Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor

Francis I (Francis Stephen; 8 December 1708 – 18 August 1765) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1745 to 1765, Archduke of Austria from 1740, Duke of Lorraine and Bar from 1729 to 1737, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1737 until his death. He gained these titles through his marriage to his second cousin, Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Emperor Charles VI. He was the last non-Habsburg to rule the Holy Roman Empire. The couple founded the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and had sixteen children.

Early life

Francis was the eldest surviving son of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and the French princess Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans. He succeeded his father as duke in 1729. In 1736, he married Maria Theresa.

Two years later, as part of the settlement ending the War of the Polish Succession, he gave up the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar to the deposed Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński and received the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in return. After Emperor Charles VI died in 1740, Francis and Maria Theresa took over the Habsburg domains. Maria Theresa put him in charge of the empire's finances, a job he handled well. He died in 1765, and their son Joseph II succeeded him, co-ruling Austria with Maria Theresa.

Francis was born in Lunéville, Lorraine, the fourth child and eldest surviving son of Duke Leopold and his wife. Through his grandmother Eleonore, a daughter of Emperor Ferdinand III, he had Habsburg connections. He was very close to his brother Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine and his sister Princess Anne Charlotte of Lorraine. Emperor Charles VI favored the family—they were his cousins and had served the Habsburgs well.

Charles originally planned to marry his daughter Maria Theresa to Francis's older brother, Léopold Clément, Hereditary Prince of Lorraine. When Léopold Clément died, Charles chose Francis as his future son-in-law. Francis was raised in Vienna alongside Maria Theresa, knowing they were meant to marry, and genuine affection grew between them.

At age fifteen, he was brought to Vienna and settled in the Silesian Duchy of Teschen, which the Emperor had granted to his father in 1722. He became Duke of Lorraine in 1729. In 1731, he was initiated into freemasonry by John Theophilus Desaguliers at a lodge specially convened in The Hague at the house of the British Ambassador, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. During a later visit to England, he was made a Master Mason at another specially convened lodge at Houghton Hall, the Norfolk estate of British Prime Minister Robert Walpole.

In 1732, Maria Theresa arranged for Francis to become Lord Lieutenant of Hungary. He was not keen on the role, but she wanted him nearby. In June 1732, he agreed to go to the Hungarian capital, Pressburg. When the War of the Polish Succession broke out in 1733, France used it as a chance to take Lorraine, because Cardinal Fleury, France's chief minister, worried that Lorraine as a Habsburg possession would bring Austrian power too close to France.

A preliminary peace was reached in October 1735, and the Treaty of Vienna finalized it in November 1738. Under its terms, Stanisław I—father-in-law of King Louis XV and the losing claimant to the Polish throne—received Lorraine, while Francis, as compensation, was made heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which he inherited in 1737. In March 1736, Emperor Charles persuaded Francis to secretly trade Lorraine for Tuscany. France had demanded that Maria Theresa's fiancé give up his ancestral duchy to accommodate the deposed Polish king.

The Emperor considered other options, such as marrying Maria Theresa to the future Charles III of Spain, before announcing the engagement. If things went wrong, Francis would become governor of the Austrian Netherlands. Elisabeth of Parma had also wanted Tuscany for her son Charles III of Spain; Gian Gastone de' Medici was childless and related to Elisabeth through her great-grandmother Margherita de' Medici, so Elisabeth's sons could claim the duchy by descent. Although fighting stopped after the preliminary peace, the final settlement had to wait until Gian Gastone's death in 1737 for the territorial exchanges to take effect.

On 31 January 1736, Francis agreed to marry Maria Theresa. He hesitated three times and put down his feather before signing. His mother and brother were especially opposed to losing Lorraine. On 1 February, Maria Theresa wrote to Francis that she would step back from ruling if a male heir to her father appeared.

Marriage

Francis and Maria Theresa married on 12 February 1736 in the Augustinian Church in Vienna, with the wedding held on 14 February. A secret treaty between the Emperor and Francis was signed on 4 May 1736.

On 5 January 1737, instruments of cession were signed at Pontremoli between Spain and the Empire: Spain gave up Parma, Piacenza, and Tuscany to the Holy Roman Empire, and the Empire recognized Don Carlos of Spain as King of Naples and Sicily. On 10 January, Spanish troops began leaving Tuscany, replaced by 6,000 Austrians. On 24 January 1737, Francis received Tuscany from his father-in-law.