152 



CHARLES. 



ferings from the gout were extreme : he could not 

 even open a letter-without pain. After his mother's 

 death, he thought sometimes Umt he heard her voice, 

 calling to him to follow her. It is said tliat, when 

 arming for battle, he trembled ; but, in the heat of 

 the engagement, was as cool as if it were impossible 

 for an 'emperor to be killed. \\ V know of no work, 

 in whidi tin- character of Charles lias been delineated 

 with more truth than in the valuable production of 

 Mr Ranke, professor in the university of Berlin. 

 The Princes and Nations of the South of Europe in 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Hamburg, 

 1827). Among the numerous sources of the history 

 of Charles V., we would mention Hormayr's Ana 

 durchaus ungedruckten Papieren, in his Archiv. fur 

 Geogr. Historic, &c. (Jahrg. 1810). The work of 

 Robertson is too well known to need recommenda- 

 tion. 



CHARLES VI., the second son of the emperor 

 Leopold I., was born Oct. 1, 1685. His lather des- 

 tined him for the Spanish throne. The last prince of" 

 the house of Hapsburg, Charles II., disregarding the 

 house of Austria, whose right to the Spanish throne 

 was undoubted, according to the law of inheritance 

 by descent, had, by his will, made Philip, duke of 

 Anjou, second grandson of Louis XIV., heir of the 

 Spanish monarchy, and, after the death of Charles 

 II., Nov. 1, 1700, Philip had taken possession of the 

 vacant kingdom. England and Holland united 

 against him, and this alliance was soon joined by 

 the German empire, Portugal, and Savoy. Charles 

 was proclaimed king of Spain, at Vienna, in 1703, 

 and proceeded, by way of Holland, to England, from 

 whence, in January, 1704, he set sail, with 12,000 

 men, for Spain, which was almost wholly occupied 

 by tin- French, and landed in Catalonia. He suc- 

 ceeded in making himself master of Barcelona ; but 

 he was soon besieged there by his rival Philip V. 

 .The French had already taken Mont Jouy, prepara- 

 tions were making for an assault on the city, and it 

 seemed as if Charles could not escape being cap- 

 tured. Nevertheless, at the head of a garrison of 

 hardly 2000 men, he made the most obstinate re- 

 sistance, till the long-expected English fleet appeared, 

 which put to flight the twelve French ships that 

 ' blockaded the harbour, and landed a body of troops, 

 which compelled the French speedily to raise the 

 siege. This event was followed by alternate reverses 

 and successes. Twice Cliarles reached Madrid, and 

 twice was he driven from the city. The first time, 

 in 1706, he caused himself to be proclaimed king, in 

 the capital, under the name of Charles III. He 

 had been a second tune compelled to flee to the 

 walls of Barcelona, when he was informed of the 

 death of his brother Joseph I. According to the 

 will of Leopold, this event placed the double crown 

 of Charles V. on his head ; to his claims on Spain, 

 it added the more certain possession of the Austrian 

 dominions. But the allies were averse to seeing so 

 much power united in the same hands. Charles re- 

 paired to Germany by way of Italy, and, on his arri- 

 val, learned that, at Eugene's suggestion, he had 

 also been elected emperor. His coronation took 

 place at Frankfort, in December, 1711 ; and, in the 

 following year, he received, at Presburg, the crown 

 of Hungary. At the same time, he still retained the 

 empty title of king of Spain. He now prosecuted, 

 under the conduct of Eugene, the Spanish war of 

 succession, which his brother had carried on with so 

 much success in the Netherlands ; but Marlborough's 

 disgrace, and the retreat of th? English army, hav- 

 ing resulted in a defeat at Denain, the allies con- 

 cluded a peace with France at Utrecht, in 1713, in 

 spite of all the efforts of the emperor to prevent it. 

