lack of a male heir was already a problem for the Habsburg emperors. Charles had succeeded his brother, Joseph I in 1711. Joseph had had two daughters, Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia. In 1703 the previous emperor, Leopold I, had laid down in the Mutual Pact of Succession that, if Charles did not have a male heir, Joseph’s daughters should take precedence over his. But in 1713 Charles issued the Pragmatic Sanction, which gave precedence to his (as-yet-unborn) daughters, should he fail to have a son. This meant that when Maria Theresa was born, she immediately replaced her cousin, Maria Josepha, as the heiress presumptive. Two more daughters followed.

The Pragmatic Sanction, presented to Hungary

Despairing of a male heir. Charles VI spent his last years preoccupied with getting the other European powers to accept the Pragmatic Sanction. Most did, including France and Prussia, though at a heavy cost and it seemed to mean that Maria Theresa’s eventual succession to the Habsburg lands was secure. 

However, she was given little preparation for her role as future monarch. She was educated by Jesuits, and though she was taught Latin and could speak reasonably correct French, her spelling and punctuation remained erratic. She was no intellectual, and there is little evidence that she ever read a non-religious book for pleasure.  From the age of 14 her father allowed her to sit in on meetings of his council, but she was given no training in statecraft. It was assumed that she would marry and that her husband would be the real ruler. 

Mary, Anne and Sarah

William and Mary, joint monarchs
a unique situation in British history.
Sir James Thornhill, Painted Hall, Greenwich
Public domain.

The Glorious Revolution is one of the key events of British history, creating a parliamentary monarchy, establishing Britain as a world power and leading to the union of the English and Scottish parliaments. Three women played a key role in these events, Queens Mary II and Anne, and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.

The duke's daughters

Mary and Anne were born at St James's Palace in 1662 and 1665 respectively. Their father was James, Duke of York, the heir to his brother, Charles II, and her mother the former commoner,  Anne Hyde. The marriage had been clandestine – James married her because she was pregnant – and when it was revealed there was considerable shock that a royal prince had lowered himself by marrying a commoner. The child died at the age of a few months. 

The parents: James, Duke of York
and Anne Hyde.
Sir Peter Lely. Public domain.

In the eyes of many European rulers, Mary and Anne were permanently tainted by being the children of such a marriage. The girls were not initially regarded as important politically, as they had two brothers, though these died in 1667 within a few months of each other. By the time their mother died in 1671, they were the sole survivors of her eight children. With Charles II producing no legitimate children, they were now in direct line to the throne.

Education

With the exception of a period of two years when Anne was in France with her grandmother, Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles I, and her aunt, Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orléans, the girls were educated together at Richmond Palace by Lady Frances Villiers. There was no official programme of study for them. Mary's grammar and spelling was always idiosyncratic, but she was nevertheless an intelligent girl with a marked artistic bent, a good musician, painter and dancer. She also loved romantic novels. Both girls learned French (Queen Anne's French was better than her ministers') and domestic accomplishments such as needlework. They shared a competitive schoolgirl passion for an older girl, Frances Apsley. Beginning in 1675, Mary wrote her over eighty letters, and continued to write to her after her marriage. This relationship has been variously interpreted by historians.

'Children of state'

In 1673 it became known that the Duke of York, the heir to the throne, was a Catholic. Mary and Anne were declared children of state, to be brought up as Protestants under the Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Anne, in particular, imbibed his hatred of Catholicism. 

In the autumn of 1673, James married the Italian Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. From the start, she became very attached to Mary and wrote ‘I love her as if she were my own daughter’. Mary got on well with her and  – she was close to her in age – though Anne was to move from indifference to intense hostility.

