Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor

Born in 1697 to Bavaria's Elector Maximilian II Emanuel and a Polish princess, Charles inherited the electorate in 1726. He had married into the Habsburg fold four years earlier — his wife Maria Amalia was the niece of Emperor Charles VI — but when Charles VI died in 1740, the Bavarian elector seized Austria and claimed Bohemia. In 1742 he won the imperial election, ending centuries of Habsburg succession. The crown sat uneasily: he held Bohemia only two years, and his reign as emperor lasted just three. He died in January 1745, leaving seven children and a brief interruption in the dynasty he…