Death of Maria Theresa (1780)

Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy since 1740, died on 29 November 1780. Her death left her eldest son Joseph II, already Holy Roman Emperor since 1765, as sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, freeing him to pursue his own policies of enlightened reform. The supplied passages do not name the city of her death.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. Maria Theresa had ruled the Habsburg monarchy from 1740 as its only female sovereign in her own right, holding the crowns of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia among many other territories. Although her husband Francis I and eldest son Joseph II were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, she governed as an autocratic sovereign with the counsel of her advisers.

Joseph II Before Sole Rule. Joseph II, born 13 March 1741, had been Holy Roman Emperor since 18 August 1765 and was the eldest son of Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. Despite his intellect, his mother's force of personality often made him cower, and during the War of the Bavarian Succession he commanded Austrian troops in the field in Bohemia.

Succession and Immediate Consequences. Maria Theresa's death on 29 November 1780 made Joseph II sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy. He immediately directed his government on a new course, seeking to realise enlightened despotism through a definite system for the good of all, and soon pursued measures including the Patent of Toleration and the abolition of serfdom in 1781.

People involved

Sources

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.