Early years Archduke Charles (baptized
Carolus Franciscus Josephus Wenceslaus Balthasar Johannes Antonius Ignatius), the second son of the Emperor
Leopold I and of his third wife, Princess
Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg, was born on 1 October 1685. Following the death of
Charles II of Spain, in 1700, without any direct heir, Charles declared himself King of Spain—both were members of the
House of Habsburg. The ensuing
War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted France's candidate,
Philip, Duke of Anjou,
Louis XIV of France's grandson, against Austria's Charles, lasted for almost 14 years. The kingdoms of
Portugal,
England,
Scotland,
Ireland and the majority of the
Holy Roman Empire endorsed Charles's candidature. Within Spain
his supporters were concentrated in the
Crown of Aragon where there was a fear of Bourbon centralism. Charles III, as he was known, disembarked in his kingdom in 1705 and stayed there for six years, only being able to exercise his rule in the
Principality of Catalonia, until the death of his brother,
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor; he returned to Vienna to assume the imperial crown. Not wanting to see Austria and Spain in
personal union again, the new
Kingdom of Great Britain withdrew its support from the Austrian coalition, and the war culminated with the Treaties of
Utrecht,
Rastatt and
Baden three years later. The former, ratified in 1713, recognised Philip as King of Spain; however, the
Kingdom of Naples, the
Duchy of Milan, the
Austrian Netherlands and the
Kingdom of Sardinia—all previously possessions of the Spanish—were ceded to Austria. 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 staid
Spanish Habsburg court ceremonial, adopting the dress of a Spanish monarch, which, according to British historian
Edward Crankshaw, consisted of "a black doublet and hose, black shoes and scarlet stockings".
Succession to the Habsburg dominions When Charles succeeded his brother in 1711, he was the last male Habsburg heir in the direct line. Since Habsburg possessions were subject to
Salic law, barring women from inheriting in their own right, his own lack of a male heir meant they would be divided on his death. The
Pragmatic Sanction of 19 April 1713 abolished male-only succession in all Habsburg realms and declared their lands indivisible, although the
Diet of Hungary only approved it in 1723. 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 and
Maria Amalia. It was this act that undermined the chances of a smooth succession as set out in a
Pact 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. Charles agreed to a demand from
Britain that he close a trading company, the
Ostend Company, which was based in the Austrian Netherlands and which he himself had founded in 1722. Other signatories included Britain,
France, the
Dutch Republic, Spain,
Russia,
Denmark-Norway and
Savoy-Sardinia, but subsequent events underlined
Prince 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' of
Charles Albert of Bavaria. In the first part of his reign, the
Habsburg monarchy continued to expand thanks to the success in the
Austro-Turkish War (1716–1718), adding
Banat to
Hungary and establishing direct Austrian rule over
Serbia and
Oltenia (Lesser
Wallachia). This extended the Austrian rule to the lower
Danube. The treaty also recognised
Philip V of Spain's younger son, Don Carlos (the future
Charles III of Spain) as heir to the
Duchy of Parma and
Grand Duchy of Tuscany; Charles had previously endorsed the succession of the
incumbent Grand Duke's daughter,
Anna Maria Luisa, Electress Palatine. Peace in Europe was shattered by the
War of the Polish Succession (1733–1738), a dispute over the throne of
Poland between
Augustus of Saxony, the previous king's elder son, and
Stanisław Leszczyński. Austria supported the former, France the latter; thus, a war broke out. By the
Treaty of Vienna (1738), Augustus ascended the throne, but Charles had to give the kingdoms of
Naples and
Sicily to Don Carlos, in exchange for the much smaller Duchy of Parma and Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The question of Charles's elder daughter's marriage was raised early in her childhood. She was first betrothed to
Léopold Clément of Lorraine, who was supposed to come to Vienna and meet Maria Theresa. Instead, he died of
smallpox 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. At the end of the War of the Polish Succession, France demanded that Francis surrender the
Duchy 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." Charles had a number of sexual relationships with male courtiers, including his Master of the Horse, Prince Schwarzenberg, and a hunter's boy. 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", and with whom he slept regularly. Althann's death in 1722, after a relationship of nineteen years, devastated him. In 1737, the Emperor embarked on another
Turkish War, in alliance with Russia. Its start was promising. Already in the autumn of the same year, imperial troops took
Niš and tried to consolidate gains in 1738, but during the next year, Habsburg armies suffered several defeats. By the
Treaty of Belgrade (1739), emperor Charles had to cede several regions to the sultan, including
Bosnian section of
Posavina, the central regions of
Serbia, and
Wallachia Minor (Oltenia). Popular discontent at the costly war reigned in Vienna; Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa's husband, was dubbed a French spy by the Viennese.
Religious policies As a devout Catholic, emperor Charles supported the reestablishment of
Catholic ecclesiastical structures in various regions that were liberated from Ottoman rule and incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy by the
Treaty of Passarowitz (1718). At the same time, several questions related to the rights and liberties of other
Christian denominations were regulated. In the
Kingdom of Hungary, a significant portion of both nobility and people belonged to the
Reformed Church (Calvinists), while eastern and southern regions were also inhabited by
Eastern Orthodox Christians, mainly
Serbs and
Romanians. 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.
Death and legacy The Emperor, after a hunting trip across the Hungarian border in "a typical day in the wettest and coldest October in memory", fell seriously ill at the
Favorita Palace, Vienna, and he died on 20 October 1740 in the
Hofburg. In his
Memoirs Voltaire wrote that Charles died after consuming a meal of
death cap mushrooms. 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 ensuing
War of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa saved her crown and most of her territory but lost the mineral-rich
Duchy of Silesia to Prussia and the
Duchy of Parma to Spain. 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. Contemporaries expected that Hungary would wrench itself from the Habsburg yoke upon his death. ==Children==