Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
1691 – 1750 · Generation XV · Consort
Elisabeth Christine (1691 – 1750). Consort. Married Charles in 1708. Wife of Charles VI; mother of Maria Theresa. Born in Brunswick, she was engaged at thirteen through the negotiations of her ambitious grandfather, Duke Anthony Ulrich. A Lutheran, she resisted the required conversion before giving way; after instruction from her future mother-in-law, Empress Eleonore, she was received into the Catholic Church at Bamberg in 1707. She married Charles in Barcelona’s Santa María del Mar in 1708, while he was fighting for the Spanish crown, and when he left to become emperor in 1711 she remained behind as governor of Catalonia until 1713. In Austria she was allowed no political role, though she cultivated ministers and arranged her niece’s marriage to the future Frederick the Great. Above all she was expected to produce a son: her only boy, Leopold John, died in 1716 at seven months, and the fertility regimes imposed on her ruined her health. Widowed in 1740, she lived at Schloss Hetzendorf, her daughter’s gift.
Place in the family
- Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was the mother of Maria Theresa.
- The archive records 24 of her descendants, across 10 generations.
Partners
- Married Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (1685 – 1740) in 1708 — one child together
Children
- Maria Theresa (1717 – 1780)
Life
- 1691 — Born
- 1708 — Married Charles
- 1750 — Died