Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
gigatos | June 4, 2022
Summary
Charles VI Franz Joseph Wenzel Balthasar Johann Anton Ignaz († 20 October 1740 ibid.) was Roman-German emperor and archduke of Austria from 1711 to 1740, as well as sovereign of the other Habsburg hereditary lands, as Charles III (Hungarian III Károly) king of Hungary and Croatia, as Charles II (Czech Karel II. ) King of Bohemia, as Charles III (Spanish Carlos III) designated counter-king of Spain, from 1713 as Charles VI (Italian Carlo VI) King of Naples, and by the Peace of Utrecht from 1713 to 1720 as Charles III (Italian Carlo III) also King of Sardinia, and from 1720 as Charles IV (Italian Carlo IV) King of Sicily.
In the War of the Spanish Succession, Charles VI was unable to assert his claim to the Spanish crown, but a large part of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands and Italy fell to Austria. His time as emperor saw the enactment of the Pragmatic Sanction. This not only allowed female members of the House of Habsburg to succeed to the throne but, by emphasizing the idea of union among the Habsburg states, was central to the emergence of Austria as a great power. Victory in the Venetian-Austrian Turkish War led to territorial expansion in 1717. However, the territories won were partially lost again by the Russo-Austrian Turkish War in 1739. He spent much of his reign enforcing the Pragmatic Sanction within the Habsburg sphere of power and gaining its recognition by the other European powers.
Domestically, the emperor sought to promote the economy in the spirit of mercantilism. However, he abandoned an important project, the East India Company, in the interest of enforcing the Pragmatic Sanction. He also failed to reform the administration and military. He was the last emperor to pursue an active imperial policy in addition to enforcing Habsburg interests, although the imperial idea lost much of its importance in his time. He promoted art and culture in many ways. His reign marked a high point in Baroque culture, whose buildings still characterize Austria and the former Habsburg states today. With Charles”s death, the House of Habsburg became extinct in the male line.
Charles (baptized as Carolus Franciscus Josephus Wenceslaus Balthasar Johannes Antonius Ignatius) was the son of Leopold I of the House of Habsburg and Eleonora of Palatinate-Neuburg, and the brother of Joseph I. His education was under the supervision of Prince Anton Florian of Liechtenstein. The content was imparted mainly by Jesuits such as Andreas Braun or persons close to them. The teaching of traditional ruler virtues and especially the history of the Habsburg family played an important role. Two manuscripts have survived from Karl”s childhood, in which he described the virtues of his ancestors.
Like every Habsburg, he had to learn a trade, choosing to train as a gunsmith. In the course of his training, Karl made a pen and ink drawing of a falconry gun barrel at the age of sixteen, which is now on display in the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Military History in Vienna. The drawing is signed by his own hand on the back piece (“Carl Erzh. zu Oesterr.”).
Charles married Elisabeth Christine, daughter of Duke Ludwig Rudolf of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Christine Luise of Oettingen, on April 23, 1708 (long-distance marriage), and moved with her to Barcelona on August 1, 1708. The marriage produced the following children:
In view of the imminent extinction of the Spanish line of the Habsburgs after the death of Charles II, Emperor Leopold intended early on to make Charles king of Spain. Already during the War of the Palatinate Succession it was planned to send the emperor”s son to Spain together with auxiliary troops, but this did not happen. The Spanish king himself, however, did not designate Charles but Philip of Anjou, i.e. a grandson of Louis XIV, as his heir. After the king”s death, Philip was recognized as king in Spain and the colonies. The resistance of Emperor Leopold, who allied himself with England and the Netherlands, triggered the War of the Spanish Succession.
After Charles”s proclamation as Spanish king in 1703, he was granted all Spanish possessions with the exception of Lombardy in a secret treaty signed by Emperor Leopold and his brother Joseph. At the same time, a settlement was reached on succession in the House of Habsburg (Pactum mutuae successionis). From Portugal, Charles hoped to enter Spain in 1704. However, the Portuguese and English troops were too weak to break the resistance of the Spanish army. Taking advantage of the dissatisfaction of the Catalans and Aragonese with Philip V”s regime, Charles succeeded in 1705 after the siege of Barcelona. Charles was able to extend his sphere of power to Catalonia and other territories and raise his own troops. He proved to be brave and tough during this period, but showed little ability to integrate and lead. Pressed by the French, Charles had to vacate some positions as early as 1706. The struggles of the allies were also not very successful. Thus, they had to vacate Madrid again in June 1706. However, the allies succeeded in conquering important Spanish possessions in Italy. For a time, Charles was also able to enter Madrid in 1710 after military successes in Spain, but he soon had to retreat to Barcelona again.
