For 40 years Maria Theresa reigned as Archduchess of Austria, and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. She was also named Holy Roman Empress when her husband was elected Holy Roman Emperor.
How long did Maria Theresa reign for?
For 40 years Maria Theresa reigned as Archduchess of Austria, and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. She was also named Holy Roman Empress when her husband was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Theresa was one of the most powerful rulers of her time, and was as stern with her children as she was with her nation.
What years did Maria Theresa of Austria rule?
Maria Theresa, German Maria Theresia, (born May 13, 1717, Vienna—died November 29, 1780, Vienna), archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia ( 1740–80 ), wife and empress of the Holy Roman emperor Francis I (reigned 1745–65), and mother of the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II (reigned 1765–90).
When did Maria Theresa stop ruling?
| Maria Theresa | Successor Charles Albert | Reign 12 May 1743 – 29 November 1780 | Coronation 12 May 1743 | Predecessor Charles Albert |
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What nations did Maria Theresa ally with?
Her political distrust of Great Britain rested in part on her view of the established Church of England, whom she regarded as Protestant heretics. Maria Theresa dropped Great Britain as an ally on the advice of her state chancellor, Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, and allied with Russia and France .
How did Maria Theresa of Austria actually get her political power?
Though the official ruler was actually her husband, Francis I, she governed the Habsburg monarchy single-handedly . When her husband became the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1945, Maria Theresa acquired the title of empress, as suits the wife of an emperor.
Was Maria Theresa an absolute ruler?
Maria Theresa of Austria stands out as a major figure in women’s history. She reigned as an absolute monarch for forty years over one of the largest empires in Europe, while facing a situation familiar to women today: trying to strike a balance between her public and her private life.
What did Maria Theresa do to increase her power?
In 1740, Maria Theresa succeeded the Habsburg throne. In resistance, Frederick II’s army invaded and claimed Silesia. The war ended in 1748, after which she reformed her government and military .
How did Maria Theresa died?
In 1667 she travelled to the Spanish Netherlands, then in the grip of the War of Devolution, waged largely to defend her claim on the Spanish throne. But in 1683 she returned exhausted from a tour of Burgundy and Alsace. Back at Versailles she soon fell ill, and died suddenly from complications linked to an abscess .
What is Maria Theresa most famous for?
Maria Theresa was the most important ruler of the age of Enlightened Absolutism
Who was Maria Theresa’s most famous child?
As the 15th child Maria Antonia (1755-1793) was born and is probably the most famous daughter of Maria Theresa because of her tragic fate. She was married to the French Dauphin Louis XVI.
When Francis Stephen died in 1765, Maria Theresa went into mourning. ... In 1854, when she was 16, she married her cousin, Francis Joseph , Maria Theresa’s great-grandson, who had become emperor after the rebellions and upsets of 1848.
What did Maria Theresa do for the enlightenment?
Though opposed to religious toleration and all efforts to reform the Habsburg Empire from the grassroots, Maria Theresa carried out lasting reforms, establishing elementary schools, breaking the Jesuit monopoly on education, and removing universities from Church control .
What did Maria Theresa do for the economy?
Maria Theresa implemented significant reforms to strengthen Austria’s military, financial, and bureaucratic efficiency . However, she did not manage to change her lands’ deeply feudal social order based on privileged landlords and oppressive forced labor of the peasantry.
Why was Maria Theresa a good ruler?
She was also an “Enlightened Absolutist ,” a ruler who, like her rival Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia, instituted liberal reforms such as abolishing serfdom and instituting universal schooling, but always from above as an expression of the the will of the ruler rather than that of the ...
What effect did Maria Theresa have on the power of the nobility?
Austria’s empress, Maria Theresa, remained as wedded to absolutism as Frederick the Great. But, unlike Frederick, she had initiated reforms, cautiously and gradually reducing the powers of the nobles over their serfs and their overall power in her realm – except in that part of her realm that was Hungary.
