Wilhelmine Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg (21 April 1673 – 10 April 1742) was Holy Roman Empress,
Queen of the Germans, Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, Archduchess consort of Austria etc. as the spouse of
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor
, father = Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
, mother = Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Vienna, Austria
, death_date =
, death_place = Vienna, Austria
, burial_place = Imperial Crypt, Vienna
, r ...
.
Early life
Wilhelmine Amalie was the youngest daughter of
John Frederick, Duke of
Brunswick-Calenberg, and Princess
Benedicta Henrietta of the Palatinate. Her two surviving sisters were
Charlotte Felicitas, who married the Duke of Modena, and Henriette Marie, who died young. An older sister, Anna Sophie, died in childhood. After the death of her father in 1679, her mother returned to France, taking her three daughters with her. In France, Wilhelmine was given a Catholic education by her great-aunt
Louise Hollandine at the
convent
A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...
of Maubuisson, and did not return to Hanover until she was 20 years old, in 1693.
Early on, the Holy Roman Empress
Eleonore Magdalene of 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 ...
decided that Wilhelmine Amalie would be her daughter-in-law. Prince Salm was instrumental in speaking for her candidacy. The adviser of Eleonore, Marco d'Aviano, had convinced her that Wilhelmine Amalie, being pious and older than Joseph, could act as a tempering influence and discontinue his sex life outside of marriage, and to Leopold, he claimed that he had a vision that the pair would be happy. She was subjected to medical examination, which establish that she was fertile.
Marriage
As a result, on 24 February 1699, she married Eleonor's son,
Archduke Joseph, the heir of Emperor
Leopold I. At their wedding, the opera ''Hercule and Hebe'' by
Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser (9 January 1674 – 12 September 1739) was a German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas. Johann Adolf Scheibe (writing in 1745) considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg ...
(1674–1739) was performed. Upon Joseph's election as Emperor in 1705, she became Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.
They had three children:
*
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 ...
Maria Josepha (8 December 1699 – 17 November 1757); married
Augustus III
Augustus III ( pl, August III Sas, lt, Augustas III; 17 October 1696 5 October 1763) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1733 until 1763, as well as Elector of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire where he was known as Frederick Aug ...
,
King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
*Archduke Leopold Joseph of Austria (29 October 1700 – 4 August 1701); died in infancy
*
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 ...
Maria Amalia (22 October 1701 – 11 December 1756); she married
Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VII (6 August 1697 – 20 January 1745) was the prince-elector of Bavaria from 1726 and Holy Roman Emperor from 24 January 1742 to his death. He was a member of the House of Wittelsbach, and his reign as Holy Roman Emperor thus marked the ...
Empress
![Wilhelmine Amalie de Brunswick-Lunebourg (1673-1742)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Wilhelmine_Amalie_de_Brunswick-Lunebourg_%281673-1742%29.jpg)
Wilhelmine Amalie was described as beautiful but also as religious and serious. Her relationship with her husband was initially described as happy, but it soon deteriorated. Joseph had a long line of mistresses, both servants and nobles, such as Princess Dorothea Porcia, born Countess von und zu
Daun
Daun is a town in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the district seat and also the seat of the ' of Daun.
Geography
Location
The town lies in the , a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geogra ...
. His hunting companion Count Johann Philip von
Lamberg
The House of Lamberg is the name of an ancient Austrian noble family, whose members occupied significant positions within Holy Roman Empire and later in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
History
The family name first appeared in the 14th century in ...
provided him with lovers, and he eventually had a long-term relationship with Countess Marianne
Pálffy, who became his official mistress. This was a scandal, as official mistresses had not been a custom at the Austrian court, and both Wilhelmine Amalie and the pope protested. Her mother-in-law supported her, scolding Joseph and placed his procurers in prison, but after he became emperor, nothing could be done. He had several illegitimate children, but no surviving male heir with his spouse. In 1704, Joseph contracted a venereal disease, reportedly from the daughter of a gardener, and passed the disease to his wife. Because of the prudishness of the Austrian court, she initially did not know what had happened to her and blamed herself for the infection. It has been suggested that this condition was the reason for the failure of the Empress to produce more children after the birth of her second daughter. Without male heirs, a crisis developed in regards to the imperial succession.
As empress, Wilhelmine Amalie as well as her successor 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.'' Joseph did not allow her any political influence what so ever and kept her outside of state affairs as he did his mother and mistress Marianne Pàlffy, but she was described as intelligent and self-sufficient and she established political connections among the ministers, especially her relative Prince Salm, whom she generally supported even when he promoted the interests of the Holy German Empire against Austria. She is described as an active participator in dynastic intrigue, and assisted in the marriage between her cousin and brother-in-law. She worked closely with the Hanoverian envoy to benefit interests of her family the Guelphs.
