Maria Theresa | The Powerful Mother of Marie Antoinette | History for Sleep

She was handed an empire that no woman was meant to hold, at the age of twenty-three, heavily pregnant, and with almost every promise of support about to be broken. Maria Theresa was born in 1717 as the eldest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, a girl the law of Europe never intended to rule. Her father spent his reign building a legal instrument called the Pragmatic Sanction to secure her inheritance, and almost every court in Europe signed it. When the moment came, almost none of them honoured it. This quiet evening traces the full life of the woman who held the Habsburg Empire together for forty years, reformed its government, raised sixteen children, and sent the youngest of them, Marie Antoinette, across the Alps to France. From the baroque palaces of Vienna to the great crises of eighteenth century Europe, hers is one of the most remarkable lives the age produced.