Birthday Greetings #45

Happy birthday to Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.  Francis wasn't a Habsburg but he was Habsburg adjacent having married the daughter of the Habsburg emperor Charles VI.  Charles was a deeply mediocre emperor in many ways and perhaps his greatest error was his failure to produce sons.  In those male centric times the absence of an heir with a penis essentially ended your dynasty.  Fortunately for Charles his daughter Maria Theresia proved to be a highly capable ruler.  Fortunately for Maria Theresia her husband Francis didn't get in her way.

Francis was the heir to the Duchy of Lorraine which was technically part of the Holy Roman Empire.  Unfortunately for Francis it was specifically very close to France.  The ruling family of Lorraine had been loyal servants of the empire for years and Charles had long intended Francis to marry Maria Theresia but Francis had expected to come to the marriage with at least a duchy in hand.  Unfortunately Charles got into a quite ridiculous war over the succession to the Polish crown and as a result of this the Duchy of Lorraine was given to France (which still has it) and Francis was without a territory to rule.  Charles soothed him by making him Duke of Tuscany and making the marriage to Maria Theresia conditional on Francis signing away his rights to Lorraine.  With a start like that it surprising that the marriage was as successful as it was.

As husband to be to Charles' heir Francis was given a series of high ranking administrative and military jobs and managed to bungle all of them.  At this point Charles died and the absence of a male Habsburg made itself felt.  By ancient law the crown of the Holy Roman Empire could only go to a man and there were no male Habsburgs left.  Technically this shouldn't have mattered too much as the Habsburg's real power lay in the territories they ruled directly but without the lustre of the imperial crown about them and with a woman in charge (and possessed of a husband of proven incompetence) the great powers of Europe cheerfully invaded Habsburg territories looking to rip off bits for themselves.  The imperial crown itself fell to the Prince Elector of Bavaria (who was backed by France).

Maria Theresia proved herself equal to the challenge.  In a series of wars she managed to beat back the invaders (except Prussia who collared Silesia) and establish herself within her hereditary lands.  As for Francis?  Well he was there.  He had learned to let his wife do the heavy lifting and essentially acted as a kind of secretary for her, giving advice when needed (rarely) and support always.  With her position solidified, her prestige restored and the Bavarian emperor safely dead (nobody had really taken him seriously) Maria Theresia managed to strongarm the German electors into electing her husband as Holy Roman Emperor.  She didn't actually attend the coronation herself, aware that everyone looked on Francis as a mere cipher she stayed away so he could have one day in the sun by himself.

The cares of the empire sat pretty lightly on Francis' shoulders.  By this time the powers of the emperor were so truncated there wasn't that much for him to do.  He continued on acting as assistant and advisor to Maria Theresia.  They had sixteen children which is astonishing.  What is more astonishing is he was a serial adulterer as well.  It's a good thing he didn't have much to do as emperor because I doubt if he could have found the time.  It's also surprising he didn't die of dehydration.

When he did die it turned out that he had spent a lot of his spare time in business.  He left an absolute fortune to the Austrian treasury and people were a little startled to discover that through his discreet advice the empire was actually in the best financial position it had been in for centuries.  This is perhaps the greatest way he differed from his Habsburg in-laws.  None of them showed much skill with money except when it came to borrowing and spending it.  Whatever talent it was that he possessed it seemed highly specific as it doesn't seem to have been passed down to any of his heirs.

Technically after the death of Charles VI the Habsburg line was extinct and the dynasty that replaced it was that of Habsburg-Lorraine. Nobody really took that seriously even when Francis was alive.  Nowadays only pedantic genealogists even bother to try.