The situation changed when his brother Joseph, by now emperor, died in 1711 without any male descendants. Charles now also inherited Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and the prospect of the imperial title. Pressed from Vienna, he returned without relinquishing his claim to the Spanish throne. Demonstratively, he appointed his wife as governor in Spain upon his departure. On October 12, 1711, the electors elected him Roman-German king. On December 22, 1711, he was crowned emperor in Frankfurt am Main. From the beginning of 1712 he was again in Vienna; on his return on 26 January 1712 the Old Pummerin sounded for the first time. In the same year he was crowned King of Hungary. Faced with the imminent union of Austria and Spain in one hand, his allies in the War of the Spanish Succession deserted him, so he had to renounce the Spanish crown. Barcelona he held for another year.
In terms of domestic policy, he initially relied on continuity. He expressed his confidence in Prince Eugene, for example, and confirmed the members of the Secret Conference. The latter and the influential Johann Wenzel Wratislaw von Mitrowitz advised him to renounce the Spanish throne. Nevertheless, the emperor did not accede to the 1713 Peace of Utrecht between France, Spain on the one hand, and Great Britain and the Netherlands on the other. However, the return of his wife and Habsburg troops had been agreed upon earlier. A short time later, after further defeats, he commissioned Prince Eugene to negotiate, which led to the Peace of Rastatt in 1714. In the Peace of Baden he was granted the former Spanish possessions in Italy Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, Naples without Sicily and the formerly Spanish, now Austrian Netherlands. France withdrew from the conquered Breisgau, but retained Landau. The deposed Electors of Cologne and Bavaria were restored their dignities. Officially, he did not give up his claim to the Spanish throne, but de facto he acknowledged the situation.
The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 issued by him provided for the indivisibility of the Habsburg lands and for secondary female succession. Since Charles VI”s only male descendant, Leopold, died as an infant in 1716, this case occurred after his death. The Pragmatic Sanction was more than a succession regulation, however. Rather, it aimed at closer cohesion of the various Habsburg possessions. The document spoke of an inseparable union of the Habsburg lands. Between 1720 and 1724, the emperor had the Pragmatic Sanction confirmed by the various assemblies of the estates. This attempt to bind the individual lands of the Habsburg Monarchy more closely together was a further step towards the formation of a great power, Austria. The emperor also made intensive efforts to obtain recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction from foreign powers.
In implementing his policies, Charles VI was supported by experienced ministers and advisors such as Gundaker Thomas Starhemberg or Prince Eugene. But this initially good relationship changed later. Interference by the emperor in the financial system, for example, led to the temporary withdrawal of Starhemberg. Influence on the emperor was exerted by a circle of Spanish emigrants and especially Johann Michael von Althann. This side intrigued against Prince Eugene in 1719. The latter could only be held with difficulty before he resigned from this office as governor general in the Spanish Netherlands in 1724 due to a lack of imperial support. Although he nominally remained president of the Secret Conference and the Court War Council, he largely lost influence. In what followed, the emperor himself played a leading political role. He was supported by court chancellor Philipp Ludwig Wenzel von Sinzendorf, among others. An important spiritual confidant and confessor became the Jesuit Vitus Georg Tönnemann from Paderborn. He was also the representative of the “Catholic party” at court. Among the ministers, different views emerged: while one group had Austrian interests strongly in mind, the other – represented mainly by Imperial Vice-Chancellor Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim – emphasized the cause of the Holy Roman Empire.
A Spanish Council to govern the former Spanish possessions in Italy and a Dutch Council for the Austrian Netherlands were formed. The Spanish Council also expressed a claim to the Spanish throne. The renaming to Italian Council in 1736, however, indicated a recognition of realities. The years of peace between 1720 and 1733 showed the emperor at the height of his power. However, problems eventually led to a crisis of the empire.
In 1712, Charles VI stopped the revision of the Renewed Land Code of Bohemia ordered by Joseph I. However, a Land Committee was approved as the secretariat of the Diet. This confirmation of the rights of the estates was well received by the nobility. It was not until 1723 that he had himself crowned King of Bohemia in Prague. This was a deliberate demonstration of power, also against the background of the policy of re-Catholicization. Uprisings by landowners against the landowners led to several laws (“robot patents”) by Charles VI.
