The imperial election of 1690 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Augsburg on January 23.
On May 26, 1685, Charles II, Elector Palatine, the Calvinist elector of the Electoral Palatinate, died without children. He was succeeded by his Catholic cousin Philip William, Elector Palatine, bringing the balance of electors to six Catholics, one Calvinist, and one Lutheran.
The Holy Roman Empire had been embroiled since 1683 in the Great Turkish War, repelling attempted Ottoman conquests in Southeast Europe. On September 25, 1688, hoping to capitalize on the empire's preoccupation with the Turks, the French King Louis XIV invaded across the Rhine, precipitating the Nine Years' War. Louis's war aims were to install his preferred candidate, Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, bishop of Strasbourg, as elector of Cologne, and to occupy the Electoral Palatinate, to which he believed he was entitled as Charles II's sister Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine was the wife of his younger brother Philippe I, Duke of Orléans.
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor called for the election of his successor. He was granted one vote as king of Bohemia, but because the even number of electors might result in a tie, following the precedent of the elections of 1653 and 1658, he abstained. The remaining seven electors were:
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold's eldest son, was elected king of the Romans.
Joseph acceded to the throne on his father's death on May 5, 1705.
The prince-electors, pl. Kurfürsten, Czech: Kurfiřt, Latin: Princeps Elector) were the members of the electoral college that elected the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.
Louis IV, called the Bavarian, was King of the Romans from 1314, King of Italy from 1327, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1328 until his death in 1347.
The Electoral Palatinate or the Palatinate, officially the Electorate of the Palatinate, was a constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire. The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the Counts Palatine of Lotharingia in 915; it was then restructured under the Counts Palatine of the Rhine in 1085. From 1214 until the Electoral Palatinate was merged into the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1805, the House of Wittelsbach provided the Counts Palatine or Electors. These counts palatine of the Rhine would serve as prince-electors from "time immemorial", and were noted as such in a papal letter of 1261; they were confirmed as electors by the Golden Bull of 1356.
The House of Wittelsbach is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Maximilian II, also known as Max Emanuel or Maximilian Emanuel, was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He was also the last governor of the Spanish Netherlands and Duke of Luxembourg. An able soldier, his ambition led to conflicts that limited his ultimate dynastic achievements.
Frederick V was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the derisive sobriquet "the Winter King".
Maximilian I, occasionally called the Great, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, ruled as Duke of Bavaria from 1597. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War during which he obtained the title of a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire at the 1623 Diet of Regensburg.
The Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire with full voting rights to the Reichstag. Its capital was Zweibrücken. The reigning house, a branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty, was also the Royal House of Sweden from 1654 to 1720.
The Electorate of Bavaria was a quasi-independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.
An imperial election was held in Cologne on 5 January 1531 to select the King of the Romans of the Holy Roman Empire. As the current emperor, Charles V, had not yet died nor abdicated, this election was conducted so as to determine his successor.
The imperial election of 1619 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on August 28.
The imperial election of 1636 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Regensburg on December 22.
The imperial election of 1653 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Augsburg on May 31.
The imperial election of 1658 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on July 18.
The imperial election of 1711 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place on October 12.
The imperial election of 1742 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on January 24. The result was the election of Charles Albert of Bavaria, the first non-Habsburg emperor in three hundred years.
The imperial election of 1764 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 27 March.
The imperial election of 1790 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 30 September.
The imperial election of 1273 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on October 1.