Editing Electoral Palatinate (section)

=== Nine Years' War ===
[[File:Heidelberg - castle 3.JPG|thumb|left|upright=0.9|[[Heidelberg Castle]], destroyed by the French in 1689 and never rebuilt]]
When France invaded the Palatinate in September 1688 to enforce its claim, these wider connections meant the conflict rapidly escalated, leading to the outbreak of the [[Nine Years' War]]. The French were forced to withdraw in 1689 but before doing so, destroyed much of Heidelberg, another 20 substantial towns and numerous villages.{{sfn|Lynn|1999|p=198}} This destruction was systematically applied across a large section of the Rhineland but especially the Palatinate, which was raided again in 1693; the devastation shocked much of Europe.{{sfn|Dosquet|2016|pp=643–644}} France later renounced its claim to the region in the 1697 [[Treaty of Ryswick]].

[[Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine|Johann Wilhelm]] succeeded as elector in 1690, changing his residence first to [[Düsseldorf]], then back to Heidelberg and finally [[Mannheim]] in 1720. Like his father, he was a Catholic, which under the 1555 [[Peace of Augsburg]] meant the Protestant majority in the Palatinate was theoretically obliged to convert to Catholicism. The 1705 'Palatine Church Division' compromised by allocating five-sevenths of public church property to the Reformed or Calvinist church and the remainder to Catholicism, while excluding the Lutheran Church, whose membership exceeded 40% of the population in some areas.{{sfn|Beiler|2008|pp=60–61}}

In 1716, [[Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine|Charles Philip]] succeeded his brother as elector and in January 1742, helped his cousin [[Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles Albert]] become the first non-Habsburg emperor in over 300 years.{{sfn|Lindsay|1957|p=420}} He died in December and the Palatinate passed to [[Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria|Charles Theodore]], then Duke of [[Palatinate-Sulzbach|Sulzbach]], who also inherited the [[Electorate of Bavaria]] in 1777. The title and authority of the two electorates were combined, Charles and his heirs retaining only the vote and precedence of the Bavarian elector, although continuing to use the title 'Count Palatine of the Rhine'.