Habsburg Archduchess, the Only Female Ruler of Her House
Maria Theresa (1717–1780) was the only actually ruling female sovereign in Habsburg history; because the Habsburg house had no prior precedent of female succession, her right to the throne was for a time challenged by powers such as Prussia, sparking the "War of the Austrian Succession," of which the most important battle was over Silesia against Frederick the Great. During her reign she pursued a series of enlightened reforms in administration, taxation, and education, and had sixteen children, including the later Queen of France Marie Antoinette, weaving through marriage a Habsburg political network across Europe.
Maria Theresa’s father Charles VI had issued the "Pragmatic Sanction" to try to secure recognition of her succession by other nations, but the moment he died, Frederick the Great of Prussia at once seized Silesia, and other powers too sought to partition Habsburg lands, so that Maria Theresa had to consolidate the legitimacy of her rule in person amid the fighting.
Maria Theresa bore sixteen children, most of whom in adulthood married into or linked to Europe’s royal houses; her youngest daughter, Marie Antoinette, was married off to the French dauphin, a marriage meant to cement the Austro-French alliance yet ending in the tragedy of her daughter sent to the guillotine when the French Revolution broke out.
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