Emperor Joseph II (1741-1790) and Wives (AD Isabella and Empress Josepha)


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Joseph II Benedikt August Johannes Anton Michael Adam, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduchess of Austria, a Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia (Vienna, 13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790); married 1stly in Vienna on 6 October 1760 Princess Maria Isabella Luisa Antonietta Fernandina Giuseppina Saveria Dominica Giovanna of Parma (Madrid, 31 December 1741 – Vienna, 27 November 1763); married 2ndly in on , Princess Maria Josepha Antonie Walburga Felicitas Regula of Bavaria (Munich, 20 March 1739 - Vienna, 28 May 1767)

Reign (as Holy Roman Emperor): 1765 - 1790

Reign (Habsburg lands): 1780 - 1790

Predecessor (Holy Roman Emperor): Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor

Predecessor (Habsburg lands): Empress Maria-Theresia of Austria

Sucessor: Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

Children Joseph and Josepha: Archduchess Maria Theresa and Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria

Parents Joseph: Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor, Duke of Lorraine and Empress Maria-Theresia of Austria

Parents Isabella: Duke Philip VI of Parma and Princess Louise-Elisabeth of France

Parents Josepha: Elector Karl Albrecht of Bavaria and Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria

Siblings Joseph: Archduchess Maria Elisabeth; Archduchess Maria Anna and Archduchess Maria Karolina of Austria; Princess Maria Christina of Saxony, Duchess of Teschen; Archduchess Maria Elisabeth and Archduke Karl Joseph of Austria; Duchess Maria Amalia of Parma; Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary and King of Bohemia; Archduchess Maria Karoline; Archduchess Maria Johanna and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria; Queen Maria Karoline of Napels and Sicily; Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este, Duke of Breisgau; Queen Maria Antonia (Marie-Antoinette) of France and Navarre and Archduke Maximilian Franz, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne

Siblings Isabella: Duke Ferdinand of Parma and Queen Maria Luisa of Spain

Siblings Josepha: Princess Maximiliane Maria of Bavaria; Queen Maria Antonia of Saxony; Princess Theresia Benedicta of Bavaria; Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria; Prince Joseph Ludwig of Bavaria and Markgravine Maria Anna of Baden-Baden
 
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Joseph II (full name: Joseph Benedikt August Johannes Anton Michael Adam; March 13, 1741 – February 20, 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I. Joseph was a proponent of enlightened absolutism.
Joseph was born in the midst of the early upheavals of the War of the Austrian Succession. Maria Theresa gave orders that he was only to be taught as if he were amusing himself; the result was that Joseph acquired a habit of crude and superficial study. His real education was given to him through the writings of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, and by the example of Frederick the Great. His useful training was conferred by government officials, who were directed to instruct him in the mechanical details of the administration of the numerous states composing the Austrian dominions and the Empire.
He was made a member of the constituted council of state (Staatsrath) and began to draw up minutes (to which he gave the name of "Reveries") for his mother to read. These papers contain the germs of his later policy, and of all the disasters which finally overtook him. He was a friend to religious toleration, anxious to reduce the power of the church, to relieve the peasantry of feudal burdens, and to remove restrictions on trade and knowledge. In these, he did not differ from Frederick, Catherine of Russia, or his own brother and successor Leopold II, all enlightened rulers of the 18th century stamp. He was a great influence on serfs but that did not last after his death.
Where Joseph differed from great contemporary rulers, and where he was very close akin to the Jacobins, was in the fanatical intensity of his belief in the power of the state when directed by reason, of his right to speak for the state uncontrolled by laws, and of the sensibility of his rule. He had also inherited from his mother the belief of the house of Austria in its "august" quality and its claim to acquire whatever it found desirable for its power or profit. He was unable to understand that his philosophical plans for the moulding of mankind could meet with pardonable opposition.
Joseph was documented by contemporaries as being impressive, but not necessarily likeable. In 1760, his arranged consort, the well educated Isabella of Parma, was handed over to him. Joseph appears to have been completely in love with her, but Isabella preferred the companionship of Joseph's sister, Marie Christine of Austria. The overweening character of the Emperor was obvious to Frederick II of Prussia, who, after their first interview in 1769, described him as ambitious, and as capable of setting the world on fire. The French minister Vergennes, who met Joseph when he was travelling incognito in 1777, judged him to be "ambitious and despotic."


Read the entire wikipedia article here.
 
Isabella Maria of Parma, (Italian: Maria Elisabetta Luisa Antonietta Ferdinanda Giuseppina Saveria Dominica Giovanna Borbone, principessa di Parma) (December 31, 1741 – November 27, 1763), was the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma and his wife Louise-Elisabeth, eldest daughter of Louis XV of France. She grew up at Philip V's court in Madrid, but when her father became Duke of Parma the family moved to the duchy in northern Italy.
Isabella learned to play the violin, and she also read books by philosophers and theologians like Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet or John Law. She sometimes became melancholic and, after her mother's death in 1759, was often preoccupied with thoughts about death.
On October 6, 1760, at the age of 18, she was married to Archduke Joseph of Austria, heir of the Habsburg Monarchy. She quickly charmed the court in Vienna with her beauty and intelligence; apparently Isabella could solve difficult mathematical problems.
She and Joseph's sister Maria Christina quickly became best friends. Although they met every day, they also wrote letters to each other. In one letter she professes her love for Maria Christina: "I am writing you again, cruel sister, though I have only just left you. I cannot bear waiting to know my fate, and to learn whether you consider me a person worthy of your love, or whether you would like to throw me into the river.... I can think of nothing but that I am deeply in love. If I only knew why this is so, for you are so without mercy that one should not love you, but I cannot help myself.". In a different letter she wrote: "I am told that the day begins with God. I, however, begin the day by thinking of the object of my love, for I think of her incessantly."

