Today marks another anniversary of death to commemorate, but this time it’s rather a happy event—from the perspective of the House of Habsburg, of course. On 20 January 1745, Emperor Charles VII died.
In retrospect, he was something of a peculiar figure in the long line of Holy Roman Emperors. As Elector of Bavaria, his political ambitions revolved around the potential succession to the Austrian inheritance. There were both advantages and disadvantages to this project. Charles himself had only a small amount of Habsburg blood, inherited through his great-grandmother, and his legal claim rested on a centuries-old document no one took seriously. Although he was married to a daughter of Emperor Joseph I, she had signed away her inheritance rights prior to their marriage.
When the main Habsburg line became extinct in 1740 and war erupted over Maria Theresa’s accession, Charles of Bavaria was neither militarily nor financially prepared to take advantage of the situation. He was elected emperor in 1742, a fact noteworthy only because it interrupted the Habsburgs’ otherwise continuous rule for a few years. As emperor in name, Charles remained entirely dependent on the fortunes of war. Lacking resources and authority, and having lost his residence in Munich to Austrian troops, he could almost be called Charles the Homeless. He lived mostly in exile in Frankfurt and died there in 1745, after just three years of largely fictional rule.
Access to the Metatext via placing an order for an augmented product. See Terms of Use
