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| 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.
Marriage
With the search on for a husband, a number of European kings and princes were considered. Prince Frederick of Prussia (the future Frederick the Great) was ruled out because he was a Protestant. A marriage to the future Charles III of Spain was blocked by politics. Her own choice was Francis Stephen, the oldest surviving son of the Duke of Lorraine, who was brought up with her in Vienna.In the War of the Polish Succession Francis Stephen lost Lorraine to Louis XV’s father-in-law Stanisław Leszczyński As a compensation it was agreed that he would become Grand Duke of Tuscany on the death of the last Medici duke.
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| Wedding breakfast of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen by Martin van Meytens National Museum, Stockholm Public domain. |
On 12 February 1736 he and Maria Theresa were married. The couple received the Schönbrunn Palace as a wedding gift and proceeded to modernise it.
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| The Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, 1758 Kunsthistorisches Museum Public domain |
On Maria Theresa's side the marriage was a love-match. She was passionately devoted to her husband and was distressed by his many affairs. Over their twenty-year marriage, she gave birth to sixteen children, though at first, she seemed to be beset with her father’s and uncle's problem – the lack of a male heir. Her first child, born in 1737, was a girl, Maria Elisabeth, who was to die at the age of 3. This was followed by two more daughters. It was not until 1741 that she gave birth to a son, the future Joseph II.
In 1737 Francis Stephen succeeded to Tuscany. In 1738 he and Maria Theresa as Grand Duke and Grand Duchess made their entry into Florence. But they were soon recalled as Charles VI was involved in a war with the Ottoman Empire.
Accession
On 20 October 1740 Charles VI died suddenly and Maria Theresa succeeded to the Habsburg lands, though not to the Holy Roman Empire – the position of emperor was only open to males. She inherited a bankrupted treasury and a depleted army. At first, lacking confidence in her own judgement, she kept her father’s ineffectual counsellors and relied on her husband for advice. She later wrote,I found myself without money, without credit, without experience and knowledge of my own, and finally, also without any counsel because each one of them at first wanted to wait and see how things would develop.
Determined that her husband would share her titles, she made him co-ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands. Her next step was to get him accepted in Hungary, though this proved difficult. But she could not get him elected emperor because his lack of status made him ineligible to stand. All this showed her weakness as a woman ruler.
War
The clearest sign of her vulnerability was when many of the European powers reneged on their promises in the Pragmatic Sanction. In December 1740, Frederick II, the new king of Prussia, invaded the rich province of Silesia, which she saw as ‘the jewel of the House of Austria’. His invasion was followed by the formation of a European coalition which aimed at breaking up the Habsburg monarchy and picking up the pieces. Maria Theresa then made the most important decision of her reign when she decided not to accept the compromise Frederick offered her, but instead to fight to recover her territory. She declaredNever, never, will the Queen renounce an inch of all her hereditary Lands, though she perish with all that remains to her. Rather the Turks in front of Vienna, rather cession of the Netherlands to France, rather any concession to Bavaria and Saxony, than renunciation of Silesia!
The resulting wars are known as the Silesian Wars (in Britain as the War of the Austrian Succession).
After Austria’s crushing defeat in the first battle of the war at Mollwitz in Silesia in April 1741, it looked as if the Habsburg lands might partitioned among the great powers. Bavaria and France both hoped to seize territory. However, Hungary supported Maria Theresa and on 25 June 1741 she was crowned Queen at St Martin’s Cathedral, Pressburg (Bratislava). But she needed far more Hungarian troops for the war and on 11 September she won them over when she appeared before the Hungarian Diet, wearing the crown of St Stephen, addressing them in Latin, with her six-month-old son, Joseph in her arms. It was one of the key moments of her reign.
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| Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary unknown artist Dorotheum Public domain |
In February 1742 her enemy, Charles Albert of Bavaria, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, breaking the centuries-old tradition of a Habsburg emperor.
Austria was down but not out, and over the next two years, Maria Theresa’s position began to improve. At the end of 1742 the French were driven out of Bohemia and in May 1743 she was crowned Queen of Bohemia in St Vitus’ Cathedral. In 1744 Britain allied with Austria and in June it won an important victory over the French at Dettingen. In January 1745 Charles Albert died. She made peace with his successor and in September 1745 she secured the election of Francis Stephen as Holy Roman Emperor.
