Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria

Born 26 February 1746 to Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, Maria Amalia Josepha Johanna Antonia grew up in the Habsburg court with power as her inheritance. She married Ferdinand I, Duke of Parma, and arrived in the duchy in 1769. From that point until Ferdinand's death in 1802, she was the de facto ruler — the decisions, the governance, the actual work of running Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla fell to her, not him. She died 18 June 1804, two years after the husband whose name fronted the reign she'd steered for three decades.