Maria Theresa Of Austria: Her Legacy And Impact

Maria Theresa (1717-1780) was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, and many other territories. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Holy Roman Empress.

Maria Theresa was a devout Catholic and believed that religious unity was necessary for a peaceful public life. She was intolerant of non-Catholics, expelling Protestants and resettling Jews in thinly populated regions of what is now Romania. She also established a chastity court that charged people for various sexual crimes, including homosexuality and sex between members of different religions.

Maria Theresa implemented significant reforms to strengthen Austria's military, financial, and bureaucratic efficiency. She doubled the size of the army, reformed the military and the judiciary, and established a high court. She also set up new structures in the educational system, with the objective of introducing compulsory schooling.

Maria Theresa was a one-of-a-kind ruler who paved the way for compulsory education in the 18th century.

Maria Theresa was the only female ruler of the House of Habsburg

Maria Theresa (1717-1780) was the only female ruler of the House of Habsburg. She was the Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. She was only 23 when she ascended to the Austrian throne in 1740, though the official ruler was her husband, Emperor Francis I.

Maria Theresa's father was the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, who was the last surviving prince of his line. To preserve the Habsburg dominions, he issued the Pragmatic Sanction, allowing Maria Theresa to succeed him. However, upon his death in 1740, several European sovereigns broke their promises and challenged her inheritance. This triggered the War of the Austrian Succession, during which Maria Theresa successfully defended her rule over most of the Habsburg monarchy.

Maria Theresa was an autocratic sovereign who ruled with the counsel of her advisers. She implemented institutional, financial, medical, and educational reforms, and reorganised Austria's military, strengthening the country's international standing. She was a devout Catholic and advocated for a state church, but she also kept the church at arm's length and subordinated it to the authority of the state.

Maria Theresa's marriage to Francis I was a love match, and they had 16 children together, 10 of whom survived into adulthood. Despite her husband's infidelity, she never wavered in her love for him. After his sudden death in 1765, her son Joseph II became the Holy Roman Emperor and a co-regent of the House of Habsburg. Maria Theresa's relationship with Joseph was complicated, and they frequently clashed due to ideological differences.

She was a devout Catholic who showed little tolerance for other religions

Maria Theresa was a devout Catholic who showed little tolerance for other religions. She believed that religious unity was necessary for a peaceful public life and rejected the idea of religious tolerance. She despised Jews and Protestants and, on certain occasions, ordered their expulsion to remote parts of her realm. She also advocated for a state church.

In 1744, four years after ascending to the Austrian throne, Maria Theresa expelled 20,000 Jews from Prague and other parts of Bohemia. She regarded both Jews and Protestants as dangerous to the state and actively tried to suppress them. She was probably the most anti-Jewish monarch of her time, inheriting the traditional prejudices of her ancestors and acquiring new ones. In a 1777 letter to her ministers, she wrote of the Jews:

> I know of no greater plague than this race, which on account of its deceit, usury and avarice is driving my subjects into beggary. Therefore as far as possible, the Jews are to be kept away and avoided.

Maria Theresa's animosity towards Jews was such that she was willing to tolerate Protestant businessmen and financiers in Vienna to break free from Jewish financiers. She also tried to convert Protestants, whom she regarded as heretics, to Catholicism. 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. However, any sign of a return to Protestant practice was treated harshly, often by exile. She exiled Protestants from Austria to Transylvania, including 2,600 from Upper Austria in the 1750s.

Maria Theresa's religious views influenced her policies. She was influenced by Jansenist ideas, which included the advocacy of maximum freedom of national churches from Rome. She promoted the Greek Catholics and emphasised their equal status with Latin Church Catholics. She also enacted policies that suppressed exaggerated displays of piety, such as the prohibition of public flagellantism. Furthermore, she significantly reduced the number of religious holidays and monastic orders.

Maria Theresa's relationship with the Jesuits was complex. Members of this order educated her and served as her confessors. However, her ministers convinced her that the Jesuits posed a danger to her monarchical authority, and she issued a decree removing them from all the institutions of the monarchy.

Maria Theresa's stance on religion also extended to matters of sexual morality. She established a Chastity Commission in 1752 to clamp down on prostitution, homosexuality, adultery, and even sex between members of different religions. The Commission employed secret agents to investigate the private lives of men and women with bad reputations. Punishments included whipping, deportation, or even the death penalty.

She was the mother of Marie Antoinette

Maria Theresa of Austria was the mother of Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I. She was born in 1755 and was married at the age of 14 to Dauphin Louis Auguste, later King Louis XVI of France.