The beginning of his reign in Hungary was marked by the end of the uprising of Francis II Rákóczi and thus the last Kuruc uprising. With the Pragmatic Sanction, Charles also pursued the goal of inseparably uniting Hungary with the other Habsburg territories. However, he had to make considerable concessions to the Hungarian nobility for this. The traditional rights and privileges were confirmed. The king also undertook to govern the country by means of laws adopted jointly with the Estates Assembly. Although the king convened the Estates Assembly only irregularly, the dualism of king and estates remained in the Kingdom of Hungary.
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Settlement and minority policy
At the time of Charles VI, the settlement of peasants from Germany in parts of the lands of the Hungarian crown, which had been partially depopulated by the wars, gained in importance. A first wave of settlement of Danube Swabians took place between 1722 and 1727, partly using coercion. In the course of the “Carolingian Transmigration”, Protestant inhabitants from the archdiocese of Salzburg were resettled in Transylvania. This group later called themselves Landler.
Charles is considered one of the greatest enemies of the Jews among the Habsburg rulers. For his coronation as emperor, court factor Samson Wertheimer provided 148,000 florins, but the Jews had to pay 1,237,000 florins for the costs of the fight against the Turks (1717), and 600,000 florins for the maintenance of the military (1727). In 1732, the Viennese Jews unsuccessfully offered the emperor support with a request for permission to build a house of worship in the suburbs. Charles, however, enacted the Familiants” Laws for the crown lands of the monarchy in 1726, which limited the number of Jews and further suppressed their freedom of movement. In 1738 he had all Jews expelled from Silesia. An expulsion of the Jews from Bohemia was omitted only because of the resistance of the Estates to the feared damage to trade. However, he knew exceptions: In 1726, he elevated the Marran Diego d”Aguilar to the peerage because he had organized tobacco distribution in Austria.
The Roma minority was persecuted with harsh means both in Austria and in Hungary. In 1721, the emperor issued an order to arrest and “exterminate” all “Gypsies” in the empire. In 1726, he ordered all male Roma in the area of present-day Burgenland to be executed and women and children under 18 to have their ears cut off. Many Roma fled, but were also persecuted in other Habsburg territories.
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Administrative, financial and economic policy
At the time of Joseph I and Charles VI, a clear separation between court and state administration began. But it was not possible to form an effective state leadership out of the coexistence of the various central authorities. Nor was the military organization adapted to more recent developments. Here, the increasing age of Prince Eugene, who was responsible for the military, played a central role. In contrast to Prussia, for example, the Austrian hereditary lands had fallen behind economically, organizationally and militarily in the time of Charles VI.
The emperor also continued to rely on the approval of the estates in tax matters. Charles VI also hardly intervened in the structures of the estates. As a result of the ineffective administration and the high expenditures, the finances in particular were desolate. Debts grew from 60 to 100 million guilders during the reign. Between 1722 and 1726, Charles had the Caroline Tax Cadastre drawn up in Silesia.
During Charles VI”s reign, the economy was considerably promoted in the spirit of mercantilism. Councils of commerce were set up in individual provinces, and in Vienna a main college of commerce. In many places, manufactories were founded, and in some cases the road system was improved by the construction of commercial roads or imperial roads. From Vienna, five artificial roads were built in a star shape to open up the empire. Inland customs duties were abolished and the postal system was expanded. Settlers from the German-speaking area were also settled in other parts of the Habsburg states. A trade treaty with the Ottomans promoted Mediterranean trade. The ports of Trieste and Fiume were expanded, and an Oriental Company was founded. Charles VI wanted to use the ports of the Spanish Netherlands as a base for overseas trade, and for this purpose the Ostend Company was founded in 1722. However, this competition worsened political relations with the northern maritime powers. In the end, Charles VI abandoned the Ostend Company in order to be able to enforce the Pragmatic Sanction internationally.
For both Joseph I and Charles VI, imperial politics played an important role alongside the strengthening of the Habsburg hereditary lands. They sought to influence imperial institutions such as the Imperial Chamber Court or to use the imperial knighthood as a means of enforcing imperial policy. Charles VI used imperial commissions, for example, to intervene in imperial constitutional struggles such as those in Frankfurt am Main or Hamburg. The aim was to preserve the traditional structures while making it clear that the emperor was the real head of the city. Charles VI also claimed a kind of imperial chief magistrate function in a religious dispute that was ignited by Electoral Palatine politics. The Imperial Court remained an important element of imperial politics even under Charles VI. Among other things, the trials of the imperial estates of Mecklenburg against their sovereigns fall into this period. In 1718, there was an imperial execution and the deposition of Duke Karl Leopold. In the similar case of East Frisia, the sovereign of that region was justified. After that, neither Francis I nor Joseph II pursued such an imperial policy with regard to the empire.
