Emperor Leopold I , his wives and family

[MarieCharlotte]

Dear Marc, I don't know much about the Habsburgs of the 17th and early 18th century. But I could have a look into my books. Maybe I can answer your question then.

Maria Josepha (1687-1703), another aunt of Empress Maria Theresia:



I think that not much is known about her short life. She was a very pious young lady and died of smallpox.

[MarieCharlotte]

MarieCharlotte...thanks a lot for the wonderful pictures, are they from the book about the Kapuzinergruft?

Of course. 

[MarieCharlotte]

Wow,thank you Marie Charlotte,I never heard anything about them...they were somehow in the shadow and that's what was so interesting,at least for me...Do you know anything about their(sisters) relationship or the relationship between them and Empresses Amalia Wilhelmine and Elisabeth Christine?I ask this because I was reading in some biography of Maria Theresia that at the time of her childhood there(at Hofburg) was some kind of ''war'' or a chaos between two Empresses,Emperors sisters and even between daughters of Emperors Joseph I and Karl VI for the order of precedence...Do you know about this?If you know something more about sisters of Joseph I and Karl VI please write...

This is what I found, Marc:

When Joseph I., Amalia Wilhelmina's husband, died and his brother Karl VI. became Emperor, Amalia wanted her daughters Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia to be taken in consideration in the line of succession. But then the so-called Pragmatische Sanktion was enacted and Karl VI.'s daughter Maria Theresia became heir to the throne. Amalia was very angry about that. After Karl's death, she supported the attempts of her sons-in-law, the Elector of Bavaria and the Elector of Saxony, to lay claim on Maria Theresia's crown. But finally she gave in and supported Maria Theresia, also because she didn't like the military actions of the Elector of Bavaria.
Amalia lived quite isolated in her rooms in the Hofburg and in Schönbrunn after the death of Joseph I. In 1722 she started to live in the monastery she had founded. 

[Marc]

Thank you,I was always interested in her,specially about her relations with the new Empress who comes from the same family(although different line)...Whose claim do you think sisters of both Emperors supported?Both of the Empresses were their sisters in law and both daughters of the two Empresses were their nieces...

[MarieCharlotte]

Thank you,I was always interested in her,specially about her relations with the new Empress who comes from the same family(although different line)...Whose claim do you think sisters of both Emperors supported?Both of the Empresses were their sisters in law and both daughters of the two Empresses were their nieces...

Puh, what a question ... I don't know, Marc. I guess there is too little known about Leopold I.'s daughters to answer your question. I only read that Archduchess Maria Magdalena was very devoted to her niece Maria Theresia. So it seems that at least Maria Magdalena supported Maria Theresia.

[britt.25]

When I read this text I see what I have forgotten thougout the years...a question: has anybody got a picture of emperor Joseph I´s daughter Maria Josepha, who married in the saxony family and became ansistor of all later Saxony kings?

I have two, but they are not so god. Has anybody got another?

[CountessKate]

Maria Josefa of Saxony.  Not a beauty.

[Janet_W.]

But a real person. I like her eyes and slightly supressed smile. She's no longer a young woman, and even in her youth would not be considered a beauty, but still she sits for her portrait, gazing at us with amusement rather than apology.

[britt.25]

Countess Kate,
Thanks for the picture! Where do you have it from?
Oh, she does really look a bit strange there, I must confess. I think both daughters of Joseph I were not considered as beauties. Also Josephas niece, daughter of her sister, who was the second wife of emperor Joseph II, was not really a beauty, or was seen as a beauty, and she was not loved by Joseph as well  When she  fell sick and died Joseph did not visit her at all and did not come to the funeral 
I do not know much about Maria Josepha, but I have read that she was religious and cared a lot about her many children and was a good mother. Does anybody know more about her?

I have sent here the two picture, I have. I suppose that she is younger here...

[britt.25]

May anybody of you know, where the last picture comes from? And if there is a bigger version in any book or something?

[CountessKate]

The portrait I posted is by Anton Raphael Mengs and is in Munich, I believe.

The Archduchess Maria Josefa (1699-1757) was married in 1719 to Friedrich August of Saxony and she and her husband were compelled to sign a formal renunciation of their claims to the Austrian succession by Karl VI.  The couple lived an exemplary married life - Friedrich August was not at all like his father Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, who was famous for his numerous mistresses and illegitimate children.  (However, her eldest son Friedrich Christian thought his parents were not as close to one another compared to himself and his wife).  They had 14 children of whom 11, 5 sons and 6 daughters, reached adulthood.  Maria Josefa and her children were very fond of one another and very close, particularly when the children were younger, and when she had to leave her children to accompany her husband to Poland they frequently corresponded (in French, the language of the aristocracy), and later on when her children left home, they continued to keep in close touch.  The children had pet names (Maria Josefa, who became Dauphine of France, was 'Pepa') and they were encouraged to write to her without formality. 

