Birthday Greetings # 51

Nature or nurture?  Is an individual's personality determined by their genetic make up or by the influences on their upbringing?  Its a question that has been debated by psychologists and social workers for as long as we've had psychologists and social workers.  Largely one suspects because they need to justify their salaries somehow.  Current thinking seems to come down in favour of acknowledging a certain genetic predisposition one way or another while also affirming that upbringing can have a determined affect on how those predispositions manifest themselves.  This is known in academic circles as "having a bet each way".

In days gone by opinion fell firmly into the "nature" camp.  That is a person was the sum of his (women weren't really included in these calculations) ancestors.  This was very useful for maintaining the status quo and justifying monarchy's right to be, well, monarchy.  It also had a fair amount of circumstantial evidence to back it up.  If your father was a cobbler then the chances were that you would be too.  If your father was a peasant then you had better get used to the idea of herding someone else's cow.  It would have seemed only natural that if somebody's father was a king then that person would, in the fullness of time, become a king as well.  Furthermore because that person's father was a king they were automatically qualified to kingship.  In short they had the necessary genetic qualifications.

The ancient Romans actually believed that a person's character was set from the day they were born and didn't change.  Any apparent changes that might occur as the result of life experience were in fact dissimulation.  Thus the fact that the emperor Tiberius who started out as a gloomy, humourless depressive but still a talented administrator and commander wound up as a paranoiac psychopath who apparently molested children underwater (no I don't know how that's possible either and I'm afraid to google it in case I find out) was explained by claiming that he'd always been a murderous nutcase with a penchant for damp children but had successfully hidden it for years.

Naturally an implied genetic disposition to rule was of great value to those who were doing the ruling.  The simple fact that you were your father's son constituted your entire resumé for one day sitting on a throne and dispensing justice to all and sundry.  The only problem with this theory was that it absolutely relied on the fact that there would be a son to follow the father.  If the direct male succession should somehow fail then suddenly the ruling family appeared to have no more qualification to rule than anyone else.  As one can imagine such cases of dynastic exhaustion led to some increasing desperate patching and filling as one dynasty or another attempted to find some way of justifying their continued hold on the nation's hearts and minds (and, of course, throats).

That rather lengthy introduction has been added to help you understand what our birthday boy spent his entire life doing.  So, with no further ado; happy birthday to Charles (or Karl) VI, Holy Roman Emperor, last of his line.  At least he was the last of his line according to the rules of the time.  A combination of inbreeding, disease and sheer bad luck had winnowed the male Habsburg line down to him and his elder brother.  The winnowing would not stop there.

It was never intended that Charles be Holy Roman Emperor.  His elder brother Joseph had already been tapped for that job leaving Charles free to be foisted onto whatever unwilling country could be persuaded to take him.  The country in question was Spain.  In 1700 the last Habsburg king of Spain (Carlos the Bewitched) had died without issue allowing Europe to be plunged cheerfully into fourteen years of war to determine who should take over after him.  There were two candidates; the Bourbon Philip, grandson of King Louis XIV of France and our boy Charles.  Charles was supported by the Empire (for what that was worth) and by Britain and Holland (both of whom were having kittens at the thought of Spain and its empire effectively being taken over by France).  However just as it looked like Charles might actually get the throne a couple of deaths got in the way.  Specifically those of his father and brother.  His father Leopold died in 1705 and elder brother Joseph became Holy Roman Emperor however when Joseph himself died a few years later Charles unexpectedly became the emperor.  The British and Dutch may not have liked the idea of a Bourbon monarch on the Spanish throne but they were even less happy about a revived Habsburg "empire of Europe" including both the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish realms.  Support for Charles's Spanish pretensions evaporated and eventually Philip gained the throne on the understanding that it would never be merged with the French monarchy.

This left Charles somewhat moodily running the empire.  He had really wanted Spain (for some reason) and didn't get over the fact that he couldn't have it.  However he had something more important on his mind.  Sons!  Or rather, the lack of them.  His brother had had only daughters which meant the number of functioning, fertile Habsburg males was reduced to him and although his wife provided him (what a glorious term) with a couple of daughters, of sons there were none.

Somehow Charles had to find a workaround for the fact that legally his dynasty was about to cease to exist.  His solution was the Pragmatic Sanction.  Most of the remainder of his life and immense amounts of Habsburg money (always in short supply) and diplomatic credit were expended persuading the nobility of his various realms and the crowned heads of the rest of Europe that his daughter, one Maria Theresa, should be able to inherit all of his territories.  Concessions were made left, right and centre and in return worthless signatures and greasy assurances were gained.  It is easy to look back and see the entire exercise as a monumental waste of time and money.  Maria Theresa's territories were invaded by virtually everyone before his body was cold.  It is difficult to see what else he could have done though.  He didn't have a son, the best he could do was try and provide an insurance policy for his daughter.

One other thing he could have done was teach her the job.  He didn't do that.  Despite all of his frantic manoeuvring to ensure she could sit on a throne it doesn't seem to have occurred to Charles to actually provide his daughter with any training for the role.  Considering their respective talent levels that was probably all for the best but it did provide for some heart stopping moments as she worked her way into the job.

Naturally this wasn't the only thing happening during the reign of Charles.  He fought a war with Turkey which he more or less won.  Then he got tangled up in the war of the Polish Succession which he totally lost.  Following this was another war with Turkey which lost him most of the gains from the earlier war with Turkey and pretty much bankrupted the empire.  With no money, an army that was falling apart and an increasing restive empire Charles went hunting, caught a chill and died leaving the entire mess to an untrained, twenty three year old.  Fortunately she proved to be incredibly formidable and talented.  God knows who she inherited that from.