Maria Theresa

Table of Contents




Pictures 3


Birth Date and Birth Place 4


Early Life 4


Schooling 4


Family 4


Accomplishments 4


Hardships 5


Later Life and Death 5


Bibliography 6







Pictures



















Birth Date and Birth Place




Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and Elizabeth Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was born in Vienna on May 13, 1717.  






Early Life




When the only son of Charles VI died and left no heir to the throne, Charles furthered the Pragmatic Sanction. The Pragmatic Sanction is a royal act, which allowed a female to inherit the territories of the Habsburg. In 1736 Maria Theresa married Francis Stephen of Lorraine. The marriage of Maria to Francis was one of love, which was very unlike many in that time. The French strongly opposed the marriage of Lorraine lands to the Habsburg lands and demanded that he give up his ancestral rights of Lorraine for the succession of Tuscany.






Schooling




Maria Theresa did not have much schooling in politics, so when her father died on October 17, 1740, she was ill prepared. She had never had book-learned education and was only taught the proper etiquette and court manners that the ladies of her time learned.






Family




Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen had sixteen children, only ten of them survived. Maria loved her children very much, even though they were rebellious and often irritated her greatly. After they moved away she still kept in tight correspondence, and gave them wise advise. Her children became famous well-known people such as, the later Emperors Joseph II, Leopold II, and the later queen of France, Marie-Antoinette. Maria’s favorite   out of all her many children was Maria Christina, who was the only one allowed to marry for love to...