Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (28 August 1691 – 21 December 1750) was
Princess
Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince.
Princess as a subs ...
of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel,
Holy Roman Empress
The Holy Roman Empress or Empress of the Holy Roman Empire (''Kaiserin des Heiligen Römischen Reiches'') was the wife or widow of the Holy Roman Emperor. The elective dignity of Holy Roman emperor was restricted to males only, but some empresse ...
, German Queen, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary; and
Archduchess
Archduke (feminine: Archduchess; German: ''Erzherzog'', feminine form: ''Erzherzogin'') was the title borne from 1358 by the Habsburg rulers of the Archduchy of Austria, and later by all senior members of that dynasty. It denotes a rank within ...
of Austria by her marriage to
Emperor Charles VI
Charles VI (german: Karl; la, Carolus; 1 October 1685 – 20 October 1740) was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy from 1711 until his death, succeeding his elder brother, Joseph I. He unsuccessfully claimed the thron ...
. She was renowned for her delicate beauty and also for being the mother of
Empress Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position '' suo jure'' (in her own right) ...
. She was the longest serving Holy Roman Empress.
[Her tenure, from 12 October 1711 to 20 October 1740, is about seven months longer than either tenures of two other long-serving empresses, ]Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy
Beatrice I (1143 – 15 November 1184) was Countess of Burgundy from 1148 until her death, and was also Holy Roman Empress by marriage to Frederick Barbarossa. She was crowned empress by Antipope Paschal III in Rome on 1 August 1167, and ...
, and Eleonor Magdalene of the Palatinate-Neuburg
Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg (Eleonore Magdalene Therese; 6 January 1655 – 19 January 1720) was a princess of the House of Wittelsbach who became Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia as the ...
.
Biography
Elisabeth Christine was the eldest daughter of
Louis Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife
Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen
Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen (20 March 1671 – 3 September 1747) was Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg. She was the maternal grandmother of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, Emperor Peter II of Russia and also Charles I, Duke of ...
.
At age 13 Elisabeth Christine became engaged to the future
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, through negotiations between her ambitious grandfather,
Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
Anthony Ulrich (German: ''Anton Ulrich''; 4 October 1633 – 27 March 1714), a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruling Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from 1685 until 1702 jointly with his elder brother Ru ...
and
Charles' sister-in-law,
Empress Wilhelmine Amalia, whose father was
John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg
John Frederick (german: Johann Friedrich; 25 April 1625 in Herzberg am Harz – 18 December 1679 in Augsburg) was duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He ruled over the Principality of Calenberg, a subdivision of the duchy, from 1665 until his death.
T ...
and thus belonged to another branch of the
House of Welf. However, the
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
bride opposed the marriage at first, since it involved her converting to
Roman Catholicism, but finally she gave in. She was tutored in Catholicism by her mother-in-law,
Empress Eleonore, who introduced her to the religion and made a pilgrimage with her to
Mariazell
Mariazell ( Central Bavarian: ''Mariazöö'') is an Austrian city in the southeastern state of Styria. Well known for being a hub of winter sports and a pilgrimage destination, it is located north of Graz. It is picturesquely situated in the vall ...
in 1706. On 1 May 1707, she was converted in
Bamberg, Germany. She was required to swear the
Tridentine Creed rather than a modified version she had hoped. Prior to the wedding, she was required to undergo a medical examination to prove her fertility by a doctor and the
Jesuit confessor of Charles.
Spain
At the time of the wedding,
Charles was
fighting for his claim to the Spanish throne against the French candidate
Philip, so he was living in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
. Elisabeth Christine arrived in Spain in July 1708 and married Charles on 1 August 1708 in the church of
Santa María del Mar, Barcelona. As Philip had already fathered a son, Elisabeth Christine was immediately pressured to produce a son. During her time in Spain, she had a long-term correspondence with her mother, which was reportedly a consolation for the continuous pressure to produce a son.
In 1711, Charles left for
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
to succeed as Emperor. He left Elisabeth Christine behind in Spain, appointing her as General Governor of
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...
in his absence. She ruled Catalonia alone until 1713, when the war ended with Philip recognized by all of Austria's allies. Her official role as regent had been to sustain the morale of Charles's Catalan subjects, but Martino claimed that she actually governed more effectively than Charles had during his Spanish reign. She then joined her husband in Austria.
Austria
As empress, Elisabeth Christine as well as her predecessor were described as accomplished in music, discretion, modesty and diligence, and was regarded to fulfill her representational role as empress well both within the Spanish court protocol of hunting and balls and amateur theater as well as the religious devotion days of ''pietas austriaca''. She was an excellent shot and attended shooting matches, participated in hunting while she and her ladies-in-waiting dressed in amazon attire and also played
billiards
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions ...