With regard to imperial politics, however, there were developments that made an active imperial policy more difficult. Some imperial states, such as Austria with Hungary and Italy, but also the Electorate of Hanover, which was linked to Great Britain in a personal union, and the strengthened Prussia grew out of the empire. Other imperial states, such as Bavaria, also pursued independent and in part anti-Kaiser policies. The dispute between the Electoral Palatinate and Hanover over the honorary title of arch-treasurer blocked the Imperial Diet between 1717 and 1719. In the religious dispute in the Electoral Palatinate, the emperor was unable to prevail against Hanover, Prussia and the other Protestant imperial estates. It is also significant that Hanover and Prussia refused to include the emperor in the peace negotiations with Sweden to end the Nordic War. In addition, other imperial estates sank to insignificance. Some, like the principalities in Anhalt, became Prussian client states. In southern Germany, the small imperial estates were mostly loyal to the emperor, without any significant increase in power for Charles VI. Researchers spoke of the beginning of “imperial fatigue” or the “percolation of the imperial idea” during the reign of Charles VI.
After the War of the Spanish Succession had settled the situation in the West, the Emperor, on the advice of Prince Eugene, ordered war against the Ottomans in support of Venice. Under the command of Prince Eugene, Austrian troops were victorious in the Battle of Peterwardein in 1716 and the Battle of Belgrade in 1717, among others, in the Venetian-Austrian Turkish War. In the Peace of Passarowitz concluded in 1718, Charles VI won the Banat, Belgrade and parts of Serbia, as well as Little Wallachia. Thus the Habsburg Empire reached its greatest territorial expansion, reaching far beyond the borders of Hungary.
In Italy, Spain threatened Austria”s supremacy to regain its lost territories. Spanish troops landed in Sardinia in 1717 and in Sicily in 1718. Against this, a Quadruple Alliance was formed, in which Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Austria participated. This resulted in the War of the Quadruple Alliance. In the naval war, the Spanish were defeated by the British in the naval battle off Cape Passero. The Emperor”s army reconquered Sicily. In the end, Charles VI exchanged Sardinia for Sicily. The island was united with Naples. The Spanish Prince Carlos received the claim to Parma, Piacenza and Tuscany. Nevertheless, Habsburg power in Italy was stronger than it had been since Charles V.
Contrary to Prince Eugene”s advice, the emperor was prepared to abandon the alliances with Great Britain and the Netherlands. However, hopes for an alliance with France were dashed. In 1725, peace was made with Spain and a treaty of alliance and trade was concluded in the Treaty of Vienna. In turn, Britain allied with France and Prussia in the Herrenhausen Alliance. The emperor”s diplomats succeeded in extricating Prussia from the alliance, but a major war loomed, which Charles VI was not ready for. Therefore, in 1727, he gave in on the question of the Ostend Company and also did not participate in the war between Spain and Great Britain. His alliance policy finally failed when Spain joined France and Great Britain in 1729.
Now the emperor found a balance with Prince Eugene. It was largely due to him that good relations with Prussia and Russia developed during this period. The prince was also responsible for the reconciliation treaty of 1731 with Great Britain. In it, Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover, which was in personal union with it, recognized the Pragmatic Sanction. In secret negotiations, Denmark and various imperial states were also won over, so that the Pragmatic Sanction was recognized by the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire.
This was followed in 1733 by the War of the Polish Succession, which was not only about the succession in Poland. France feared a further strengthening of Austrian power because of Maria Theresa”s impending marriage to Francis Stephen of Lorraine. In alliance with Spain and Savoy, France attacked Austria in Italy. The war went badly for the Austrian side. Meanwhile, Johann Christoph Freiherr von Bartenstein had risen to become the emperor”s closest political advisor. In 1735 Bartenstein agreed with France on a secret preliminal peace, which was later officially confirmed. In it, the emperor had to cede some territories in northern Italy to Savoy, but was able to maintain his position there. However, he had to cede Naples and Sicily and renounce the claim to Lorraine, which fell to France. Francis Stephen of Lorraine was settled with the Duchy of Tuscany. In return, France also recognized the Pragmatic Sanction.
