His father, Johann Christian, Pfalzgraf von Sulzbach, belonged to a junior branch of the House of Wittelsbach. However, he eventually inherited two electorates: the Palatinate in 1742 and Bavaria in 1777.  In 1742 he married the three-year-older Marie Elisabeth von Sulzbach who, in 1761, gave birth to a son but which died at only one day old. 
He was a strange mixture of traditional and modern. A devout Roman Catholic, he also devoted considerable effort to the internal reform of the Palatinate and the promotion of cultural
and artistic activities. 
When he inherited Bavaria he was obliged to move to Munich, but was never at home there 
while the Bavarians regarded him as a foreigner. He even went so far, in 1784, to agree with Emperor Joseph II to the exchange of Bavaria for the Spanish Netherlands, but nothing came
of this. 

At first he continued to bring enlightened ideas to Bavaria. However, his reforming zeal declined and, after 1789, he moved to a policy of severe repression to prevent French revolutionary ideas 
spreading into his state. 
He had mistressess and illegitimate children and when, in 1794, his wife died, on 15 February 1795 aged seventy, he married Marie Leopoldine of Austria-Este. When he died four years later, on 16 
December 1799, no more legitimate children had been born and, as a result, Bavaria again went to a cousin.
 

Source: Leo van de Pas