Pragmatic Sanction

Charles VI, last male Habsburg in the senior line, issued an edict on 19 April 1713 declaring that the Habsburg hereditary lands were indivisible and could pass to a female heir if no male existed. He spent the next twenty-seven years securing the recognition of every European court for the eventual succession of his daughter Maria Theresa. Most of those guarantees were violated within months of his death, plunging Europe into the War of the Austrian Succession.