In 1737 Charles VI took part in the Russian Turkish War. After a defeat, the territories south of the Danube and the Sava, including Belgrade, reverted to the Ottoman Empire in the Peace of Belgrade of 1739.
At the death of Charles VI, Austria was humiliated and politically isolated. His successor, Maria Theresa, had a difficult legacy, especially since it became clear that the Pragmatic Sanction did not protect against disputes over the empire.
Like his father, the emperor was artistically versatile (he is considered one of the “composing emperors”) and particularly promoted musical culture. Under him, the court orchestra under Johann Joseph Fux flourished. He also promoted other areas of culture; in Vienna he brought together the imperial collection of paintings, which had been scattered over various locations.
A high point of baroque art and thus one of the cultural highlights of Austria occurred during the period. In 1713, after a year of plague, the emperor himself vowed to build the Church of St. Charles in Vienna, built by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. He also acted as a builder at Klosterneuburg Abbey, transforming it into a residence modeled on the Escorial in Spain. He also had the Hofburg extended. The Michaelertrakt, the Imperial Chancellery and the Winter Riding School were built. Overall, the fortress character of the Hofburg changed to a palace.
Charles VI had the court library rebuilt and expanded its holdings by purchasing the library of the late Prince Eugene. At the same time, the emperor”s art policy also had political goals in that it followed an imperial program and consciously reverted to the old imperial symbols.
The planned foundation of an Academy of Sciences did not materialize. In 1735, he founded the West Hungarian University in Ödenburg. He was also in correspondence with Leibniz, who came to Vienna in 1713. In terms of ecclesiastical policy, he obtained the elevation of the bishopric of Vienna to an archbishopric.
Charles VI died at the New Favorita (now the Public Gymnasium of the Theresian Academy Foundation) on October 20, 1740, after a ten-day illness at the age of 55. On October 10, he had consumed large quantities of a mushroom dish. The following day he was plagued by severe nausea, vomiting and episodes of unconsciousness. After a few days of recuperation, the ailments returned accompanied by a high fever and eventually led to his death.
The description of the symptoms and circumstances of his death are typical of poisoning with the green tuberous leaf fungus and have been repeatedly interpreted in this way, this ultimately remains speculative.
Charles VI was buried in Vienna according to the ritual customary in the House of Habsburg in the 18th century: his body rests in a sarcophagus in the Capuchin Crypt, his heart was buried separately and is in the Loreto Chapel of the Augustinian Church in Vienna, while his entrails were interred in the Ducal Crypt of St. Stephen”s Cathedral in Vienna. He is thus one of those 41 persons who received a “Separate Burial” with the body divided between all three traditional Viennese Habsburg burial sites (Imperial Crypt, Heart Crypt, Duke”s Crypt).
Charles VI himself was partly responsible for the decline in power in the last decades of his reign. Already in Spain, especially under the influence of Count Johann Michael Althann, he developed an almost anachronistic universalist conception of rule that echoed Charles V. Although he attended intensively to the affairs of state, he lacked an overview and ultimately a clear political line.
In private, the emperor led an exemplary family life, was a caring father. Like his father, he pedantically watched over court etiquette and personally saw to it that the existing rules at court were observed. Even on his deathbed, he criticized those around him for allegedly not placing enough candles around his bed. He found personal pleasure in hunting and in love. Because of his shortsightedness, however, he was a poor shot.
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Title
Emperor Charles” title as Roman-German Emperor and Spanish King was:
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Seal, signature and motto
The seal of Charles VI from 1725 shows his escutcheon (with crown) and the crowned double-headed imperial eagle, bearing seven large feathers on each wing (the number was not specified anywhere), with the regalia: in his right claw he holds the imperial scepter and the imperial sword, and in his left the imperial orb. The edge of the seal is formed by an inscription with the title of Charles VI in abbreviations and a wreath. The inner diameter of the seal is 13.5 cm.
It features the following text:
Written out, this corresponds to:
In translation:
Here again it becomes clear how Charles VI could not yet fully accept the loss of Spain. However, in the Peace of Vienna (1725) he was granted the right to continue to use this title.
His motto was Constanter continet orbem (Latin: Firmly he holds the world empire together).
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Ancestors
In 1899, in Vienna-Wieden (4th district), Karlsplatz was named after Emperor Charles.
Sources