Mary of Modena, by Simon Verelst
Yale Center for British Art

Mary's marriage

With the issue of James’s Catholicism becoming especially fraught, Charles II arranged for Mary to marry her Protestant cousin, Prince William of Orange. When Mary heard the news she cried for two days. William’s manners were brusque and cold, he had blackened teeth and a hooked nose – and he was four inches shorter than she was. They were married on 4 November 1677. Three days later Mary was displaced in the succession, by a brother, Charles, Duke of Cambridge, but he died of smallpox six weeks later.

Prince William of Orange
Stadtholder of the Netherlands, aged 27

 

Mary, Princess of Orange

At first Mary was deeply distressed at the marriage, but she quickly became popular with the Dutch people and came to love the palace at Honselersdijck, seven miles from the Hague. In particular, she fell in love with her husband, though his affair with Elizabeth Villiers was a matter of continuing distress to her.

Mary, Princess of Orange
by Sir Peter Lely
Public domain.

With her husband frequently absent at war and with no children, she passed her time in card-playing, needlework and religious devotions. She also became a serious purchaser of jewellery, porcelain and luxury fabrics. She and William shared a passion for gardening. When William bought Het Loo in the 1680s the couple spent many hours planning the gardens and filling the rooms with her blue and white porcelain.

Het Loo, where Mary spent
the happiest time in her life.
Public domain

Anne, Princess of Denmark

Anne had been unable to attend her sister’s wedding because she had been ill with smallpox. With the rise of anti-Catholic feeling during the so-called Popish Plot, the Duke and Duchess of York went into temporary exile in Brussels, where in August 1679 they were joined by Anne. At Brussels her prejudices against Catholicism hardened. She later joined her father and stepmother in Scotland.

There was now talk of whom she would marry. One prospective bridegroom was Georg Ludwig, Prince of Hanover (the future George I), but this came to nothing. Instead, Anne became caught up in a minor scandal, when she was thought to be giving too much encouragement to a 35-year-old courtier, John Sheffield, Lord Mulgrave. In November 1682 he was deprived of all offices and expelled from court. 

The king and the Duke of York were now determined to find a husband for her and their choice fell on Prince George of Denmark, brother to King Christian V of Denmark. She married him on 28 July 1683. The marriage was a happy one. George was stolid and inert, but Anne loved him.

Enter Sarah

On her marriage Anne was given the Cockpit in Whitehall as her official residence. She now had the power to appoint her own household and she was determined to use her independence. She showed her independence by making Sarah, Lady Churchill, her lady of the bedchamber. Two years later she promoted her to groom of the stole.

Sarah, née Jennings (Jenyns) was five years older than Anne. She had been born into a Hertfordshire family that had enjoyed the patronage of James, Duke of York. In 1673 she became maid of honour to Mary of Modena. In 1677 she began to be courted by John Churchill, a member of the duke’s household, who had been the lover of the king’s former mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland, and the couple were secretly married in the winter of 1677-8. In 1682 John was made a Scottish peer and this was followed up with an English barony. 

Anne and Sarah became close friends, Sarah had already borne several children, and Anne was about to embark on her long yet fruitless years of childbearing.

The Glorious Revolution

In 1685 Charles II died. James became king and Mary his heir. James recognised her importance when he tried to convert her to Catholicism, but found her immoveable. She was more influenced by the Scottish clergyman, Gilbert Burnet, who had taken refuge in their court. He talked politics with her and later wrote, 

She knew little of our affairs, till I was admitted to wait on her. And I began to lay before her the state or our court and the intrigues in it… which she received with great satisfaction, and showed true judgement and a good mind, in all the reflections that she made.  

Burnet also claimed that he was the first to raise with her the position of Queen Regnant, pointing out that she would have a superior role to William’s. The next day, she called William to her and stated that 

she did not know that the laws of England were so contrary to the laws of God… She did not think that the husband was ever to be obedient to the wife: she promised him he should always bear rule, and she asked only, that he would obey the command of “husbands love your wives” as she should do that “wives be obedient to your husbands in all things”.

