Charles Theodore

Charles Theodore (born Dec. 1, 1724, Droogenbosch, near Brussels—died Feb. 16, 1799, Munich) was the elector (1742–77) of the Palatinate branch of the House of Wittelsbach and thereafter (1777–99) of the united Palatinate lands after inheriting Bavaria. The latter inheritance touched off the battleless War of the Bavarian Succession.

The son of Count Palatinate John Christian Joseph, Charles Theodore ruled Sulzbach after his father’s death in 1733 and then succeeded to the electorship of the Palatinate after his kinsman Elector Charles Philip died without male issue on Dec. 31, 1742. With the exception of two small pieces, the whole of the Palatinate was united under one ruler, a prince of refined and educated tastes, a patron of the arts, and a beautifier of the new capital of Mannheim.

On Dec. 30, 1777, the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbachs became extinct, and the succession passed to Charles Theodore. After a separation of four and a half centuries, the Palatinate (to which the duchies of Jülich and Berg had been added) was thus reunited with Bavaria.

Bavaria’s new strength, however, was intolerable to neighbouring Austria, which immediately laid claim to a number of lordships, alleging them to be lapsed fiefs of the Bohemian, Austrian, and imperial crowns. These were at once occupied by Austrian troops, with the secret consent of Charles Theodore himself, who was without legitimate heirs, and wished to obtain from the emperor Joseph II the elevation of his natural children to the status of princes of the empire. The protests of the next heir, Charles, duke of Zweibrücken, supported by the King of Prussia, led to the War of the Bavarian Succession. By the Peace of Teschen (May 13, 1779) a parcel of land was ceded to Austria, and the succession secured to Charles of Zweibrücken.

For Bavaria itself Charles Theodore did little. He felt himself a foreigner among foreigners, and his favourite scheme, the subject of endless intrigues with the Austrian Cabinet and the immediate cause of Frederick II’s League of Princes (Fürstenbund) of 1785, was to try to exchange Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands and the title of king of Burgundy; the plan never succeeded. For the rest, the enlightened internal policy of his predecessor was abandoned. The government was inspired by the narrowest clericalism, which culminated in the attempt to withdraw the Bavarian bishops from the jurisdiction of the great German metropolitans and place them directly under that of the pope.

In 1792 the French revolutionary armies overran the Palatinate; in 1795 the French, under Jean-Victor Moreau, invaded Bavaria itself, advanced to Munich, and laid siege to Ingolstadt. Charles Theodore, who had done nothing to resist the invasion, fled to Saxony, leaving a regency, the members of which signed a convention with Moreau, by which he granted an armistice in return for a heavy contribution (Sept. 7, 1796). Immediately afterward Charles Theodore was forced to retire, though he remained titular elector until his death.