Marie Antoinette's birth was a difficult one, and doctors even feared for the life of her mother. She was raised in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, where she met the child prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at the age of seven. She was tutored by Countess von Brandeis and later Mathieu-Jacques de Vermond, who found her to be lacking in important writing skills. She was also instructed in walking and poise by Jean-Georges Noverre. She was a good musician, playing the harp, harpsichord, and flute, and was known for her beautiful singing voice.

Marie Antoinette's marriage to Louis Auguste was a political alliance between Austria and France, intended to end hostilities between the two nations. The marriage was consummated in 1777, and she gave birth to her first child, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, in 1778. She had three other children: Louis Joseph Xavier François, Louis Charles, and Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix.

Marie Antoinette's life was marred by scandals, including the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, where she was falsely accused of defrauding jewellers. She was also blamed for France's financial crisis, earning her the nickname "Madame Deficit". She was also accused of treason, orchestrating orgies, and incest. She was tried and convicted of high treason and executed by guillotine in 1793.

She was married to Holy Roman Emperor Francis I

Maria Theresa married Francis Stephen of Lorraine, later Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, in 1736. The marriage was a love match, and they had 16 children together, 10 of whom survived into adulthood. Francis was the oldest surviving son of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and the French princess Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans. Maria Theresa's father, Emperor Charles VI, had initially planned to marry his daughter to Francis' older brother Leopold Clement, but Leopold Clement died of smallpox in 1723.

Francis was brought up in Vienna with Maria Theresa, with the understanding that they were to be married, and a real affection arose between them. Francis was established in the Silesian Duchy of Teschen, which had been granted to his father by the Emperor in 1722. He succeeded his father as Duke of Lorraine in 1729. In 1736, Francis married Maria Theresa. In 1738, he left the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar for the deposed Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, as one of the terms ending the War of the Polish Succession.

Maria Theresa arranged for Francis to become "Lord Lieutenant" of Hungary in 1732. He was not excited about this position, but Maria Theresa wanted him closer to her. In June 1732, he agreed to go to the Hungarian capital, Pressburg (today's Bratislava). In 1744, Francis' brother Charles married a younger sister of Maria Theresa, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria.

In the Treaty of Füssen, Maria Theresa secured his election as Emperor, which took place on 13 September 1745. He succeeded Charles VII, and she made him co-regent of her hereditary dominions. Francis was well content to leave the wielding of power to his able wife. He had a natural fund of good sense and brilliant business capacity and was a useful assistant to Maria Theresa in the laborious task of governing the complicated Austrian dominions, but he was not active in politics or diplomacy. However, his wife left him in charge of the financial affairs, which he managed well until his death.

Francis was a serial adulterer; many of his affairs were well-known and indiscreet, notably one with Princess Maria Wilhelmina of Auersperg, who was thirty years his junior. This particular affair was remarked upon in the letters and journals of visitors to the court and in those of his children. Maria Theresa, however, never wavered in her love for him, and his sudden death in 1765, while returning from the opera in Innsbruck, plunged her into prolonged grief.

She was a reformer who strengthened Austria's military and bureaucracy

Maria Theresa was a reformer who strengthened Austria's military and bureaucracy. She was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was a devout Roman Catholic and believed that religious unity was necessary for a peaceful public life. Consequently, she rejected the idea of religious tolerance.

Maria Theresa implemented significant reforms to strengthen Austria's military and bureaucratic efficiency. She employed Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz, who modernised the empire by creating a standing army of 108,000 men, paid for with 14 million florins extracted from crown lands. The central government was responsible for funding the army, although Haugwitz instituted taxation of the nobility, who had never had to pay taxes before. Maria Theresa centralised administration, previously left to the nobility and church, modelling her reforms on those of Prussia, with permanent civil service. She also oversaw the unification of the Austrian and Bohemian chancellories in May 1749 and doubled the state revenue between 1754 and 1764, although her attempt to tax the clergy and nobility was only partially successful. These financial reforms greatly improved the economy.

In 1760, Maria Theresa created the council of state, which served as a committee of experienced people to advise her. The council lacked executive or legislative authority but was nevertheless distinguishable from the form of government employed by Frederick II of Prussia. Unlike him, Maria Theresa was not an autocrat who acted as her own minister.

Maria Theresa also reformed the educational system. In 1775, she introduced compulsory education for all children aged 6 to 12, based on the Prussian system. Education reform was not immediately effective, and was met with opposition from peasants and aristocrats. However, by the end of the 18th century, school attendance had increased from 40% to 94% in the Archdiocese of Vienna.

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