Then in November 1687 Queen Mary Beatrice announced that she was pregnant. If the child was a boy, Mary would be displaced in the succession. By the spring of 1688 Anne was writing to Mary telling her that the queen’s ‘great belly’ was ‘a little suspicious’. 

Her being so positive it will be a son, and the principles of that religion being such that they will stick at nothing, be it never so wicked, if it will promote their interest, give some cause to fear there may be foul play intended. 

With the birth of James Francis, Prince of Wales on 10 June 1688, the prospect of a Catholic dynasty now loomed. From the start, Anne refused to accept the validity of the birth. Influenced by her sister, Mary also refused to believe the birth was genuine.

On 30 June seven nobles, ‘the immortal seven’ sent a letter of invitation to William inviting him over to England, with an armed force, if necessary, in order to restore a ‘free parliament’. By the late summer, Anne and the Churchills were aware of the letter and of William’s plans. On 5 November William landed at Torbay. On 18 November Anne wrote to him expressing her good wishes for his success. On 24 November John Churchill defected, followed the next night by Prince George of Denmark. On 27 November Anne and Sarah Churchill, fled to Nottingham, accompanied by Bishop Compton. Anne and her husband returned to the Cockpit after hearing that her father had successfully escaped to France.

The Revolution settlement that followed was made inevitable when on 3 February 1689 William issued a statement that he would be neither regent nor prince. The Revolution, therefore, created the unprecedented situation of a joint monarchy (William III and Mary II) though with William predominant, an arrangement that reflected the dynamics of their marriage. At the same time Anne indicated, though with some reluctance, that she was willing to allow William to take precedence of her in the succession. (She was fifteen years younger than William and the mother of a young son.)

On 10 February Mary landed in England. On 13 February, the day after Mary’s landing, William and Mary went to the Banqueting House where they were offered the Crown. On 11 April William and Mary were crowned at Westminster by Bishop Compton.

Coronation of William and Mary
11 April 1689
Public domain

Mary II

For many, particularly the Tories, Mary was the acceptable face of the Glorious Revolution. Her husband was disliked as a foreigner and because of his unprepossessing personality. In his absences,  first in Ireland and then on continental wars, she was left as regent, and in spite of her lack of self-confidence, she performed competently. 

Mary II, by Sir Godfrey Kneller
Public domain.

Mary was a devout member of the Church of England and her main contribution to public life was her support for movements for the reformation of manners. In July 1691, for example, she issued a proclamation to the justices of Middlesex for the suppressing of profaneness and debauchery. She was also charitable, and her memory lives on in the College of William and Mary that she founded in Virginia.

Mary and Anne: the great quarrel

When Mary became queen, relations with Anne cooled. Anne hated William, resenting the fact that he had usurped her place in the succession; in her letters to Sarah she described him as ‘Caliban’ and ‘the Dutch abortion’. She believed they were treating her husband with disdain by refusing him a significant military role. They quarrelled over money. Parliament granted Anne £50,000 per annum, a sum both William and Mary thought far too generous. 

Alienated from her sister, she turned increasingly to Lady Marlborough and in late 1691 they agreed to address each other in their letters as Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman. Sarah later wrote:

My frank, open temper naturally led me to pitch upon Freeman, and so the Princess took the other and from this time Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman began to converse as equals, made so by affection and friendship.  

Anne’s court became a rival to the official court. She engaged in secret correspondence with her father and refused Mary’s demands that she dismiss Sarah after William dismissed her husband in January 1692.  

Mary died from smallpox at Kensington Palace on 28 December 1694, at the age of 32, leaving William distraught, and on 5 March she was given an elaborate state funeral at Westminster Abbey at a cost of £100,000. The Modenese ambassador reflected the view of the Jacobites and Catholic Europe when he wrote,

She was a daughter who sinned against the commonest and most indispensable law of Nature ordained by God – that of honouring her parents. 