Read the entire wikipedia article here.
 
Maria Josepha (Marie Josephe Antonie Walburga Felicitas Regula, 20 March 1739 - 28 May 1767), Princess of Bavaria, was the daughter of Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria and Maria Amalia of Austria. She was a member of the house of Wittelsbach.
Born on 30 March 1739 in Munich, Bavaria, on 23 January 1765, she married the widowed Joseph, King of the Romans, and heir of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, in Schönbrunn Palace.
Upon her father-in-law's death on 18 August 1765, Maria Josepha became Empress consort of the Holy Roman Empire. Her mother-in-law, however, remained the most powerful and important figure in the Empire and at court in Vienna, and Maria Josepha's marriage to Joseph is said to have been an unhappy one. Maria Josepha died of smallpox on 28 May 1767, and was buried in the Capuchin monastery in Vienna.

From this wikipedia article.
 
Josef II wasn't Austrian Emperor from 1780-1790. Austria was an Archduchy within the Holy Roman Empire at that time. Austria didn't become an Empire until 1804 when Holy Roman Emperor Franz II proclaimed Austria an Empire knowing that the Holy Roman Empires days were numbered.

In 1780 Josef II inherited the Habsburg titles from his mother of King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria. I guess one could call it an Habsburg Empire but Austria itself wasn't an Empire.
 
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From what I've read about Joseph and Isabella's marriage, that political union transformed into real love, from Joseph's part at least. When Isabella died, after having two daughters with her husband, Joseph was devastated. He apparently also vowed to never get married again, excepted with Isabella's younger sister, Maria Luisa. But Maria Luisa was already engaged to the future King of Spain. So his mother Empress Maria Theresia made him wed Josepha...and that second union was quite unhappy.
 
Emperor Wilhelm IX said:
Josef II wasn't Austrian Emperor from 1780-1790. Austria was an Archduchy within the Holy Roman Empire at that time. Austria didn't become an Empire until 1804 when Holy Roman Emperor Franz II proclaimed Austria an Empire knowing that the Holy Roman Empires days were numbered.

In 1780 Josef II inherited the Habsburg titles from his mother of King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria. I guess one could call it an Habsburg Empire but Austria itself wasn't an Empire.
Click to expand...

You are right Emperor Wilhelm IX, thanks for pointing it out. I have corrected it in the overview.

--

The socond marriage was an unhappy one indeed, mainly because the empreror was still dedicated to his first wife. It is believed that the marriage was never consumated and the Joseph even devided their mutual balcony in the palace (with a fence) so he wouldn' t have to see his wife.
 
In Luise of Tuscany "My Own Strory", she wrote Isabella is in love with a Spanish man in her father court. When she knew she was about to marry the future emperor, she planned to elope with the Spanish man. She told her maids and the maid told her father. On the night of the escape, the Spanish man was stabbed and he told Isabella, "In three ---- you..." but he died before finishing his sentence.

Isabella then thought she will die in 3 hours but it did not happen, then she thought it was 3 days but she did not die. Isabella then has to marry the emperor. Before her marriage, Isabella asked the Duke of Parma, "You force me to do this, Sire?" And the Duke of Parma replied, "Yes and now your lover would not bother me again." (Is Luise implying it was the Duke of Parma who ordered to kill the Spanish man?)

After their marriage, the future emperor was delighted by Isabella but she told him that she will be a good wife but she is doomed to die either in 3 weeks or 3 years. They had a daughter, Maria Theresia but Isabella's health was failing. She charmed everyone who she had met. Once in a theater, when a scene on a play was showing about something about Isabella and the Spanish man, she fainted.

On the third year after the Spanish man's death, she became a cheery and laughing girl again (like when she was young). At night, Isabella was having dinner with the future emperor when she suddenly went out to go to the garden. She remained standing, streched her hand, and fell to the ground.

Her casket was full of roses but nobody knows who put the roses there, as it suddenly appeared.
 
Count Falkenstein was the title that Holy Roman Joseph II used when he travelled incognito to meet Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1789.
 
Joseph II is one of the best-known representatives of Enlightened Absolutism. As a monarch he was indebted to the ideas of Enlightenment rationalism and implemented numerous reforms in the Habsburg Monarchy, some of them far-reaching, in the name of ‘usefulness’. In doing so, he provided the impetus for changes, some enduring, in the judicial system, medicine, the administration and religious policies and even in the sphere of theatre and music.

https://www.habsburger.net/en/persons/habsburg-emperor/joseph-ii
 
In The Habsburgs To Rule the World Martyn Rady wrote:
He (Joseph II) avoided intimacy with his second wife since, as he explained, her body was covered in boils.

Poor Josepha!!!
 
Wedding of Joseph II and Isabella of Parma:
(Maria Theresia (2017) sason 3 episode 1)

 
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