Chapter Text
In one last attempt to have a male heir, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI of the Habsburg dynasty divorced his wife Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel with Papal approval and married the eldest daughter of his older sister Maria Anna: Princess Barbara of Portugal.
There had been plans to marry the oldest Portuguese Princess to the 4th born son of King Philip V of Spain, Infante Ferdinand, but those plans were put on hold when the Princess’s uncle asked for her hand.
Despite the Portuguese King’s objections, his wife Maria Anna was eager to see her daughter marry back into the Austrian Royal House and urged Parliament and the Pope to approve of the marriage Thus the marriage eventually went ahead, and the ceremony was performed on 12 January 1728.
But despite the bride’s young age, bearing children didn’t happen so easily. Many attempts were necessary before Barbara fell pregnant for the first time, giving birth to her husband’s 4th daughter named Maria Magdalena on 10 May 1730. She had needed over a year of recuperation before the couple could safely try for a second child, which wasn’t born until 18 September 1734, and it was yet another daughter.
The last agnatic Habsburg male would see a son being born in early 1739, the long awaited so much prayed for son. He gave the child the name Andreas Nikolaus Ambrose Gabriel Michael Raphael, thanking God and all of Heaven for the gift that would continue the male line of the Habsburg dynasty.
But Charles would not see his son grow into adulthood, as he died in the fall of 1740. He’d fallen severely ill after returning from a hunting trip in typical Austrian cold and rainy autumn weather.
And as the only male heir, Archduke Andreas Nikolaus of Austria was crowned at only 20 months old in accordance with the Pragmatic Sanction of 19 April 1713. His birth had also prevented a potential uprising from his much older cousins Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia, who had wished to honour the Mutual Pact of Succession which had been drawn up in 1703. The boy was the undisputed heir.
Considering the boy was still a baby, his mother and older half-sister Maria Theresa would act as his regents until he reached the Royal age of maturity at 14. Up until that point, it was going to be a race to find the Archduke a perfect spouse who would be able to bear a good number of children.
Barbara didn’t want her son to marry so young, but considering he was the only male heir to the Habsburg lands of Austria Hungary, the courtiers were heavily urging a marriage to happen.
They were even shoving eligible Princesses forward such as Princess Louise Marie of France, Princess Maria Theresa Rafaela of Spain, Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria, and Margravine Elisabeth Augusta of Baden-Baden. All perfect Catholic Princesses who would also make a nice political match to put potential rivalries and disputes to bed.
But the Portuguese Princess by birth wasn’t going to allow others to make such an important decision for her. Instead, she searched for eligible candidates on her own. She wouldn’t even let her stepdaughter interfere with the ‘other’ list with candidates.
It was known that the Habsburgs were incredibly inbred. Only the last 3 Holy Roman Emperors had married someone they weren’t strongly related to.
The mother of 3 herself already had health issues, her own parents had been 1st cousins through their mothers, her husband’s father had been quite inbred, and she had married her mother’s younger brother.
She wanted to find her son a bride who wasn’t strongly inbred, and found the only daughter of King George II of Great Britain and his second wife Princess Wilhelmine Auguste of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Both of them had some commoner / low nobility ancestry through their mothers and weren’t too visibly related to each other. Only the King himself was born from a first cousin marriage, but his ancestors further down weren’t closely related to cause many issues.
It was a risk to marry the only Habsburg heir to a Hanoverian Princess, but Barbara believed it would turn out to be one of the strongest matches in history. So, she planned the wedding.
Yet the Dowager Empress would not live to see her son getting married as she died on 27 August 1758, 2 weeks before the set wedding date.
Despite traditional court mourning at the Austrian court tended to be 6 weeks, the wedding went ahead as scheduled on the Emperor’s orders who had stated that his mother would’ve wanted the wedding to go ahead as she had meticulously planned it. Though some courtiers believed there to be ulterior motives by the Holy Roman Emperor.
Niki, formally named Andreas Nikolaus, had been irritated with the Austrian and Hungarian courtiers since his first formal appearance at the age of 9 as Holy Roman Emperor. He just didn’t like yes-men and bootlickers, as those types of courtiers would not adequately help him rule the Empire. He had always relied on his mother and his older half-sister for any notable advice regarding pressing issues.
But now, he’d have to do without them. His mother had died after a severe asthma attack and his half-sister was moving to Lorraine to take her place as Duchess Consort of Lorraine. The only person remaining who could give any type of counter advice would be his fiancée.
The Princess he was set to marry was British, and the courtiers were kicking up a fuss about it.
The 19-year-old really didn’t care about his about-to-be wife’s nationality or the fact that she was Protestant by birth. He was actually very happy that she was from a different background, because his Empire was a multi-national and multi-ethnic state. And he wasn’t as overtly Catholic as some others…
Despite all of the negative stories he was told and his band of advisors strongly advocating for marriage to a Catholic Princess, the young Emperor stuck with his guns.
On 10 September 1758, he married Princess Jacqueline of Great Britain.
The Archduke hoped he would have a strong and fruitful marriage, and also hoped he would fall in love.
All Royal marriages were arranged, they were a contract between the two families instead of a contract between the two individuals. He had a wish to change that, for the children he would father.
The Emperor’s first son and heir would be born just under 3 years later, on 8 August 1761. The boy was named Leopold Francis George Xavier David Anton, Archduke of Austria. He was born with his mother’s blonde hair.
The couple had needed some time to settle in as a married couple and find time to actually court each other, as well as the British Princess needing time to adjust to her new position as Holy Roman Empress as she had only been 18 years of age upon her wedding day. For a while, she had missed her native England and then had to mourn the loss of her father when he died on 25 October 1760. The experienced stress had prohibited her from falling pregnant at an earlier date, but she had finally given her husband an heir.
Jacqueline knew there was a strong likelihood that she would have a couple more babes in the upcoming years until her fertility dropped. But she was okay with that, as her high-profile marriage meant that she would always have been subjected to multiple childbirths.
But it immensely helped when one’s husband was charming as well as caring.