But Mary showed no regret for her action. She believed that her duty to her husband came first and she had convinced herself that the two of them had been placed on the throne by providence. 

Queen Anne

With Mary’s death Anne and William became reconciled. She was given an official residence in her old home in St James’s Palace. She was now William’s heir, and she had a five-year-old son, the Duke of Gloucester. The future for her and the dynasty looked bright. But her hopes were dashed with the death of her son on 30 July 1700. She continued to hope for more children, but it was now clear that Anne would be the last of the Stuart line. Parliament passed the Act of Settlement of 1701, which vested the succession after her death in Sophia of Hanover, the granddaughter of James I, and her heirs.

The exiled James II died in September 1701. On his death, Louis proclaimed his son, James, the rightful king of Great Britain. This brought Britain and France closer to war.

When William died on 21 February 1702, Anne became queen. She was thirty-seven and in poor health – so much so that she had to be carried in a chair to her coronation.

However, her accession was greeted with enthusiasm. Like her sister, Mary, she was a staunch supporter of the Church of England (shown in her setting up of Queen Anne’s Bounty, a fund for poor clergy, in 1704).  She took great pains to stress the fact that she was the granddaughter of the martyr, Charles I and she revived the ceremony of the royal touch which had lapsed under William. 


In contrast to William, Anne was a relatively uncontroversial character and, though she identified instinctively with the Tories, she did her best to stand above party. She addressed her first parliament as a patriot queen: 

As I know my own heart to be entirely English, I can very sincerely assure you that there is not one thing you can expect or desire of me which I shall not be ready to do for the happiness or prosperity of England. 

She modelled herself on Elizabeth I, using her motto of semper eadem (always the same). The common belief that she was a weak queen is the result of the Duchess of Marlborough’s hostile comments. In reality, until her health collapsed at the end of her reign, she was an interventionist monarch with strong views. 

Anne and Sarah

Within five days of her accession, Anne presented Sarah's husband,  Marlborough, with the Order of the Garter and created him captain-general of the army, a position of vital importance as Britain was now at war with France. Sarah was made groom of the stole, mistress of the robes, keeper of the privy purse and ranger of Windsor Park. Her total salary was £6,000 per annum. She managed these properties independently of her husband through trustees. On 4 May Anne made Marlborough’s close ally, Sidney Godolphin, lord treasurer.  In their correspondence he became ‘Mr Montgomery’. In October, she made Marlborough a duke. On 22 May 1703 she wrote to Sarah, 

I never will forsake your dear self, Mr Freeman nor Mr Montgomery, but always [sic] be your constant faithfull [sic] servant, & we four must never part, till death mows us down with his impartiall [sic] hand.

But the friendship of Anne and Sarah was vulnerable. With the death of her only son, the Marquis of Blandford, in February 1703, Sarah was often absent from court. She was grief-stricken, and was bored by Anne's company. Politics was a potential cause of division as Sarah was an ardent Whig, while Anne wished to placate the Tories and was seen by them as an ally. Sarah insisted on Anne’s appointing a series of Whigs to the government, chiefly her son-in-law, the Earl of Sunderland. Anne gave way, but she increasingly saw Sarah as a bully. 

In August 1704 Marlborough defeated the Franco-Bavarian army at Blenheim. Following the victory the royal manor of Woodstock in Oxfordshire was given to him by act of Parliament and Anne promised that it would be funded by the Treasury. In 1708 Anne granted Sarah land adjacent to St James’s Park, which became Marlborough House.

Sarah: the downfall

Sarah was at the height of her powers. She became, in effect, Anne’s secretary, dealing with her correspondence and controlling access to her. She did not care how many enemies she made, and it was this which caused her downfall. This came through an impoverished cousin, Abigail Hill, whom she introduced to court as a bedchamber woman. 