In December 1745 she signed the Treaty of Dresden with Frederick and her other enemies. She had to concede the loss of Silesia, but she had kept the other Habsburg domains intact and managed to get her husband elected Emperor. She had lost territory but she otherwise maintained her position – and she never gave up hope of recovering Silesia.
Her efforts were renewed in the ensuing third Silesian War (known in Britain as the Seven Years’ War), though this time Austria was allied with France and Russia against Britain and Prussia. On 15 February 1763 she signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg, in which she was forced to acknowledge the loss of Silesia. Austria emerged from the war empty-handed, and this was the great failure of her reign. But the alliance with France continued and was to preserve the peace of Europe until the French Revolution.
Maria Theresa: enlightened despot?
The loss of Silesia convinced Maria Theresa of the need for administrative reformWhen I saw that I must put my hand to the Peace … my state of mind suddenly changed, and I directed my whole attention to internal problems and to devising how the German Hereditary Lands could still be preserved and protected. … My one endeavour was to inform myself of the situation and resources of each Province and then to acquire a thorough understanding and picture of the abuses which had crept into them and their administrative services, resulting in the utmost confusion and distress.
She was one of a number of able royal administrators in the eighteenth century, the other two notable reformers being Frederick II and Catherine the Great. They have been called the enlightened despots, meaning that they carried out a series of modernizing reforms that were also designed to strengthen their respective monarchies.
From 1753 she was ably assisted by her Chancellor, the Bohemian aristocrat, Prince Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg.
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| Count Kaunitz Maria Theresa's very able chief minister Public domain |
She wished to establish a standing army of 108,000 men, but to do so, she needed to raise the money and this meant a drastic overhaul of taxation. From the 1740s a series of reforms began to break down the taxation privileges of the Church and the nobility. A centralized agency, the Directorium in Publicis et Cameralibus, uniting the chancelleries of Austria and Bohemia, was set up under Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz, the son of a Saxon general. The result was that by the 1760s the Habsburg lands were some of the best administered in Europe. They were also the most financially secure. Maria Theresa had inherited huge state debts caused by her father’s wars, but by 1775 the monarchy had achieved a balanced budget.
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| Friedrich Wilhelm count von Haugwitz Administrator and reformer. Public domain |
Maria Theresa's attempt to build up a strong centralised government could only be partially successful. The extensive Habsburg territories were economically backward and divided ethnically and linguistically. It was only the dynasty that kept them together. Knowing the limits of her power, she did not implement the reforms in Hungary or the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium). In the Habsburg lands, however, she over-rode the objections of the nobility, imposing her authority by what she called ‘royal right’. The nobility were wrong-footed, but as a compensation, they were granted exclusive access to the new administrative posts created by the reforms. They thus lost some privileges but gained others. But they suffered a major blow to their power when, in the last thirteen years of her reign (the period when she was co-ruling with Joseph), she extended the laws designed to protect the serfs.
Religion, education and public morals
Maria Theresa was a devout Catholic and, ideally, would have liked to have made Catholicism the monopoly religion of her territories.What could exist without a dominant religion? Toleration and indifference are exactly the surest ways of destroying the established order. What else is there to harness bad instincts? … Nothing is so necessary and beneficial as religion. … If there were no state religion and submission to the church, where would we be?
From 1752 and official Catalogue of Prohibited Books was issued, and until 1759 the Jesuits dominated successive instruments of censorship. She regarded both Jews and Protestants as dangerous to the safety of the state though her policy towards both groups was inconsistent. Under pressure from her son, Joseph, she granted them more toleration than she would personally have wished.
However, Maria Theresa was not afraid to attack the privileges of the Church, and she undermined its educational monopoly, setting in place widespread reforms. In the universities, theological and classical studies were downgraded in favour of a more utilitarian curriculum, comprising German and other modern languages, law and political science; all these would be useful to future administrators. Laymen with anti-clerical views were appointed to university chairs.
She was concerned with schools as well as universities. In her General Education Regulation of 1774, she stated,
The education of the young of both sexes is the most important basis for the prosperity of the people.
