To this treaty Leopold refused to assent, as he considered that his allies had somewhat neglected his interests, but in the following month he came to terms and a number of places were transferred from France to Germany. The peace with France lasted for about four years and then Europe was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession. The king of Spain, Charles II., was a Habsburg by descent and was related by marriage to the Austrian branch, while a similar tie bound him to the royal house of France. He was feeble and childless, and attempts had been made by the European powers to arrange for a peaceable division of his extensive kingdom. Leopold refused to consent to any partition, and when in November 1700 Charles died, leaving his crown to Philip, duke of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV., all hopes of a peaceable settlement vanished. Under the guidance of William III. a powerful league, the grand alliance, was formed against France; of this the emperor was a prominent member, and in 1703 he transferred his claim on the Spanish monarchy to his second son, the archduke Charles. The early course of the war was not favourable to the imperialists, but the tide of defeat had been rolled back by the great victory of Blenheim before Leopold died on the 5th of May 1705.
In governing his own lands Leopold found his chief difficulties in Hungary, where unrest was caused partly by his desire to crush Protestantism. A rising was suppressed in 1671 and for some years Hungary was treated with great severity. In 1681, after another rising, some grievances were removed and a less repressive policy was adopted, but this did not deter the Hungarians from revolting again. Espousing the cause of the rebels the sultan sent an enormous army into Austria early in 1683; this advanced almost unchecked to Vienna, which was besieged from July to September, while Leopold took refuge at Passau. Realizing the gravity of the situation somewhat tardily, some of the German princes, among them the electors of Saxony and Bavaria, led their contingents to the imperial army which was commanded by the emperor’s brother-in-law, Charles, duke of Lorraine, but the most redoubtable of Leopold’s allies was the king of Poland, John Sobieski, who was already dreaded by the Turks. On the 12th of September 1683 the allied army fell upon the enemy, who was completely routed, and Vienna was saved. The imperialists, among whom Prince Eugene of Savoy was rapidly becoming prominent, followed up the victory with others, notably one near Mohacz in 1687 and another at Zenta in 1697, and in January 1699 the sultan signed the treaty of Karlowitz by which he admitted the sovereign rights of the house of Habsburg over nearly the whole of Hungary. Before the conclusion of the war, however, Leopold had taken measures to strengthen his hold upon this country. In 1687 at the diet of Pressburg the constitution was changed, the right of the Habsburgs to succeed to the throne without election was admitted and the emperor’s elder son Joseph was crowned hereditary king of Hungary.
During this reign some important changes were made in the constitution of the Empire. In 1663 the imperial diet entered upon the last stage of its existence, and became a body permanently in session at Regensburg; in 1692 the duke of Hanover was raised to the rank of an elector, becoming the ninth member of the electoral college; and in 1700 Leopold, greatly in need of help for the impending war with France, granted the title of king of Prussia to the elector of Brandenburg. The net result of these and similar changes was to weaken the authority of the emperor over the members of the Empire, and to compel him to rely more and more upon his position as ruler of the Austrian archduchies and of Hungary and Bohemia, and Leopold was the first who really appears to have realized this altered state of affairs and to have acted in accordance therewith.
The emperor was married three times. His first wife was Margaret Theresa (d. 1673), daughter of Philip IV. of Spain; his second Claudia Felicitas (d. 1676), the heiress of Tirol; and his third Eleanora, a princess of the Palatinate. By his first two wives he had no sons, but his third wife bore him two, Joseph and Charles, both of whom became emperors. He had also four daughters.
Leopold was a man of industry and education, and during his later years he showed some political ability. Extremely tenacious of his rights, and regarding himself as an absolute sovereign, he was also very intolerant and was greatly influenced by the Jesuits. In person he was short, but strong and healthy. Although he had no inclination for a military life he loved exercises in the open air, such as hunting and riding; he had also a taste for music.
Leopold’s letters to Marco d’Aviano from 1680 to 1699 were edited by O. Klopp and published at Graz in 1888. Other letters are found in the Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Bände 56 and 57 (Vienna, 1903–1904). See also F. Krones, Handbuch der Geschichte Österreichs (Berlin, 1876–1879); R. Baumstark, Kaiser Leopold I. (1873); and A. F. Pribram, Zur Wahl Leopolds I. (Vienna, 1888). (A. W. H.*)
LEOPOLD II. (1747–1792), Roman emperor, and grand-duke
of Tuscany, son of the empress Maria Theresa and her husband,
Francis I., was born in Vienna on the 5th of May 1747. He was
a third son, and was at first educated for the priesthood, but the
theological studies to which he was forced to apply himself
are believed to have influenced his mind in a way unfavourable
to the Church. On the death of his elder brother Charles in
1761 it was decided that he should succeed to his father’s grand
duchy of Tuscany, which was erected into a “secundogeniture”
or apanage for a second son. This settlement was the condition
of his marriage on the 5th of August 1764 with Maria Louisa,
daughter of Charles III. of Spain, and on the death of his father
Francis I. (13th August 1765) he succeeded to the grand duchy.
For five years he exercised little more than nominal authority
under the supervision of counsellors appointed by his mother.
In 1770 he made a journey to Vienna to secure the removal of
this vexatious guardianship, and returned to Florence with a
free hand. During the twenty years which elapsed between
his return to Florence and the death of his eldest brother
Joseph II. in 1790 he was employed in reforming the administration
of his small state. The reformation was carried out by the
removal of the ruinous restrictions on industry and personal
freedom imposed by his predecessors of the house of Medici, and
left untouched during his father’s life; by the introduction of a
rational system of taxation; and by the execution of profitable
public works, such as the drainage of the Val di Chiana. As
he had no army to maintain, and as he suppressed the small
naval force kept up by the Medici, the whole of his revenue
was left free for the improvement of his state. Leopold was
never popular with his Italian subjects. His disposition was cold
and retiring. His habits were simple to the verge of sordidness,
though he could display splendour on occasion, and he could
not help offending those of his subjects who had profited by the
abuses of the Medicean régime. But his steady, consistent and
intelligent administration, which advanced step by step, making
the second only when the first had been justified by results,
brought the grand duchy to a high level of material prosperity.
His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbed the deeply rooted
convictions of his people, and brought him into collision with
the pope, was not successful. He was unable to secularize the
property of the religious houses, or to put the clergy entirely
under the control of the lay power.
During the last few years of his rule in Tuscany Leopold had begun to be frightened by the increasing disorders in the German and Hungarian dominions of his family, which were the direct result of his brother’s headlong methods. He and Joseph II. were tenderly attached to one another, and met frequently both before and after the death of their mother, while the portrait by Pompeo Baltoni in which they appear together shows that they bore a strong personal resemblance to one another. But it may be said of Leopold, as of Fontenelle, that his heart was made of brains. He knew that he must succeed his childless eldest brother in Austria, and he was unwilling to inherit his unpopularity. When, therefore, in 1789 Joseph, who knew himself to be dying, asked him to come to Vienna, and become co-regent, Leopold coldly evaded the request. He was still in Florence when Joseph II. died at Vienna on the 20th of February 1790, and he did not leave his Italian capital till the
