Archduke Charles (baptizedCarolus Franciscus Josephus Wenceslaus Balthasar Johannes Antonius Ignatius), the second son of the EmperorLeopold I and of his third wife, PrincessEleonore Magdalene of Neuburg, was born on 1 October 1685.
Not wanting to see Austria and Spain inpersonal union again, the newKingdom of Great Britain withdrew its support from the Austrian coalition, and the war culminated with the Treaties ofUtrecht,Rastatt andBaden three years later. The former, ratified in 1713, recognised Philip as King of Spain; however, theKingdom of Naples, theDuchy of Milan, theAustrian Netherlands and theKingdom of Sardinia—all previously possessions of the Spanish—were ceded to Austria.[8] To prevent a union of Spain and France, Philip was forced to renounce his right to succeed his grandfather's throne. Charles was extremely discontented at the loss of Spain, and as a result, he mimicked the staidSpanish Habsburg court ceremonial, adopting the dress of a Spanish monarch, which, according to British historianEdward Crankshaw, consisted of "a black doublet and hose, black shoes and scarlet stockings".[8]
When Charles succeeded his brother in 1711, he was the last male Habsburg heir in the direct line. Since Habsburg possessions were subject toSalic law, barring women from inheriting in their own right, his own lack of a male heir meant they would be divided on his death. ThePragmatic Sanction of 19 April 1713 abolished male-only succession in all Habsburg realms and declared their lands indivisible, although theDiet of Hungary only approved it in 1723.[10]
Charles VI on a silver Thaler, 1721
Charles had three daughters,Maria Theresa (1717–1780),Maria Anna (1718–1744) and Maria Amalia (1724–1730) but no surviving sons. When Maria Theresa was born, he disinherited his nieces who were the daughters of his elder brother Joseph,Maria Josepha andMaria Amalia. It was this act that undermined the chances of a smooth succession as set out in aPact arranged by his father, and obliged Charles to spend the rest of his reign seeking to ensure enforcement of the sanction from other European powers.[11]
Charles VI with his wife Empress Elisabeth Christine and their daughters in 1730
Charles agreed to a demand fromBritain that he close a trading company, theOstend Company, which was based in the Austrian Netherlands and that he himself founded in 1722.[12] Other signatories included Britain,France, theDutch Republic, Spain,Russia,Denmark-Norway andSavoy-Sardinia, but subsequent events underlinedPrince Eugene of Savoy's comment that the best guarantee was a powerful army and full treasury. Charles's nieces were married to the rulers of Saxony and Bavaria, both of whom ultimately refused to be bound by the decision of the Imperial Diet. France, despite publicly agreeing to the Pragmatic Sanction in 1735, signed a secret treaty with Bavaria in 1738 promising to back the 'just claims' ofCharles Albert of Bavaria.[13]
Peace in Europe was shattered by theWar of the Polish Succession (1733–1738), a dispute over the throne ofPoland betweenAugustus of Saxony, the previous king's elder son, andStanisław Leszczyński. Austria supported the former, France the latter; thus, a war broke out. By theTreaty of Vienna (1738), Augustus ascended the throne, but Charles had to give the kingdoms ofNaples andSicily to Don Carlos, in exchange for the much smaller Duchy of Parma and Grand Duchy of Tuscany.[16]
The question of Charles's elder daughter's marriage was raised early in her childhood. She was first betrothed toLéopold Clément of Lorraine, who was supposed to come to Vienna and meet Maria Theresa. Instead, he died ofsmallpox in 1723, which upset Maria Theresa. Léopold Clément's younger brother,Francis Stephen, then came to Vienna to replace him. Charles considered other possibilities (such as Don Carlos) before announcing the engagement to Francis.[17] At the end of the War of the Polish Succession, France demanded that Francis surrender theDuchy of Lorraine (his hereditary domain), to Stanisław Leszczyński, the deposed king of Poland, who would bequeath it to France at his death. Charles compelled Francis to renounce his rights to Lorraine and told him: "No renunciation, no archduchess."[18]
Charles had a number of sexual relationships with male courtiers, including his Master of the Horse, Prince Schwarzenberg, and a hunter's boy.[19] The love of his life was Michael Joseph, Count Althann, a groom of the bedchamber, whom he called "my only heart, my comfort...my soul mate",[20] and with whom he slept regularly. Althann's death in 1722, after a relationship of nineteen years, devastated him.[21]
Collection of Serbian privileges, issued by Charles VI in 1732
In 1737, the Emperor embarked on anotherTurkish War, in alliance with Russia.[22] Its start was promising. Already in the autumn of the same year, imperial troops tookNiš and tried to consolidate gains in 1738, but during the next year Habsburg armies suffered several defeats. By theTreaty of Belgrade (1739), emperor Charles had to cede several regions to the sultan, includingBosnian section ofPosavina, central regions ofSerbia, andWallachia Minor (Oltenia).[23] Popular discontent at the costly war reigned in Vienna; Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa's husband, was dubbed a French spy by the Viennese.[24]
