Elected
Charles VI was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He was crowned in Frankfurt on December 22.
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.
On December 17, 1692, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor created the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg and the Lutheran Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg, prince of Calenberg, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and prince-bishop of Osnabrück its prince-elector. The Imperial Diet did not immediately ratify his choice. Ernest Augustus would die on January 23, 1698 and be succeeded by his son who later became George I of Great Britain.
In 1697, Augustus II the Strong, elector of Saxony, converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism as a prerequisite in his campaign to be elected king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, Lutheranism remained the state church of Saxony.
On October 3, 1700, weeks before his death, the childless and severely disabled Charles II of Spain named the French prince Philippe, Duke of Anjou, his sister's grandson and the grandson of King Louis XIV of France, heir to the entire Spanish Empire. The possession by the House of Bourbon of the French and Spanish thrones threatened the balance of power in Europe. England, Austria and the Dutch Republic, fearing this threat, resurrected the Grand Alliance in support of the claim of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, then a young man of fifteen. Leopold had married another sister of Charles II in 1666, and in 1685 their daughter surrendered her right to the Spanish throne to Charles VI, Leopold's son from a later marriage. The first hostilities of the War of the Spanish Succession broke out in June 1701. The Grand Alliance declared war on France in May 1702.
That same year, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, the elector of Bavaria, and his brother Joseph Clemens of Bavaria, the elector of Cologne, joined France in support of Philip's claim to the Spanish succession. They were quickly forced into flight and were deprived of their electorates by the Imperial Diet in 1706.
In 1708, to compensate for the absence of the electors of Bavaria and Cologne, the Imperial Diet ratified the admission of Brunswick-Lüneburg to the Electoral College and called for the king of Bohemia to join the proceedings, from which he and his predecessors had abstained in the elections of 1653, 1658 and 1690.
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor died of smallpox on April 17, 1711. The prince-electors called to elect his successor were:
Of these, the electors of Brandenburg and Brunswick-Lüneburg were the sole Protestants.
Charles VI was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He was crowned in Frankfurt on December 22.
The prince-electors, or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The House of Welf is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century.
The Pragmatic Sanction was an edict issued by Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, on 19 April 1713 to ensure that the Habsburg hereditary possessions, which included the Archduchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Netherlands, could be inherited by a daughter.
Hanover is a territory that was at various times a principality within the Holy Roman Empire, an Electorate within the same, an independent Kingdom, and a subordinate Province within the Kingdom of Prussia. The territory was named after its capital, the city of Hanover, which was the principal town of the region from 1636. In contemporary usage, the name is only used for the city; most of the historical territory of Hanover forms the greater part of the German Land of Lower Saxony but excludes certain areas.
The Schmalkaldic War refers to the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, commanded by the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Saxony, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League within the domains of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Electorate of Hanover was an Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in northwestern Germany and taking its name from the capital city of Hanover. It was formally known as the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg. For most of its existence, the electorate was ruled in personal union with Great Britain and Ireland following the Hanoverian Succession.
Louis Rudolph, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruling Prince of Wolfenbüttel from 1731 until his death. Since 1707, he ruled as an immediate Prince of Blankenburg.
On April 19, 1529, six princes and representatives of 14 Imperial Free Cities petitioned the Imperial Diet at Speyer against an imperial ban of Martin Luther, as well as the proscription of his works and teachings, and called for the unhindered spread of the evangelical faith.
The Electorate of Saxony was a state of the Holy Roman Empire established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356. It comprised a territory of some 40,000 square kilometers. Upon the extinction of the House of Ascania, it was feoffed to the Margraves of Meissen from the Wettin dynasty in 1423, who moved the ducal residence up the river Elbe to Dresden. After the Empire's dissolution in 1806, the Wettin Electors raised Saxony to a territorially reduced kingdom.
Rudolph Johann Joseph Rainier, Archduke of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Cardinal-Archbishop of Olomouc, was a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and an Austrian clergyman and noble. He was consecrated as Archbishop of Olomouc (Olmütz) in 1819 and became cardinal in the same year. Rudolph is known for his patronage of the arts, most notably as sponsor of Ludwig van Beethoven, who dedicated several of his works to him.
Over its long history, the Holy Roman Empire used many different heraldic forms, representing its numerous internal divisions.
The Imperial Diet was the deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not a legislative body in the contemporary sense; its members envisioned it more like a central forum where it was more important to negotiate than to decide.
The imperial election of 1562 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Regensburg on November 28.
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 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 hundreds of years.
The imperial election of 1745 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on September 13.
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 March 27.
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 September 30.
The imperial election of 1792 was the final imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on July 5.
