Maria Theresa

Maria Theresa was born May 13, 1717, in Vienna, Austria. In 1740 she succeeded to
the Habsburg throne. In resistance, Frederick IIs army invaded and claimed Silesia. The war
ended in 1748, after which she reformed her government and military. In 1756 Frederick II
waged the Seven Years War against her. In 1765 she appointed her son her co-regent. She died
November 29, 1780, in Vienna, Austria.
She started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, died in October
1740. Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and
spent his entire reign securing it. Upon the death of her father, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, and
France all repudiated the sanction they had recognised during his lifetime. Prussia proceeded
to invade the affluent Habsburg province of Silesia, sparking a nine-year conflict known as
the War of the Austrian Succession. Maria Theresa would later unsuccessfully try to
reconquer Silesia during the Seven Years' War.
Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, had sixteen
children, including Queen Marie Antoinette of France, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples,
Duchess Maria Amalia of Parma and two Holy Roman Emperors, Joseph II and Leopold II.
Though she was expected to cede power to Francis and Joseph, both of whom were officially
her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled by
the counsel of her advisers. She criticised and disapproved of many of Joseph's actions.
Although she is considered to have been intellectually inferior to both Joseph and Leopold,
Maria Theresa understood the importance of her public persona and was able to
simultaneously evoke both esteem and affection from her subjects.
Maria Theresa promulgated financial and educational reforms, with the assistance of
Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz and Gerard van Swieten, promoted commerce and the
development of agriculture, and reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, all of which
strengthened Austria's international standing. However, she refused to allow religious
toleration and contemporary travellers thought her regime was bigoted and superstitious. As a
young monarch who fought two dynastic wars, she believed that her cause should be the
cause of her subjects, but in her later years she would believe that their cause must be hers.

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Maria Theresas education and upbringing were typical of a princesss at the time. Her
studies focused on frivolous skills thought befitting a young noblewoman. Despite the fact
that Maria Theresa, who indeed still did not have a brother, was increasingly likely to inherit
the Habsburg throne, she was ill-acquainted with affairs of state.
In 1765 Maria Theresas husband, Francis Stephen, died. Upon his death, Maria
Theresa appointed her eldest son, Joseph II, as emperor and co-regent. The two frequently
clashed in their beliefs. After considering her own abdication and ultimately rejecting the idea,
Maria Theresa allowed Joseph to take control of army reforms and join Wenzel Anton, Prince
of Kaunitz-Rietberg, in determining the empires foreign policy.Although Maria Theresa
craved peace and promoted diplomacy, during the mother and sons co-regency the War of the
Bavarian Succession broke out, lasting from 1778 to 1779.
From the very beginning, the death of the empress Maria Theresa gave rise to a series
of legends in the collective mindset. The reforms initiated by the empress within the Habsburg
Empire werent agreed by the conservative elite that instinctively felt that through their
implementation, was to lose a multitude of political advantages in the favour of the central
power. It was not a mere chance, that dubious rumours concerning the deviant sexual
behaviour of the empress were spread in the collective mentality through the servants from
the nobles courts. Empresss admiration towards breed horses led in the end to an explanation
for her passion in relation to a certain sexual behaviour and finally to explaining Maria
Theresas death through this type of sexual behaviour. Thus, the legend of the empresssdeath
received zoophiles and perverted connotations and was kept in the collective mindset as a
mark of the spicy stories.

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