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Lecture

William Tyler
The Empress Maria Theresa and Joseph II

Monday 17.01.2022

Summary

William Tyler discusses the reign of the Empress Maria Theresa and her son, the Emperor Joseph II, and explores their unique relationship to the Enlightenment period.

William Tyler

An image of William Tyler

William Tyler has spent his entire professional life in adult education, beginning at Kingsgate College in 1969. He has lectured widely for many public bodies, including the University of Cambridge and the WEA, in addition to speaking to many clubs and societies. In 2009, William was awarded the MBE for services to adult education, and he has previously been a scholar in residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre.

For the sake of peace. It’s a political marriage. These marriages, Louis the XVI, as somebody said, sorry, I’ve read the question. Louis the 16th. It’s because of a political marriage in the hope of peace. That’s why. The daughters were just married off. It’s dreadful to think, when Mary Stewart, who married William of Orange, she was married to him at the age of 15. And she was in tears because she was going to be married off to this older man, and the wife of the king, that is her stepmother, Mary, the wife of James II second said, but my dear, I didn’t know a word, I didn’t know anything about England when I came, and I’ve been very happy in England. And she said, but you weren’t born here, and I was, and I don’t want go. Fantastic answer.

Very little is the answer to that. No, very little.

I don’t know that you can. In terms of legacy, Elizabeth left the best legacy. She left a United England, she left a entrepreneurial England. Now the unity didn’t stand, but the unity over a period of time stood after the English revolution. But, it’s the entrepreneurial side of her reign. And Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Catherine the Great, Catherine the Great, Maria Theresa’s achievements are lost.