Maria Theresa 1717-80
Holy Roman Empress, Archduchess of Austria, and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia

The daughter of the Emperor Charles VI, she was born in Vienna. By the Pragmatic Sanction, her father appointed her heir to his hereditary thrones. In 1736 she married Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine (afterwards Grand Duke of Tuscany (1737-65) and Holy Roman Emperor (1745-65) as Francis I), and at her father's death (1740) she became Queen of Hungary and of Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria. Her claim to the hereditary Habsburg lands led to the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) when she lost Silesia to Prussia, and some lands in Italy, but her husband was recognized as Emperor Francis I. Aided by Haugwitz, she instituted financial reforms, fostered agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and nearly doubled the national revenues, while decreasing taxation. Marshal Daun reorganized her armies. With Prince von Kaunitz-Rietberg as her Foreign Minister and France as an ally, she renewed the contest with the Prussian King, Frederick II, the Great, but the Seven Years War (1756-63) confirmed Frederick in his possession of Silesia. After the peace she carried out a series of reforms: peasant serfdom was reduced, as was the power of the Church, law reform continued, and she set up the best educational system in Europe. After the death of her husband (1765), her son Joseph (Emperor Joseph II) co-operated with her in the government. She joined with Russia and Prussia in the first partition of Poland (1772), securing Galicia. Warm, friendly and spirited, she tempered her idealism with earthy common sense and won the affection and admiration of her subjects. Of her 10 surviving children, the eldest son, Joseph II, succeeded her, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, succeeded him as Leopold II, Ferdinand became Duke of Modena, and Marie Antoinette married Louis XVI of France.

Bibliography: Robert Pick, Empress Maria Theresa (1966)