Charles VI (Holy Roman Empire)

Charles VI (Holy Roman Empire) (1685-1740), Holy Roman emperor (1711-1740) and, as Charles III, king of Hungary (1712-1740), the son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, born in Vienna. When Charles II, king of Spain, died childless in 1700, Leopold proclaimed his son king of Spain in opposition to Duke Philip of Anjou, who had been willed the Spanish throne. Philip became king as Philip V and thus precipitated the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Charles had numerous allies and Philip was aided only by France, but after alternate successes and reverses Charles renounced his claim to Spain in the treaties of Rastatt and Baden (1714). In 1711 Charles had succeeded his brother Joseph I as Holy Roman emperor; in 1713 he issued the Pragmatic Sanction to secure the succession of his daughter Maria Theresa in the event that he should die without a male heir. In 1716 the emperor renewed an alliance with Venice and entered into successful warfare against the Ottoman Empire, with the help of his able general, Prince Eugene of Savoy. By the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz, Charles gained control of parts of Serbia and Walachia. In 1733, he engaged unsuccessfully in the War of the Polish Succession. Under the Treaty of Vienna, which terminated the war in 1735 (but was not ratified until 1738), Charles ceded the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily to Spain in exchange for the duchies of Parma and Piacenza. During a second war with the Turks from 1737 to 1739, Charles lost most of the territory he had won in 1718. He was succeeded by Maria Theresa, but her right to the throne was contested in the War of the Austrian Succession.

See also Utrecht, Peace of.