Item: i81491

Authentic Coin of:

German States – Bavaria under Karl IV Theodor: Prince Elector – 31 December 1742 – 30 December 1777
1782 Silver 20 Kreuzer 29mm (6.48 grams) 0.900 Silver (0.4823 oz. ASW) 
Reference: KM# 557
CAR • THEOD • D • G • C • P • R • (-) (U)(V) (-) • B • D • S • R • I • A • & EL • D • I • C • M •, Karl facing right within laurel wreath.
PATRONA – BAVARIAE· 20·, Seated Madonna with Child on pedestal with value ’20,’ which divides date, laurel and palm branches to left and right.

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Charles Theodore (German: Karl Theodor; 11 December 1724 – 16 February 1799) reigned as Prince-elector and Count Palatine from 1742, as Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1742 and also as prince-elector and Duke of Bavaria from 1777 to his death. He was a member of the House of Palatinate-Sulzbach, a branch of the House of Wittelsbach.

Family and ascent

Charles Theodore was of the Wittelsbach house Palatinate-Sulzbach. His father was Johann Christian, who later became Count Palatine of Sulzbach. His mother was Marie-Anne-Henriette-Leopoldine de La Tour d’Auvergne, Margravine of Bergen op Zoom, a grandniece of Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne. Charles Theodore was born in Drogenbos near Brussels and educated in Mannheim.

Charles Theodore was the Margrave of Bergen op Zoom from 1728 onwards. He then succeeded his father as Count Palatine of Sulzbach in 1733 and inherited the Electoral Palatinate and the duchies of Jülich and Berg in 1742, with the death of Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine. To strengthen the union of all lines of the Wittelsbach dynasty Charles III Philip had organised a wedding on 17 January 1742 when his granddaughter Elizabeth Augusta was married to Charles Theodore and her sister Maria Anna to the Bavarian prince Clement.

As reigning Prince Elector Palatine, Charles Theodore won the hearts of his subjects by founding an academy of science, stocking up the museums’ collections and supporting the arts. When Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria died in 1777, Charles Theodore became also Elector and Duke of Bavaria and moved to Munich.

Bavarian succession

Charles Theodore did not immediately take up his new title. He had several mistresses and many illegitimate children. However, these people could inherit neither the Electorate of Bavaria nor that of the Palatine; Charles Theodore needed territory that he could bequeath to his illegitimate children. Charles Theodore also dreamed of resurrecting the Burgundian Empire of the Middle Ages.

On 3 January 1778, shortly after the death of Max Joseph, Charles Theodore signed an agreement with Emperor Joseph II to exchange southern Bavaria for part of the Austrian Netherlands.

The plan was strongly opposed by Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony, the widow of Max Joseph, and Charles Theodore’s cousin Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, the head of the House of Palatinate-Birkenfeld and next heir of Bavaria and the Palatinate. They were supported by Frederick II of Prussia, and most of the German minor states.

The ensuing diplomatic crisis led to the War of the Bavarian Succession, which was ended by the Peace of Teschen (1779). Charles Theodore accepted the Bavarian succession, but agreed that his illegitimate descendants could not inherit Bavaria. Austria acquired the Innviertel, a part of Bavaria in the basin of the Inn river.

Charles Theodore had only one son with his wife, Countess Elizabeth Augusta of Sulzbach, who died a day after birth. His wife died in 1794. In 1795, he married Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Este, Joseph’s niece, but they had no children. A second proposal to exchange Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands in 1784 also failed as Frederick II of Prussia initiated the Fürstenbund.

When Charles Theodore died, Bavaria and the Electorate passed to his cousin, Max Joseph, Duke of Zweibrücken, the younger brother of Charles August, who had died in 1795.

In 1989, Marvin E. Thomas argued in Karl Theodor and the Bavarian Succession, 1777-1778 that Charles Theodore wanted to maintain possession of his new territory, as is shown in his diplomatic correspondence. Thomas is the only scholar to produce such an analysis. It is more widely understood that Charles Theodore continued the despotic and expensive habits he had developed as Elector Palatine.

Rule as elector of Bavaria

Charles Theodore never became popular as a ruler in Bavaria according to his critic Lorenz von Westenrieder. He attempted, without success to exchange the ducal lands of Bavaria, for the Austrian Netherlands and a royal crown, and he never managed to control the mounting social tensions in Bavaria. After a dispute with Munich’s city council, he even moved the electoral residence in 1788 to Mannheim but returned only one year later.

In 1785, he appointed the American Loyalist exile Benjamin Thompson as his aide-de-camp and chamberlain. Over the next 11 years, Thompson reformed the army and many aspects of the state, rising to high ministerial rank with Charles Theodore’s backing, and becoming Count von Rumford.

Charles Theodore is also known for disbanding Adam Weishaupt’s order of the Illuminati in 1785.

In 1794, the armies of revolutionary France occupied the Duchy of Jülich, in 1795 they invaded the Palatinate, and in 1796 marched towards Bavaria. Charles Theodore begged Francis II for help that would have made Bavaria a puppet state of Austria. When he died of a stroke in Munich in 1799, the population in Munich celebrated for several days. He is buried in the crypt of the Theatinerkirche in Munich.

Despite the mutual dislike and distrust between the Duke and his Bavarian subjects, Charles Theodore left a distinctive mark on the city of Munich: it was during his reign that the English Garden, Munich’s largest park, was created, and the city’s old fortifications were dismantled to make place for a modern, expanding city. One of Munich’s major squares, Karlsplatz, is named after Charles Theodore. Munich natives, however, seldom use that name, calling the square instead Stachus, after the pub “Beim Stachus” that was located there until construction work for Karlsplatz began, mainly because Charles Theodore, as noted above, never enjoyed the popularity in Bavaria that he enjoyed in the Palatinate.

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. It includes 16 constituent states and covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi) with a largely temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Berlin. With 81 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state in the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular migration destination in the world.

Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before 100 CE. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation.

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