ABSTRACT
While the attention and energies of the emperor and most of the German princes were riveted on western Hungary and the difficult initial campaigns against the Turks which followed the lifting of the siege of Vienna, Louis XIV, not content with the added security he had gained on his eastern frontier with the Empire through the terms of the Regensburg Armistice of 1684, remained alert to new opportunities to strengthen his position in the east. One such opportunity arose in 1685, when the Elector Palatine Karl died without a direct male heir, causing his title and territories to devolve upon the Catholic duke of Jülich and Berg, Philipp Wilhelm of Neuburg. With no hope of gaining Philipp Wilhelm as a client (since his daughter was Emperor Leopold’s third wife), Louis tried instead to acquire part of his territory by asserting a legal claim to certain of Karl’s lands and other property on behalf of the newly expired elector’s sister, duchess of Orléans and Louis’s own sister-in-law. Anticipating a determination in his favour, Louis agreed to allow both the imperial diet and the pope to sort out and pronounce on the legalities of the issue.