Abigail Masham, née Hill

Abigail was also a cousin of the Tory politician, Robert Harley, secretary of state from 1704, and he used her to gain influence over Anne. By 1707 Sarah realised that she had been outmanoeuvred, but it was too late. When she learned that Abigail had married Samuel Masham, some time in the spring of that year without telling her, but with the knowledge of Anne and Harley, she was enraged.

The crisis intensified in 1708. In a letter dated 26 July Sarah wrote to Anne accusing her of lesbian tendencies. She wrote that she was surprised that Anne valued her reputation so much 

after having discover’d so great a passion for such a woman, for sure there can be no great reputation in a thing so strange & unaccountable, to say no more of it, nor can I think the having no inclination for any but of one’s own sex is enough to maintain such a character as I wish may still be yours.  

Anne did not reply but she was horrified at the accusations. On 19 August 1708 when Anne and Sarah drove together to the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s for the victory at Oudenarde, when she berated the queen furiously because Anne was not wearing the jewels she had laid out for her as groom of the stole. In October Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, died, leaving her distraught.

Relations continued to deteriorate, and Sarah was now rarely at court. She and Anne had their final meeting alone on 6 April 1710 at Kensington Palace, when Anne told Sarah she was no longer prepared to discuss her grievances with her and that any further discussion must be made in writing. On 12 June she wrote her last letter to Sarah

In August Godolphin was dismissed and the general election in October was won by Robert Harley’s Tory party. On 17 January 1711 Sarah was dismissed and Anne demanded the return of the keys that were her badge of office. She threw the keys on the floor for her husband to pick up. She then wrote to Anne demanding all her arrears of pay. Anne complied. But Sarah refused to return Anne’s letters and it may be the potential threat of blackmail that persuaded Anne to allow her to keep the £20,800 she had borrowed to build Marlborough House. When Sarah vacated her apartments at St James’s she took with her all the furniture and fittings. In retaliation, Anne ordered a temporary halt to the construction of Blenheim.

On 29 December 1711 Anne dismissed Marlborough. In the following year he and Sarah went into self-imposed exile on the Continent.

The death of Anne

On 31 March/11 April 1713 the Peace of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession. Anne was now a sick woman – too ill to attend the thanksgiving ceremony at St Paul’s in July. The last year of her life was made miserable by the infighting of her Tory government. She died at Kensington Palace on 1 August 1714 and her successor, the Elector of Hanover, was proclaimed George I.

For a while the Marlboroughs prospered in the new reign. In August 1719 they at last moved into Blenheim. But John died at Windsor Lodge on 15 June 1722, and Sarah made sure he was given a magnificent funeral. Marlborough’s will left her in possession of Blenheim. She turned down several offers of marriage and spent her last years buying property, quarrelling with her daughters, and managing elections. She died in 1744, a relic of an earlier age.

Conclusion

1. The lives of Queens Mary II, Anne and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough show that in an age of dynastic politics, women played a vital political role. 
2. Mary's submission to her husband had important political consequences. She allowed him, a foreigner with a weaker claim to the throne than her own, to take the leading role in their joint monarchy.
3. Anne was a more assertive character than her sister, and in spite of the problems of her reign, she can be seen as a successful monarch. It was in her reign that the English and Scottish parliaments were united, and Britain became a great power.
4. The career of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, shows the power a clever and ambitious woman could exercise when the monarch was a woman. But she overplayed her hand, and, too late, learned that it was Anne, not her, who ultimately had the power. 

Do we get the sexuality of historical characters wrong?

The film, The Favourite, about Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill has raised a question about the queen's alleged lesbianism. It is also a question that has been asked about Queen Christina of Sweden. Here is a discussion about how far we can impose our sexual categories on people in the past. The conclusion is open-ended, but the issues raised are very interesting. (I just wish the author of the piece hadn't kept inaccurately referring to the Duchess of Marlborough as 'Lady Sarah Churchill', but then I'm a real pedant about aristocratic titles.)

