Charles Theodore
Duke of Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire
1724 CE to 1799 CE
Charles Theodore, Prince-Elector, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria (German: Karl Theodor; December 11, 1724 – February 16, 1799) reigns 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, until his death.
He is a member of the House of Palatinate-Sulzbach, a branch of the House of Wittelsbach.
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The Great Crossroads
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Elector Maximilian III Joseph dies in 1777, ending the direct line of the Wittelsbachs; his successor to the Duchy of Bavaria is the Elector Palatine Charles IV Theodore of the Sulzbach line.
Charles, duke of Zweibrucken, heir presumptive of the Elector Palatine, protests the cession of Lower Bavaria to Austria by Charles Theodore’s secret treaty with Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, in exchange for which he is to receive the Austrian Netherlands.
Maximilian's consort Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony opens negotiations with Prussia to secure Bavaria's independence and the succession of the Wittelsbach branch Palatinate Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld in Bavaria after Charles Theodore's death.
Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, Prussian First Minister under Frederick the Great, believes that Austria's acquisitions in Bavaria would rebalance the gain of Silesia to Prussia three decades earlier, thus reestablishing Austria's hegemony in German-speaking lands and undermining Prussia's own position.
He therefore constructs an alliance with Saxony and both countries declares war on Austria in July 1788, ostensibly to defend the rights of Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, Charles Theodore's heir, and thus initiating the War of Bavarian Secession.
Many influential intellectuals and progressive politicians count themselves as members of the Illuminati during the period in which it is legally allowed to operate, including Ferdinand of Brunswick and the diplomat Xavier von Zwack, who is number two in the operation and is found with much of the group's documentation when his home is searched.
The Illuminati's members pledge obedience to their superiors, and are divided into three main classes, each with several degrees.
The order has branches in most countries of the European continent; it reportedly gains around two thousand members during the ten-year span from 1776 to 1786.
The organization has its attraction for such literary men as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder, and even for the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar.
Weishaupt has modeled his group to some extent on Freemasonry, and many Illuminati chapters draw membership from existing Masonic lodges.
Internal rupture and panic over succession precedes its downfall, which is effected by the Secular Edict made by the Bavarian government in 1785.