. Elisabeth Christine was later rumored to be a
crypto-Protestant, likely because she was a patron of
Jansenists
Jansenism was an Early modern period, early modern Christian theology, theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human Total depravity, depravity, the necessity of divine g ...
such as
Johann Christoph von Bartenstein
Johann Christoph Bartenstein (Strasbourg, 23 October 1689 – Vienna, 5 August 1767) was an Austrian statesman, who dominated the foreign policy of the Austrian Empire from the early 1730's until 1753.
Life
Bartenstein grew up in Strasbourg ...
.
Charles VI did not allow her any political influence whatsoever after her arrival in Austria in 1713. However, she was described as intelligent and self-sufficient, and she established political connections among the ministers, especially Starhemberg; and she took some initiative to engage in politics on her own. In the 1720s, she appeared to have had some influence in the treaty with the Russian Tsar through her family connections in
Northern Germany, and she allied herself with the court faction which opposed the plans to marry her daughters to members of the Spanish royal house.
The marriage of Elisabeth Christine was dominated by the pressure upon her to give birth to a male heir. This she later fulfilled when she gave birth to a male heir named Archduke Leopold John in 1716. However, at age 7 months the infant Leopold died. She reportedly found the situation very stressing and was tormented by the loss of confidence in Charles VI that this caused. Three years after her marriage, court doctors prescribed large doses of
liquor to make her more fertile, which gave her face a permanent blush. During her 1725 pregnancy, Charles unsuccessfully had her bedchamber decorated with erotic images of male beauty so as to make her expected baby male by stimulating her fantasy. After this, the court doctors prescribed a rich diet to increase her fertility, which made her so fat that she became unable to walk, experienced breathing problems, insomnia and
dropsy
Edema, also spelled oedema, and also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling, is the build-up of fluid in the body's tissue. Most commonly, the legs or arms are affected. Symptoms may include skin which feels tight, the area ma ...
and had to be lowered into her chairs by a specially constructed machine.
Though her health was devastated by the different prescriptions as how to make her conceive another son, Charles VI apparently did care for her: he continued to refer to her by her pet name White Liz, expressed sincere concern in his diary about her health and left her an independent income in his will. Charles had a mistress before the marriage, and he had a mistress, countess Althann, from 1711 onward, though Althann was not an official mistress and had been married to one of his ministers shortly before the arrival of the empress to make the relationship more discreet.
Elisabeth Christine got along very well with her mother-in-law, Eleonore, and her sister-in-law Wilhelmine Amalia, and the three empresses were described as supportive toward each other: Wilhelmine Amalia nursed Elisabeth Christine when she had smallpox, and Elisabeth Christine nursed Eleonore during her last illness.
Empress Dowager
In 1740, Charles VI died, leaving her a widow. As a widow, she never received the large income left to her in the will of Charles because of the crisis of the state, but her daughter Maria Theresa provided a comfortable existence for her court. Though the traditional view has been that she had a good relationship with her daughter the empress, there is actually nothing to confirm such a thing. While Maria Theresa is known to have freely expressed her affection for people she cared for, she never did so with her mother; she visited her regularly, but the visits were formal, and during her interaction she behaved strictly according to Spanish court etiquette.
[Crankshaw, Edward: Maria Theresa. Longmans. London (1969)] In 1747, the Prussian ambassador claimed that she was politically active, "without arousing the suspicion that she is trying to meddle" in political matters. Elisabeth Christine died in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.
Children
*
Leopold Johann (13 April 1716 – 4 November 1716), died in childhood.
*
Maria Theresa (13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780), Holy Roman Empress, ruler of the Habsburg domains
*
Maria Anna (26 September 1718 – 16 December 1744), governor of the Austrian Netherlands for a few months before her death in childbirth
*Maria Amalia (5 April 1724 – 19 April 1730), died in childhood.
Ancestry
See also
*
Order of Elizabeth and Theresa
References
Sources
*
Royal titles
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Elisabeth Christine Of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel
1691 births
1750 deaths
17th-century German people
18th-century German people
Nobility from Braunschweig
Holy Roman Empresses
Italian queens consort
German queens consort
Hungarian queens consort
German Roman Catholics
Burials at the Imperial Crypt
Burials at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
Royal consorts of Naples
Royal consorts of Sicily
Bohemian queens consort
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Converts to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism
New House of Brunswick
17th-century German women
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