Gradually the Jesuits were removed from their dominating position in secondary education. Mathematics, history and geography were introduced into the school curriculum and the first steps were taken towards a universal compulsory education. By the end of Maria Theresa's reign there were in the hereditary lands fifteen training colleges, eighty-three high schools, forty-seven girls' schools and 3,848 elementary schools. The Habsburg lands had become one of the best-educated areas in Europe.
Maria Theresa believed that one of the functions of the law was to intervene in areas of sexual morality. In 1752 she established a Chastity Commission to clamp down on prostitution, adultery and homosexuality. In order to stamp out these activities, the police raided private gatherings and in extreme circumstances the death penalty was imposed.
Medical reforms
Some of Maria Theresa’s most important reforms were in the area of medicine. In 1745 she chose as her personal physician the Dutch doctor Gerard van Swieten, who also became her librarian. He founded the Viennese medical school and instituted a programme of sanitary reform in the Empire as well as founding departments of obstetrics in Vienna and Prague.Smallpox was a particular terror for Maria Theresa, as it was for most of Europe (it caused about 400,000 deaths a year). It killed her uncle, Joseph I, three of her children and two daughters-in-law. In the epidemic of 1767 she herself caught the disease. She decided to act and she sent a request to George III for a physician from England. He sent over the Dutch physician, Jan Ingenhousz and in 1768 he successfully inoculated her youngest sons, sons, Archdukes Ferdinand and Maximilian. This was a momentous decision. She also hosted a dinner at the Schönbrunn Palace for the first sixty-five inoculated children.
Maria Theresa and Joseph
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| Maria Theresa and her family, 1754 by Martin van Meytens Schönbrunn Palace Public domain |
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| Maria Theresa and her family celebrating St Nicholas, 1762 by the Archduchess Marie Christine A sign of the family's relaxed and unceremonious private life Public domain |
The Emperor Francis Stephen died on 18 August 1765, leaving his widow as devastated as Queen Victoria was to be on the death of Prince Albert. For the last fifteen years of her life Maria Theresa ruled jointly with her son, Joseph II, who was elected Holy Roman Emperor. It was an uneasy, sometimes fraught, partnership because she was frequently over-ruled by Joseph, whose Enlightenment ideas ran counter to his mother’s instinctive conservatism.
Foreign policy: Poland and France
Poland: From 1768 a disputed succession plunged Poland into civil war. There was a widespread fear in central and eastern Europe that this would give Russia an excuse to intervene. In anticipation, in 1769, the Austrians moved troops into the Polish county of Zips, a former dependency of the Hungarian crown. In 1771 they proclaimed its formal annexation. This had a knock-on effect on Poland’s other neighbours and in May 1771 Prussia and Russia agreed to partition Poland. Maria Theresa was delayed by moral scruples, but once these were overcome, largely through pressure from Joseph, Austria emerged with the largest share of Polish territory, the biggest gain being the whole of Galicia, less Krakow. Frederick said, The more she cried, the more she took.
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| The First Partition of Poland, 1772 |
France: The Treaty of Hubertusburg had confirmed Kaunitz’s view that Austria was not strong enough to act alone. He believed that it was vital to maintain the alliance with France and in 1770 Maria Theresa’s youngest daughter, Marie Antoinette, married the heir of Louis XV. She soon because deeply worried over her daughter’s behaviour and was in despair when the advice contained in her many letters was ignored. She did not live to see her terrible fate.
Death and burial
Maria Theresa died on 29 November 1780, leaving her son, Joseph sole ruler. With her death, came a new dynasty, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. She was buried next to her husband in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. |
| Tomb of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen |
Conclusion
- Maria Theresa came to the throne in very difficult circumstances, but soon showed herself was a ruler of courage and energy. She was a bold reformer, who transformed the administration and the finances of the Habsburg lands. She laid solid foundations that remained in place until the trauma of 1918. But she was an instinctive conservative - an absolutist centraliser rather than an Enlightenment reformer like Frederick and Catherine.
- However, there were limits to her absolutism and she took care to respect the distinctive character of each of her territories. The traumas of the early years of her reign had taught her that politics is the art of the possible. Her caution infuriated her son Joseph, though it could be argued that she was a much shrewder ruler and showed a better grasp of political realities.
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