Mutual Pact of Succession
The Mutual Pact of Succession (Latin: Pactum Mutuae Successionis, German: Gegenseitiger Erbvertrag) was a succession device secretly signed by archdukes Joseph and Charles of Austria, the future emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1703.
In 1700 the senior line of the
In 1705 Leopold I died and was succeeded by his elder son, Joseph I. Six years later, Emperor Joseph I died leaving behind two daughters, Archduchesses Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia. Charles, who was at the time still unsuccessfully fighting for the crowns of Spain, succeeded him according to the Pact and returned to Vienna. According to the Pact, the heir presumptive to the Habsburg realms was, at that moment, Charles's niece, Maria Josepha, who was followed in the line of succession by her younger sister, Maria Amalia. However, Charles soon expressed a wish to amend the Pact in order to give his own future daughters precedence over his nieces. On 9 April 1713, the Emperor announced the changes in a secret session of the council.[1]
The Pact was finally superseded by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, promulgated by Charles to ensure the succession of his own daughters instead of Joseph's. The crowns belonging to the House of Habsburg were thus inherited by Charles's elder surviving daughter, Maria Theresa (born in 1717), rather than by Joseph's elder daughter, Maria Josepha.
References
Bibliography
- Crankshaw, Edward: Maria Theresa, Longman publishers 1969
- Holborn, Hajo: A History of Modern Germany: 1648–1840 Princeton University Press 1982 ISBN 0-691-00796-9
- Ingrao, Charles W: The Habsburg monarchy, 1618–1815 Cambridge University Press 2000 ISBN 0-521-78505-7
- Kann, Robert A.: A history of the Habsburg Empire, 1526–1918 University of California Press 1980 ISBN 0-520-04206-9
- Mahan, J. Alexander: Maria Theresa of Austria READ BOOKS 2007 ISBN 1-4067-3370-9