Maria Elisabeth of Austria (1680–1741)

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Maria Elisabeth of Austria, governor of the Austrian Netherlands

Maria Elisabeth of Austria (born December 13, 1680 in Linz , † August 26, 1741 in Mariemont Castle near Morlanwelz in Hainaut ) was a member of the House of Habsburg . She was Archduchess of Austria and from 1724 to 1741 governor of the Austrian Netherlands . Equipped with great powers, she ruled the Netherlands in a relatively authoritarian manner and held a large court, but was popular due to her piety and poor relief. She took decisive action against Jansenism and, in the cultural field, favored the enhancement of the musical life of Brussels , in which city she resided. After 16 years in office, the governor, who never married, died at the age of 60.

Lineage and early years

Maria Elisabeth of Austria at the age of around four ( Charles Brendel )

Maria Elisabeth was a daughter of Emperor Leopold I and his third wife Eleonore Magdalene von Pfalz-Neuburg . She was born in Linz in December 1680 after her parents had left Vienna because of the rampant plague there . In her youth she received an excellent education and, in addition to German, learned French, Italian and Latin, which she mastered perfectly. As early as 1698 she emerged as the author of the work Chronologia augustissimae Domus Austriacae in Synopses collecta ... written in Latin , which deals with the history of her dynasty. The manuscript of this learned treatise is in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Furthermore, like many members of her family, the Archduchess showed an affinity for Italian music and opera .

During the War of the Spanish Succession , Maria Elisabeth's father, Emperor Leopold I, died in 1705. His son Joseph I became the new emperor. After Joseph's unexpected death in 1711, his successor Charles VI transferred. his unmarried older sister Maria Elisabeth took over the government of Tyrol .

Governor of the Netherlands

In June 1716, Prince Eugene of Savoy was appointed governor of the Austrian Netherlands, which roughly corresponded to today's Belgium . In this function, however, he was represented by the authorized minister, Ercole Turinetti de Prié . This made himself very unpopular in the Dutch provinces and was finally recalled to Vienna in September 1724 for alleged embezzlement. On November 20, 1724, Prince Eugene officially renounced his position as governor. Emperor Charles VI appointed his successor. the 44-year-old Archduchess Maria Elisabeth, who left Vienna on September 4, 1725 and arrived in Tienen on October 4 , where she was received by the son of the interim governor, Count von und zu Daun . After a stopover in Leuven , she ceremoniously entered Brussels on October 9, 1725 . Numerous festivals were then held.

The governor resided in the Palace of Coudenberg in Brussels; When this palace burned down on the night of February 3rd to 4th, 1731, she was only able to get to safety with difficulty half-dressed. After that, the Hôtel d'Orange (also known as the Hôtel de Nassau ) became their new residence. Her successor Karl Alexander of Lorraine was only able to realize her plans to restore the palace in Brussels, which was almost completely destroyed by the fire .

The Dutch provincial estates made generous funds available to Maria Elisabeth, namely a civil list of 560,000 Brabant guilders. So she could afford an expensive courtship. There was strict etiquette at their court; for example, she always ate her meals alone. The widowed Countess Uhlfeld presided over her noble ladies of honor for a long time as chief stewardess.

Maria Elisabeth was given far-reaching powers by her imperial brother. For example, it was allowed to appoint prelates independently - but only with the consent of the Viennese court - as well as governors of the individual provinces and members of the Great Council of Mechelen and the collateral councils . The latter had been abolished by Philip V , but they were reinstated on Maria Elisabeth's initiative in September 1725; of course, the Secret Council, as the actual central government , still set the tone politically. The governor tried to work as harmoniously as possible with the existing institutions and, thanks to her personal commitment, received permission to amnesty those people who had participated in the unrest in Brussels in 1718. Through her politics she brought about a reconciliation between the Austrian Netherlands and the Habsburg supremacy, but also built up the central power of her dynasty at the expense of the authority of the local government authorities.

The governor had to accept the fact that she was assigned a chief steward appointed by the emperor . This was primarily responsible for the performance of the duties of an authorized minister, especially the observation of state politics and the uncompromising implementation of imperial orders. The Italian Count Giulio Visconti Borromeo Arese , who had accompanied the governor to the Netherlands , first took up this position in 1725 . Due to a lack of investigations into her term of office, it has not yet been sufficiently possible to extract the share of Maria Elisabeth in the government and that of her court master.