 He was obliged, in the following year, to sign the 



treaty of Rastadt. This treaty secured him in Iho 

 possession of Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, and the Neth- 

 erlands. Soon after, in June, 1715, the Turks de- 

 clared war against Venice. The emperor undertook 

 the defence of this republic. His brave armies, led 

 by Eugene, acliieved decisive victories at Peterwar- 

 dein and Belgrade. But, as the Spaniards menaced 

 Italy, Charles concluded, in 1718, the peace of I'a-- 

 sarowicz, by wliich he obtained Belgrade, the north 

 of Servia, and Temeswar. Cardinal Alberoni, who 

 was at the head of the cabinet of Madrid, invol\l 

 Austria, by his schemes, in a new war. But die 

 quadruple alliance, concluded at London in 1718, 

 terminated the war with the removal of this min- 

 ister, in 1720. To secure his dominions to his 

 daughter Maria Theresa, in default of male heirs, 

 diaries strove to induce the various powers to gua- 

 rantee the pragmatic sanction, which settled the suc- 

 cession in her mvour. He succeeded, by degrees, in 

 gaining the concurrence of all the European powers. 

 The emperor availed himself of a short period of 

 peace to establish various institutions for the benefit 

 of commerce. He visited, in person, the coasts of 

 Istria, where he caused roads and harbours to be 

 constructed, and vessels to be built. His plans re- 

 specting the Indian trade in the Netherlands had not 

 the same success, and he was compelled to sacrifice 

 them to the pretensions of the maritime powers. 

 The reign of this prince, by nature a lover of peace, 

 was marked with perpetual agitations. The succes- 

 sion to the Polish throne, after the death of Au- 

 gustus II., in 1733, disturbed the peace of Europe. 

 Charles, with Russia, supported the son of this 

 prince; but France and Spain declared themselves 

 for Stanislaus Leczinsky. From this arose a bloody 

 war, which terminated, in 1735, in the loss of the 

 Two Sicilies and a part of the duchy of Milan. 

 Austria received Tuscany in exchange for Lorraine, 

 and obtained Parma. Hardly had Charles finished 

 this war, when his alliance with Russia involved him 

 anew in a war with the Turks. In 1737, his troops, 

 under field-marshal Seckendorf, invaded Servia, with- 

 out any declaration of war, and occupied Nissa. 

 But the Turks renewed their attacks with a continu- 

 ally augmented force, and obliged the emperor, 

 after three unsuccessful campaigns, to cede to them, 

 by the peace of Belgrade, in 1739, Walachia, and 

 the Austrian part of Servia, with Belgrade. Charles 

 died Oct. 20, 1740, at a time when he was em- 

 ployed in the improvement of his distracted finances, 

 and was about putting the last hand to the prag- 

 matic sanction, by causing the grand-duke of Tus- 

 cany, his son-in-law, to be chosen king of the Romans. 

 CHARLES VII. (properly Charles Albert), king 

 of the Romans, born at Brussels, in the year L6SJ7, 

 was the son of Maximilian Emanuel, elector of Ba- 

 varia, then governor of the Spanish Netherlands. 

 His youth was spent at the imperial court, and, in 

 the war against the Turks, he commanded the army 

 of auxiliaries sent by his father. In 1722, he mar- 

 ried the daughter of Joseph I., having previously 

 renounced allrights which this marriage might give 

 him to the succession to the throne of Austria. In 

 1726, he succeeded his father as elector of Bavaria. 

 He was one of the princes who protested against the 

 pragmatic sanction, guaranteed, in 1732, by the diet 

 of Ratisbon, and, in consequence, concluded a de- 

 fensive alliance with Saxony. After the death of 

 Charles VI. (q. v.), in 1740, he refused to acknow- 

 ledge Maria Theresa as his heiress, founding his own 

 claims to the succession on a testament of Ferdi- 

 nand I. He was supported by the king of France, 

 with a considerable force. In 1741, he was recog- 

 nized, at Lintz, as archduke of Austria. The ob- 

 stacles thrown in his way by cardinal Fleury, who 



