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.
On October 3, 1700, weeks before his death, the childless and severely disabled Charles II of Spain named Philip V of Spain, his sister's grandson and the grandson of the French 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 Archduke Charles, then a young man of fifteen. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I had married another sister of Charles II in 1666, and in 1685 their daughter surrendered her right to the Spanish throne to Archduke Charles, 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, 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. They did not participate in the imperial election of 1711, which elected Archduke Charles as Charles VI.
The War of the Spanish Succession was ended by the treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt and Baden. The last of these, signed on September 7, 1714, restored the territories and electorates of Maximilian Emanuel and Joseph Clemens. Charles VI renounced his claim to the Spanish throne to Philip.
In his later years, Charles VI tried to secure the election of his son-in-law, Francis Duke of Lorraine, as his successor. He was opposed in these efforts by Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria. Charles Albert believed that he had a better claim, as he was a son-in-law of Charles VI's older brother Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and a great-great-great grandson of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor. Nevertheless, Francis tended to have greater support.
Charles VI died on October 20, 1740. Maria Theresa, his daughter and Francis of Lorraine's wife, inherited his royal titles in Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Galicia and Lodomeria, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma, according to the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.
Although Prussia had accepted the Pragmatic Sanction, it now repudiated Maria Theresa's inheritance as a violation of Salic law. Its king Frederick the Great invaded Silesia on December 16. France and Bavaria joined Prussia in 1741, and on November 26, they captured Prague. On December 9, Charles Albert crowned himself King of Bohemia.
The electors called to Frankfurt the next month to elect the successor of Charles VI were:
Clemens August was the brother of Charles Albert and Charles III Philip his cousin. Francis of Lorraine was supported by not only his wife, Maria Theresa, who claimed to be queen regnant of Bohemia, but also the electors of Mainz, Trier and Brunswick-Lüneburg.
The electors of Brandenburg and Saxony remained uncommitted, but were wooed by the French to support Charles Albert. Charles Albert won an additional advantage when he was able to secure the exclusion of Maria Theresa from the election, on the grounds that the succession to Bohemia remained unsettled. With the three votes of the House of Wittelsbach and the support of the electorates of Saxony and Brandenburg, his election seemed inevitable. The other three electors acquiesced. Charles Albert was elected and crowned at Frankfurt on February 12 as Charles VII, the first non-Habsburg to be elected in some three hundred years.
As a result of her exclusion, Maria Theresa did not accept the legitimacy of the election until after the death some three years later of Charles VII. [1]
The House of Habsburg, alternatively spelled Hapsburg in English, also known as the House of Austria, is a German dynasty which was once one of the most prominent royal houses of Europe in the 2nd millennium.
The prince-electors, or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Charles VII was the prince-elector of Bavaria from 1726 and Holy Roman Emperor from 24 January 1742 to his death. He was a member of the House of Wittelsbach, and his reign as Holy Roman Emperor thus marked the end of three centuries of uninterrupted Habsburg imperial rule although he was related to the Habsburgs by both blood and marriage. After the death of emperor Charles VI in 1740, he claimed the Archduchy of Austria by his marriage to Maria Amalia of Austria, the niece of Charles VI, and was briefly, from 1741 to 1743, as Charles III King of Bohemia. In 1742, he was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as Charles VII and ruled until his death three years later.
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.
Charles VI was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy from 1711 until his death, succeeding his elder brother, Joseph I. He unsuccessfully claimed the throne of Spain following the death of his relative, Charles II. In 1708, he married Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, by whom he had his four children: Leopold Johann, Maria Theresa, Maria Anna, and Maria Amalia.
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.
The Silesian Wars were three wars fought in the mid-18th century between Prussia and Habsburg Austria for control of the Central European region of Silesia. The First (1740–1742) and Second (1744–1745) Silesian Wars formed parts of the wider War of the Austrian Succession, in which Prussia was a member of a coalition seeking territorial gain at Austria's expense. The Third Silesian War (1756–1763) was a theatre of the global Seven Years' War, in which Austria in turn led a coalition of powers aiming to seize Prussian territory.
The Second Silesian War was a war between Prussia and Austria that lasted from 1744 to 1745 and confirmed Prussia's control of the region of Silesia. The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Bohemia, and Upper Saxony and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. It was the second of three Silesian Wars fought between Frederick the Great's Prussia and Maria Theresa's Austria in the mid-18th century, all three of which ended in Prussian control of Silesia.
The Peace of Füssen was a peace treaty signed at Füssen, between the Electorate of Bavaria and Habsburg Austria. Signed on 22 April 1745, it ended the participation of Bavaria on the French side in the War of the Austrian Succession.
The House of Luxembourg or Luxembourg dynasty was a royal family of the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages, whose members between 1308 and 1437 ruled as kings of Germany and Holy Roman emperors as well as kings of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. Their rule was twice interrupted by the rival House of Wittelsbach.
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.
The First Silesian War was a war between Prussia and Austria that lasted from 1740 to 1742 and resulted in Prussia's seizing most of the region of Silesia from Austria. The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. It was the first of three Silesian Wars fought between Frederick the Great's Prussia and Maria Theresa's Austria in the mid-18th century, all three of which ended in Prussian control of Silesia.
Austria and Prussia were the most powerful principalities in the Holy Roman Empire by the 18th and 19th centuries and had engaged in a struggle for supremacy in Central Europe. The rivalry was characterized by major territorial conflicts, economic, cultural and political contention for sovereign leadership among the German-speaking peoples, an issue known as the German question in the 19th century.
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