Charles V, Duke of Lorraine

Charles V , Karl V. Leopold, (Charles Léopold Nicolas Sixte; 3 April 1643 – 18 April 1690), son of Nicolas François, Duke of Lorraine, and Claude Françoise de Lorraine. Karl Leopold was born in Vienna and became the brother in law of Emperor Leopold and son in law of emperor Ferdinand III. He was a second cousin once removed of his contemporary Louis XIV through the king's grandmother Marie de' Medici.

Biography

From a long established family of Lothringen, who had to take refuge from the forces of France. However, he managed to become the titular Duke of Lorraine in 1675 at a time when Lorraine was occupied by France. Since 1663 he had been in imperial Habsburg service and had a very notable military career. In 1675 he became imperial generalissimo.

He was supposed to marry Marie Jeanne of Savoy (a cousin via Maria Jeanne's grandmother). Despite a marriage contract being signed, Charles backed out of the union and it was seen as void due to it not having been consummated. Marie Jeanne instead married Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy.

The Habsburg connection was cemented by his marriage (1678) to Eleonora Maria Josefa, Archduchess of Austria (1653–1697), daughter of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleonore Gonzaga. She was also the widow of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki, King of Poland. She passed to her heirs the inheritance of the Gonzaga of Mantua.

He was the younger brother of Ferdinand Philip of Lorraine who died at twenty years of age in 1659, with whose demise he inherited his aunt's Duchy of Bar.

In the Imperial service, Charles led the Imperial contingent in the army which relieved Vienna and Hungary from the Turks in 1683. (See Battle of Vienna). He had first distinguished himself at the battle of August 1, 1664, fighting among Imperial forces against the Turks and had campaigned in Hungary with general Johann Sporck in 1671. He was in command at the siege of Murau in the Steiermark. The following year he was in command of Imperial cavalry under Raimondo Montecuccoli. At Seneffe in 1674 he received a head wound; in 1676 he was present at the siege of Philipsburg. As generalissimo of the Imperial army he. along with armies of several German states, in 1683 fought together with the king of Poland at the Battle of Vienna against the Ottoman Empire Turks.

Following he led several campaigns against the Turks in Hungary. He took Buda in 1686, and conquered the rest of Hungary, Slavonia and Transylvania in 1687.

Fallen ill a first time, he handed over command to Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, in May 1688. At the outbreak of the War of the Grand Alliance, he led his army one more time against the French, but fallen ill a second time, he died on April 18, 1690. According to Voltaire, Louis XIV paid tribute to him with the words, "I have lost the greatest, wisest and most generous of my enemies."

Issue

• Leopold, Duke of Lorraine (1679–1729) married Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, princess of France and had issue;
• Charles Joseph de Lorraine (1680–1715) never married; died of smallpox;
• Éléonore de Lorraine (1682-1682) died in infancy;
• Charles Ferdinand de Lorraine (1683–1685) died in infancy;
• General Joseph Innocent Emanuel de Lorraine (1685–1705)
• François Antoine Joseph de Lorraine (1689–1715). Abbot in Malmedy, Abbot in Stablo.

Ancestry

References

• House of Lorraine: genealogy

See also