Whether or not Anne was a lesbian, there were scurrilous ballads written about her relationship with Abigail Hill. You can read about them here. But as they were probably paid for by Hill's great enemy, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, they aren't necessarily a fair or accurate depiction of what went on between the two women.

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-89)

For this post I have been particularly indebted to Veronica Buckley's, Christina, Queen of Sweden. The Restless Life of a European Eccentric (2011) from which all the quotations are taken. This BBC podcast is a very helpful introduction. If you want the full scholarly works there is a PhD from the University of Iowa on her patronage of the arts which can be read online. There is a short but informative Britannica article here.

Queen Christina by
Sébastian Bourdon
National Museum
Public domain

Christina's inheritance

Christina (Kristina Augusta)  was born in the royal castle, Tre Kronor, on 8 December (OS), 1626, the only legitimate child of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden and his wife, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. She was born with a caul and when it was removed, she was initially thought to be a boy. It was only in the morning that, to everyone’s great disappointment, she was discovered to be a girl. Christina later claimed (improbably?) that her father said, ‘She will be clever, for she has deceived us all’. But she also said that her mother could not bear the sight of her because she was a girl ‘and she said I was ugly’. Perhaps because she was dropped as a baby, her upper body was lopsided, with one shoulder higher than the other. 

Christina was born into the Vasa dynasty that had ruled Sweden since 1523. The official title of the monarch, regardless of sex was ‘King of the Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Prince of Finland and Duke of Estonia, Livonia and Karelia'. The dynasty was hereditary and did not necessarily exclude female succession, though the bulk of the population found the idea very strange. Before he departed for war, Gustavus Adolphus managed to secure her right to succeed if he did not have a legitimate son. 

In the seventeenth century, Sweden became a great power and would remain so until defeated by Peter the Great's Russia in the Great Northern War. It was a small poor country, with a population of no more than a million, 90 percent of them peasants. There were no more than six hundred adult male nobles and as few were active in politics, government was a series of personal relationships. Sweden’s rise in status was owing to two major figures, its charismatic king, Gustavus Adolphus and his chancellor, Baron Axel Oxenstierna, the ablest politician and administrator of the age.

Axel Oxenstierna
statesman and administrator
National Museum, Sweden
Public domain

At the time of Christina’s birth the Thirty Years’ War had been raging in Europe for eight years. At first, Sweden was preoccupied with disputes with Poland and had no wish to be drawn into the war. However, when the imperial forces began to build up a base on the Baltic, Gustavus Adolphus and his ministers felt they had no choice but to join forces with the Protestant powers fighting the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs. In 1628, therefore, they entered the war, and Gustavus Adolphus soon showed himself a formidable campaigner, winning the name, ‘the Lion of the North’. In September 1631 they defeated the imperial forces at Breitenfeld near Leipzig. This victory transformed Sweden’s status. It was now seen as a major player in Europe and by the following year Gustavus Adolphus had 120,000 men of many nationalities (including English and Scottish) under his command. 

Gustavus Adolphus,
'the Lion of the North'
Unknown painter.
Public domain

But on 6 November 1632 the Swedes were defeated at Lützen in Saxony and Gustavus Adolphus was killed. This was a game-changer in the war. His body was brought back to Sweden by slow stages, though because of a delay insisted on by the hysterical queen. She insisted on the coffin being kept open and Gustavus was not buried until nineteen months later. 

Child queen

At the age of 6, Christina had become queen of Sweden, though it was some time before her claim was accepted by the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag. In 1633, following her acclamation, she ascended her father’s throne before the members of the four estates. But until she reached her eighteenth birthday the government would be in the hands of the ‘five great old men’ chosen by her father. The real ruler of the country was Oxenstierna. He had been chancellor since 1612. Christina was to describe him as a man ‘of great capacity, who knew the strengths and weaknesses of every state in Europe, a wise and prudent man, immensely capable and great-hearted’.

Christina, aged fourteen
Public domain