biography
| name: |
Leopold I (Emperor)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1640–1705)
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| biography:
| Holy Roman Emperor (1658–1705), born in Vienna, Austria, the second son of Ferdinand III and the Infanta Maria Anna. He was elected to the crowns of Hungary (1655) and Bohemia (1656), and succeeded to the imperial title in 1658. In 1666 he married his niece, Margaret Theresa, the second daughter of Philip IV of Spain, and after her death (1673) he took a second Habsburg bride, Claudia Felicitas, before his third marriage (1676) to Eleonore of Palatinate-Neuberg, by whom he had two sons, the future emperors Joseph I and Charles VI. Committed to the defence of the power and unity of the House of Habsburg, he faced constant threats from the Ottoman Turks and the King of France, as well as the hostility of the Hungarian nobility. Treaties of neutrality (1667, 1671) between Leopold and Louis XIV of France gave way to military conflict over the Rhine frontier (1674–9, 1686–97), and to substantiate the rights of his son, Charles, against the French claimant, he took the empire into the Grand Alliance (1701). He died during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–13) and the Hungarian revolt of Rákóczi (1703–11). |
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