Empress Dowager
In 1711, Wilhelmine Amalie was widowed, and her mother-in-law became the interim regent until her brother-in-law, the Archduke
Charles, could return from Spain where he was the Austrian nominee for the Spanish throne during the
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...
. At the death of her spouse, the stress caused the venereal disease of Wilhelmine Amalie to return in full force after several years remission.
When Charles returned, he was proclaimed as the new Holy Roman Emperor,
Charles VI.
His inability to produce male heirs irked Charles VI and eventually led to the promulgation of the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1713
The Pragmatic Sanction ( la, Sanctio Pragmatica, german: Pragmatische Sanktion) was an edict issued by Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, on 19 April 1713 to ensure that the Habsburg hereditary possessions, which included the Archduchy of Austria ...
, a document which abolished male-only succession and declared his lands indivisible. The new Emperor favoured his own daughters over those of Joseph I and Wilhelmine Amalie, in the succession, ignoring a decree he had signed during the reign of his father,
Leopold I.
She as well as her mother-in-law was active in fighting for their daughter's right to the throne. By the secret ''pactum mutuae successionis'' of 1703, Leopold had made an agreement with his sons that the daughters of Joseph would be first in the line of succession, followed by those of Charles and Leopold, and though none of the empresses knew of the existence of the document, there had been talk of it, and Joseph had hinted about it to Wilhelmine Amalie. Baron Seilern apparently showed Wilhelmine Amalie the document before it was presented to the head of her family, the elector of Hanover. In 1712, the elector sent the famous
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...
to her to assist her in defending her daughters rights against Charles, and on 21 April 1713, Charles VI presented the Pragmatic Sanction in which he adjusted himself to the memorandum of Wilhelmine Amalie from the document of ''pactum mutuae successionis'', after which she celebrated with a dinner for the empresses and archduchesses at the table of empress dowager Eleanore, where she was congratulated on her success and answered that she hoped the emperor would have a son. In 1715, however, her supporter Seilern died, and in 1717, Charles VI changed the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction to favor his daughters over hers. She did not approve, but did not openly protest.
![Maria Theresa and Francis Wedding Breakfast by Martin van Meytens ca 1736](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Maria_Theresa_and_Francis_Wedding_Breakfast_by_Martin_van_Meytens_ca_1736.jpg)
In 1722, after her daughters were married, Wilhelmine Amalie retired to a convent that she had founded earlier in 1717, the ''Salesianerinnenkloster auf dem Rennwege'' in Vienna. The convent did not mean a retreat from social life, as she was in fact very active as a dowager, regularly leaving the convent for family visits as well as representational visits. It was as an Empress dowager that she had her greatest impact upon cultural life in Vienna. Her medical prescriptions in her care for the sick was recommended, and she founded a boarding school as well as one of Vienna's first
orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...
s for girls. She admired
Francois de Sales and
Jeanne Francoise Fremont de Chantal, and helped promote her canonisation. She was also a patron of the Catholic reformer
Lodovico Antonio Muratori
Lodovico Antonio Muratori (21 October 1672 – 23 January 1750) was an Italian historian, notable as a leading scholar of his age, and for his discovery of the Muratorian fragment, the earliest known list of New Testament books.
Biography
Born ...
.
Wilhelmine Amalie got along very well with her mother-in-law Eleonore and her sister-in-law Elisabeth Christine as well as with the archduchesses, and the three empresses were described as supportive toward each other: Wilhelmine Amalie nursed Elisabeth Christine when she had
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
, and Elisabeth Christine nursed Eleanor during her last illness.
In 1740,
Charles VI died. During the
War of the Austrian Succession
The War of the Austrian Succession () was a European conflict that took place between 1740 and 1748. Fought primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italy, the Atlantic and Mediterranean, related conflicts included King George's ...
, Wilhelmine Amalie initially supported her son-in-law,
Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, in his pursuit of the imperial crown, but soon retired again to private life. In June 1741, empress Maria Theresa visited her and asked her to act as a mediator between herself and her son-in-law the Bavarian elector, but she refused.
[Crankshaw, Edward: Maria Theresa. Longmans. London (1969)]
Wilhelmine Amalie outlived her spouse by more than 30 years, dying on 10 April 1742. She is buried in the
Salesian
, image = File:Stemma big.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
, abbreviation = SDB
, formation =
, founder = John Bosco
, founding_location = Valdocco, Turin ...
convent 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 ...
. Her heart is buried in the Imperial Crypt.
Ancestry
References
External links
Royal titles
, -
, -
, -
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick
German queens consort
Holy Roman Empresses
Italian queens consort
Hungarian queens consort
Bohemian queens consort
Austrian royal consorts
Duchesses of Teschen
New House of Lüneburg
1673 births
1742 deaths
German Roman Catholics
Duchesses of Brunswick-Lüneburg
18th-century women of the Holy Roman Empire
Burials at the Imperial Crypt