As a devout Catholic, emperor Charles supported the reestablishment ofCatholic ecclesiastical structures in various regions that were liberated from the Ottoman rule and incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy by theTreaty of Passarowitz (1718).[25] In the same time, several questions related to the rights and liberties of otherChristian denominations were regulated. In theKingdom of Hungary, significant portion of both nobility and people belonged to theReformed Church (Calvinists), while eastern and southern regions were also inhabited byEastern Orthodox Christians, mainlySerbs andRomanians. On several occasions, emperor Charles issued confirmations of old privileges that were granted to Eastern Orthodox subjects by previous Habsburg monarchs (emperors Leopold I and Joseph I), and in 1732 an official collection of those documents was published.[26][27]
The Emperor, after a hunting trip across the Hungarian border in "a typical day in the wettest and coldest October in memory",[28] fell seriously ill at theFavorita Palace, Vienna, and he died on 20 October 1740 in theHofburg.[29] In hisMemoirs Voltaire[30] wrote that Charles died after consuming a meal ofdeath cap mushrooms.[31] Charles's life opus, the Pragmatic Sanction, was ultimately in vain. Maria Theresa was forced to resort to arms to defend her inheritance from the coalition of Prussia, Bavaria, France, Spain, Saxony and Poland—all party to the sanction—who assaulted the Austrian frontier weeks after her father's death. During the ensuingWar of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa saved her crown and most of her territory but lost the mineral-richDuchy of Silesia to Prussia and theDuchy of Parma to Spain.[32]
At the time of Charles's death, the Habsburg lands were saturated in debt; the exchequer contained a mere 100,000 florins; and desertion was rife in Austria's sporadic army, spread across the Empire in small, ineffective barracks.[33] Contemporaries expected that Hungary would wrench itself from the Habsburg yoke upon his death.[33]
Emperor Charles VI has been the main motif of many collectors' coins and medals. One of the most recent samples is high-value collectors' coin the AustrianGöttweig Abbey commemorative coin, minted on 11 October 2006. His portrait can be seen in the foreground of the reverse of the coin.[34]
^Charlotte Backerra, 'Disregarding Norms: Emperor Charles VI and His Intimate Relationships',Royal Studies Journal, Vol 6 No2, Winchester University Press, 2019, p75; Friedrich Polleroß, 'Monumenta Virtutis Austriacae: Addenda zur Kunstpolitik Kaiser Karls VI.,' inKunst, Politik, Religion: Studien zur Kunst in Süddeutschland, Österreich, Tschechien und der Slowakei, ed. Markus Hörsch and Elisabeth Oy-Marra, Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2000, p118.
^16 March 1722, OeStA, HHStA, HA, Sammelbände 2, Tagebuch 12 (1722-1724), fol. 6r., quoted in Stefan Seitschek,Die Tagebücher Kaiser Karls VI., Berger & Söhne, Ferdinand 2018, p233.
^Clarlotte Backerra, 'Intime Beziehungen Kaiser Karls VI. in Historiogrpahie und überlieferten Quellen', in Norman Domeier, Christian Mühling (eds.),Homosexualität am Hof: Praktiken und Diskurse vom Mittelalter bis heute, Campus Verlag GmbH, 2020, pp53-78; Helmut Neuhold,Das andere Habsburg: Homoerotik im österreichischen Kaiserhaus, Broschur 2008, passim.
^Edward Crankshaw:Maria Theresa, A&C Black, 2011. And also: «[...] after a day of hunting, the emperor fell ill with a cold and fever. Upon his return to his hunting lodge, Charles requested his cook to prepare him his favorite dish of mushrooms. Soon after eating them, he fell violently ill. His physicians bled him but to no avail» (Julia P. Gelardi:In Triumph's Wake: Royal Mothers, Tragic Daughters, and the Price They Paid for Glory, Macmillan, 2009).
^In the first days of October 1740, in a cold day of pouring rain Emperor Charles VI, «in spite of the warnings of his physicians» (Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell:Littell's Living Age, Volume 183, T.H. Carter & Company, 1889, pg. 69), went to hunting ducks on the shores of Lake Neusiedl, close to the Hungarian border and he had come back chilled and soaked through to his little country palace at La Favorita; on his return, though he was feverish and suffering from colic, the Emperor persisted in eating one of his favourite dishes, a Catalan mushroom stew («a large dish of fried mushrooms» for the Littell brothers), prepared by his cook. He spent the night between 10 and 11 October vomiting. The following morning he was gravely ill, brought down by a high fever. Carried slowly to Vienna in a padded carriage, he died in the Hofburg nine days after.
^«Charles the Sixth died, in the month of October 1740, of an indigestion, occasioned by eating champignons, which brought on an apoplexy, and this plate of champignons changed the destiny of Europe» (Voltaire:Memoirs of the Life of Voltaire, 1784; pp. 48–49).
^Wasson RG. (1972). The death of Claudius, or mushrooms for murderers.Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University23(3):101–128.
^Browning, Reed:The War of the Austrian Succession, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995,ISBN0-312-12561-5, 362.
^abLouda, Jirí; MacLagan, Michael (1999).Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe (2nd ed.). London: Little, Brown and Company. table 84.
Generations are numbered by male-line descent from the first archdukes. Later generations are included although Austrian titles of nobility were abolished in 1919.
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