Editing Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (section)

==The Holy Roman Empire==
The [[Peace of Westphalia]] in 1648 had been a political defeat for the Habsburgs. It ended the idea that [[Europe]] was a single Roman Catholic empire; governed spiritually by the [[Pope]] and temporally by the [[Holy Roman Emperor]]. Moreover, the treaty was devoted to parceling out land and influence to the "winners", the anti-Habsburg alliance led by France and Sweden. However, the Habsburgs did gain some benefits out of the [[Thirty Years' War]]; the Protestant aristocracy in Habsburg territories had been decimated, and the ties between Vienna and the Habsburg domains in Bohemia and elsewhere were greatly strengthened. These changes would allow Leopold to initiate necessary political and institutional reforms during his reign to develop somewhat of an absolutist state along French lines. The most important consequences of the war was in retrospect to weaken the Habsburgs as emperors but strengthen them in their own lands. Leopold was the first to realize this altered state of affairs and act in accordance with it.<ref name="Noble">{{cite book |first=Thomas |last= Noble |title=Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries |publisher=Cengage Learning. |year=2008 |pages=507–508}}</ref><ref name="Neuhaus2019" />

===Administrative reform===
The reign of Leopold saw some important changes made in the constitution of the Empire.{{sfn|Crankshaw|1971|p=140}} In 1663 the Imperial Diet entered upon the last stage of its existence, and became a body permanently in session at Regensburg. This perpetual diet would become a vital tool for consolidation of Habsburg power under Leopold.<ref name="Schindling">[[Anton Schindling]]. "The Development of the Eternal Diet in Regensburg". The Journal of Modern History 58 (December 1986). p. S69.</ref>

===Political changes===
In 1692, the Duke of [[Electorate of Hanover|Hanover]] was raised to the rank of an elector, becoming the ninth member of the electoral college. In 1700, Leopold, greatly in need of help for the impending war with France, granted the title of [[King in Prussia]] to the Elector of [[Brandenburg-Prussia|Brandenburg]]. The net result of these and similar changes was to weaken the authority of the emperor over the princes of the empire and to compel him to rely more and more upon his position as ruler of the Austrian archduchies and of Hungary and Bohemia.<ref name="Klueting1999">{{Cite book |last=Harm Klueting |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W7MzdP2N9hUC&pg=PA56 |title=Das Reich und Österreich 1648-1740 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |year=1999 |isbn=978-3-8258-4280-2 |pages=56–}}</ref>