Maria Elisabeth did not comply with various measures ordered by the Emperor for the Netherlands and was able to convince him of her point of view on several occasions. If she failed, she sometimes put up hesitant resistance. For example, she did not want to publish the emperor's orders regarding the right of asylum and the establishment of artistic directors based on the French model.

The national mother was very popular with her subjects because of her piety and care for the needy and the sick. She attended religious festivities and took part in pilgrimages. Every year on Maundy Thursday she washed the feet of twelve poor old women, entertained them and provided them with new clothes. It also raised the Brussels musical life. She sponsored Jean-Joseph Fiocco , who was the choirmaster of her court orchestra in Brussels and who dedicated several oratorios to her between 1726 and 1738 . She enjoyed attending opera performances organized by Italian ensembles.

In the religious sector, the very conservative governor devoted herself in particular to the suppression of the heretical Catholic denomination of Jansenism . The important Jansenist and church lawyer Zeger Bernhard van Espen was expelled by order of the governor. There was also increased censorship and the publication of an index of banned books, especially by non-conformist authors. Her confessor, Stefan Amiodt , who belonged to the Jesuits , acted as advisor on this church policy . This also documented her tenure in the Netherlands in a 26-volume work, which, however, never appeared in print. The governor was very fond of the Jesuit order.

Visconti Borromeo Arese offered little resistance to Maria Elisabeth's policies. In order to have a stronger influence on their very independent government, the Bohemian Count Friedrich August von Harrach-Rohrau took the place of Visconti in 1732 . The new chief steward also had the task of improving the dismal financial situation, which had led to a considerable delay in the payment of the officials' wages. After Harrach intervened with the emperor, Maria Elisabeth felt compelled to cut a number of superfluous offices and to reform others. Fifteen high-ranking officials sponsored by her had to resign.

The governor tried to stimulate the economy, which had been gaining momentum again in all of Europe since the beginning of the 1730s after the doldrums of the 17th century, also in her sphere of influence; Industry and trade experienced an upswing. For the first time, she had the industry of the country under her administration analyzed comprehensively, hoping to find ways of reforming it. The approval of the end of 1722 by Charles VI. The Ostend Company , which was founded very successfully for the sea trade with the East Indies, was forced to suspend international political pressure as early as 1727 and finally to abolish it in 1731.

The replacement of Maria Elisabeth as Dutch governor by the son-in-law of Emperor Charles VI, Franz Stephan , in the room in 1737 did not materialize, which development the Brussels population welcomed with bonfires.

death

In July 1741 Maria Elisabeth went to Mariemont Castle, which was near Morlanwelz in Hainaut. She wanted to spend the summer in this castle. She had liked to stay here several times, to escape her uncomfortable Brussels residence, and to enjoy fishing and hunting, among other things. As early as 1739 she had a chapel consecrated to the Blessed Virgin built here by outstanding Dutch artists, including Laurent Delvaux . She intended to turn Mariemont into a spa that would be able to compete with spa , and in the summer of 1741 she watched physico-chemical experiments with mineral waters from a spring in the park. Then she took part in a hunting trip. Suddenly she fell ill and died on August 26, 1741 at the age of 60 in Mariemont Castle. Her successor, Duke Karl Alexander von Lothringen, who had been a co-governor since April 1741, was temporarily represented by the previous chief steward Friedrich August von Harrach-Rohrau before he took over the post of governor himself in 1744.

For the time being, the body of the deceased Archduchess was buried in the crypt in front of the high altar of the Sainte Gudule church in Brussels , but in April 1749 it was transferred to Vienna on the orders of Maria Theresa . The Archduchess is buried in the Capuchin Crypt next to her father Emperor Leopold I and her niece Maria Anna . Her heart urn is in the heart of the Habsburgs in the Loreto Chapel of the Augustinian Church in Vienna , her entrails urn in the ducal crypt . She is one of those 41 people who received a “ separate burial ” with the body being divided between all three traditional Viennese burial sites of the Habsburgs (Imperial Crypt, Heart Crypt, Ducal Crypt).

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Elisabeth  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Maria Elisabeth of Austria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Archduchess and governor of the Austrian Netherlands (1724–1741)
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1680
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1741
Place of death Marienmont Castle near Morlanwelz in Hainaut