She and her husband loved hunting, and - although Saxony was largely protestant - they were both pious Catholics and collected about 2,000 relics between them, and were instrumental in building the Hofkirche in Dresden dedicated to the Blessed Trinity.  She went to Mass twice a day and her confessor actually recommended her to reduce her 'excessive prayer'.  She wasn't narrow minded however, as she kept on good terms with the many illigitimate brothers and sisters of her husband.

Maria Josefa had a strong personality and greatly influenced her husband, functioning as an unofficial regent or deputy and forwarding her own political aims.  For example, she thwarted attempts by her son Friedrich Christian to visit Poland with his wife, Maria Antonia of Bavaria as she wanted her second son to succeed to the Polish throne.  Five of her children made brilliant marriages - her daughters Maria Amalia, Maria Anna, and Maria Josefa married the future Carlos III of Spain, the Elector Maximillian III Joseph of Bavaria, and the Dauphin of France, respectively, and her eldest son married Maria Antonia of Bavaria while her fourth son Albrecht married the Archduchess Maria Christine, the one daughter of Maria Theresa who was allowed to marry for love. 

Maria Josefa stayed in Saxony when it was attacked in the Seven Year's War by Friedrich II of Prussia in 1756, and helped organise resistance to the invaders as far as she could, while her husband fought from Poland.  She died a virtual prisoner of the Prussians in Dresden, without having seen her husband since they parted in 1736. 

[Marc]

I was also wondering about the relationship(if there was any) between Maria Theresia,her sister Maria Anna and their two first cousins Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia(who was also an Empress of the Holy Roman Empire succeded by her first cousin Maria Theresia)?

[CountessKate]

Well, clearly relationships couldn't have been that cordial as when the leading nations turned on Maria Theresa on the death of her father Karl VI, one of those who ignored the Pragmatic sanction was Maria Amalia's husband Karl Albrecht, Elector of Bavaria, who claimed the Habsburg inheritance in right of his own descent from the Habsburgs and not in right of his wife, whose inheritance from Josef I he had been forced to renounce on his marriage. Friedrich August, King of Saxony-Poland, the husband of Maria Josefa, and the Prussian king Friedrich II entered into an anti-Habsburg alliance, supported by Spain and France. The Bohemian estates elected Karl Albrecht as king of Bohemia, and he was crowned Emperor as Karl VII in 1742 - not an event guaranteed to generate much family fondness between Maria Theresa and the daughters of Josef I.  The war of the Austrian Succession ensued in which both Maria Amalia and Maria Josefa supported their husbands, but after Karl Albrecht died in 1745, Maria Amalia advised her son, Maximilian III Josef to make peace and compromise with Vienna.

As Maria Theresa's ascendency was established, the Saxon and Bavarian relatives fell into line and indeed, two younger sons of Maria Josefa, Clement and Albrecht, took military service with the Austrians.  Maria Theresa's daughter Maria Christina and Albrecht fell in love though, as Albrecht wrote, "a princess of her standing was far above a portionless younger son".  However, they were eventually allowed to marry, which shows that family rivalries had clearly been allowed to die away among the next generation.

[beladona]

Emperor Leopold I. had from his three marriages eleven daughters. Five of them did not survive their infancy, two of them were later married:
Maria Antonia, *Wien 18.1.1669, +Wien 24.12.1692, burried Kapuzinergruft, Wien; married in Wien 15.7.1685, Elector Maxmilian Emanuel of Bavaria (*1662 +26.2.1726)
Maria Anna, *Linz 7.9.1683, +Lisbon 14.8.1754, burried Sao Vicente de Fora, Lisabon; married in Lisbon 27.10.1708 King Joao V of Portugal (*22.10.1689 +31.7.1750)

What about the next four Archduchesses?
Maria Elisabeth, *Linz 13.12.1680, +Marimont nr Charleroi 26.8.1741, burried Kapuzinergruft, Wien
Maria Theresia, *Wien 22.8.1684, +Schloss Ebersdorf 28.9.1696, burried Kapuzinergruft, Wien
Maria Josepha, *Wien 6.3.1687, +Wien 14.4.1703, burried Kapuzinergruft, Wien
Maria Magdalena, *Wien 26.3.1689, +Wien 1.5.1743, burried Kapuzinergruft, Wien

I suppose most famous is Maria Elisabeth, who were Stattholder of the Netherlands. How did she played her role?
Is anything more known about the next three Archduchesses? Any pictures? Did they lived in Vienna? How was later connection of Maria Elisabeth and Maria Magdalena to the Empress Maria Theresia?

[Norbert]

Found this on google

Maria Elisabeth of Austria (1680 - 1741), archduchess, governor of the Austrian Netherlands between 1724 and 1741 .
She was a daughter of emperor Leopold I and Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg. She never married and was in 1724 appointed as successor of Prince Eugene of Savoy by her brother Charles VI.
She had enough money at her disposal to manage a wealthy court, stimulating culture and music.
She was very beloved by her subjects. Her politics were not always appreciated in Vienna.
When she died at the age of 61, she was first buried in Brussels, but moved to Vienna in 1749, where she lies now in the Imperial Crypte next to her brother Charles.