Wilhelmine Amalie von Braunschweig-Calenberg

Wilhelmine Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg was born on April 21, 1673, in Lüneburg as the youngest daughter of Duke Johann Friedrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife, Benedicta Henriette of the Palatinate. She had two surviving sisters: Charlotte Felicitas, who married Rinaldo III d’Este, Duke of Modena, and Henriette Maria, who remained unmarried. Wilhelmine Amalie received a Catholic education from her grandaunt, Luise Hollandine of the Palatinate, at Maubuisson Abbey. She did not return to Hanover until 1693, when she was twenty years old. From an early stage, Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg, the wife of Emperor Leopold I, selected Wilhelmine Amalie as the future wife of her son Joseph. The Prince of Salm strongly supported the proposed match. Eleonore’s adviser, Marco d’Aviano, considered Wilhelmine Amalie sufficiently pious and mature to exert a moderating influence on the younger Joseph. Before the marriage, she was even medically examined for fertility. Although her greater age was initially considered a disadvantage, it was hoped that her mental maturity would benefit the marriage. On February 24, 1699, she married Archduke Joseph, Leopold I’s heir. Reinhard Keiser’s opera “Hercules and Hebe” was composed for the wedding. The couple had three children: Archduchess Maria Josepha, who later married Augustus III of Poland; Archduke Leopold Joseph, who died in infancy in 1701; and Archduchess Maria Amalia, who later married Charles VII. When Joseph was elected emperor in 1705, Wilhelmine Amalie became empress of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Queen of the Germans, Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria. Wilhelmine Amalie was regarded as beautiful, religious, and serious. Her marriage to Joseph was initially described as happy, but it soon deteriorated. Joseph had numerous lovers from both the household staff and the nobility. Eventually, he maintained a long-term relationship with Countess Marianne Pálffy, who became his official mistress. This caused a scandal at the Austrian court, where official mistresses had not been customary. Both Wilhelmine Amalie and the pope protested. Her mother-in-law supported her, reprimanded Joseph, and even had some of his intermediaries imprisoned. Once Joseph had become emperor, however, she could do little to restrain his conduct. Joseph fathered several illegitimate children, but his marriage to Wilhelmine Amalie produced no surviving male heir. In 1704, he contracted a sexually transmitted disease and passed it on to his wife. She suffered from ulcers on her abdomen and initially blamed herself for the infection because, owing to the court’s prudishness, she did not understand what had happened. It was suggested that the illness was why she was unable to have more children after the birth of her second daughter. The absence of a male heir created a crisis in the Habsburg succession. As empress, Wilhelmine Amalie was largely excluded from affairs of state. Joseph allowed her no direct political influence, but she was considered intelligent and self-reliant. She cultivated ties with ministers and gave particular support to her relative, the Prince of Salm, even when he sometimes advanced the interests of the Holy Roman Empire against Austria. She participated in dynastic intrigues, helped arrange a marriage between a cousin and her brother-in-law, and worked closely with the Hanoverian envoy to promote the interests of her Welf family. At the same time, she fulfilled her representative duties at court ceremonies, hunts, balls, and amateur theatrical performances, as well as at religious devotions. Joseph died in 1711, making Wilhelmine Amalie a dowager empress. Her mother-in-law initially assumed the regency until Wilhelmine Amalie’s brother-in-law, Archduke Charles, returned from Spain. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Charles had been the Austrian candidate for the Spanish throne; after his return, he was proclaimed emperor as Charles VI. Following her husband’s death, Wilhelmine Amalie’s illness, which had subsided for several years, returned with renewed severity. The succession remained important to her. Charles VI favored his own daughters over Joseph’s daughters and ultimately set aside an earlier agreement made by Leopold I, under which Joseph’s daughters were to inherit first, followed by the daughters of Charles and Leopold. Wilhelmine Amalie and her mother-in-law campaigned for their daughter’s rights. In 1713, Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction, which abolished exclusive male succession and declared the Habsburg lands indivisible. Wilhelmine Amalie was celebrated for her part in this achievement. After important supporters had died, however, Charles VI altered the provisions in 1717 in favor of his own daughters. Wilhelmine Amalie did not approve, but she made no open protest. After her daughters married, she moved in 1722 to a Salesian convent on Vienna’s Rennweg, which she had founded. This did not represent a complete withdrawal from society: she regularly left the convent for family visits and representative duties. As dowager empress, she had a particularly strong influence on Vienna’s cultural and social life. She recommended medical remedies for the care of the sick, founded a boarding school and one of the city’s first orphanages for girls. She also supported devotion to Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal, as well as efforts toward their canonization, and patronized the Catholic reformer Ludovico Antonio Muratori. She had a good relationship with her mother-in-law Eleonore, her sister-in-law Elisabeth Christine, and the archduchesses. The three empresses supported one another: Wilhelmine Amalie nursed Elisabeth Christine during an attack of smallpox, and the two of them cared for Eleonore during her final illness. After Charles VI died in 1740, Wilhelmine Amalie initially supported her son-in-law, Charles Albert of Bavaria, in his bid for the imperial crown, but soon withdrew again into private life. In June 1741, Maria Theresa asked her to mediate between herself and the Bavarian elector, but Wilhelmine Amalie refused. Wilhelmine Amalie died of dropsy in Vienna on April 10, 1742, more than thirty years after her husband. She was buried at the Salesian convent, while her heart was placed in Vienna’s Imperial Crypt. Vienna’s Amalientrakt wing of the Hofburg and several former and current street names commemorate her.