Background
In 1740, after the death of her father, Charles VI, Maria Theresa succeeded him as Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria and Duchess of Parma. Her father had been Holy Roman Emperor, but Maria Theresa was not a candidate for that title, which had never been held by a woman; the plan was for her to succeed to the hereditary domains, and her husband, Francis Stephen, to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. The complications involved in a female Habsburg ruler had been long foreseen, and Charles VI had persuaded most of the states of Germany to agree to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.
Problems began when King Frederick II of Prussia violated the Pragmatic Sanction and invaded Silesia on 16 December 1740, using the Treaty of Brieg of 1537 under which the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg were to inherit the Duchy of Brieg as a pretext. Maria Theresa, as a woman, was perceived as weak, and other rulers (such as Charles Albert of Bavaria) put forward their own competing claims to the crown as male heirs with a clear genealogical basis to inherit the elected dignities of the great Imperial title.
Read more about this topic: War Of The Austrian Succession
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