Empress Elisabeth died on 10 September 1898 in Geneva at the hand of an assassin.In the last years of her life, Elisabeth was, in a sense, already dead to the world. Her legendary beauty had faded, her long and unhappy marriage, together with the loss of her only son Crown Prince Rudolf, had shattered her […]
Maria Karolina, Queen of Naples and Sicily, passed away on 8 September 1814. She was the last surviving child of Maria Theresa and was said to have closely resembled her mother in political talent. There was little to envy in Maria Karolina’s life. After a happy childhood in Vienna, she was married off to King […]
Archduchess Marie Valerie, the youngest child of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth (Sisi), passed away on 6 September 1924. Marie Valerie was the Empress’s favourite child, the sole object of her overwhelming motherly love. On some occasions this granted her great advantages – for instance, she was spared a dynastic marriage and was able […]
Empress Eleanor of Portugal, wife of Emperor Frederick III, passed away on 3 September 1467. Raised in the vibrant and splendid Renaissance court of Portugal, she felt like an outcast amid the austere conditions of Wiener Neustadt, the Imperial residence, and alongside her phlegmatic, surly husband — nearly twenty years her senior. Little wonder, then, […]
Archduchess Elisabeth Marie was born on 2 September 1883 as the only child of Crown Prince Rudolf and Princess Stéphanie of Belgium. When her father died by suicide at Mayerling, she was just five years old. One might wonder whether there was ever any true harmony in this princess’s life. Her grandmother, the eccentric Empress […]
The Holy Roman Empress Elisabeth Christine was born on 28 August 1691. In the annals of history, only the fact that she was Maria Theresa’s mother has spared her from complete obscurity. Born to the Protestant Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, she was chosen to wed Catholic Archduke Charles, future Emperor Charles VI. Surprisingly, it took the […]
Archduchess Maria Elisabeth, the daughter of Emperor Leopold I and long-time governess of the Austrian Netherlands, died on 26 August 1741. With her, the dynasty lost a talented political leader and administrator. In 1715, after the defeat in the War of the Spanish Succession, Austria received the Spanish Netherlands as compensation. Due to widespread hostility […]
Stéphanie, Countess Lónyay, died on 23 August 1945. Despite her modest title, she was born a Princess of Belgium and, through her marriage to Rudolf, son of Emperor Francis Joseph, became Crown Princess of Austria-Hungary. The extremely unhappy marriage produced one daughter and ended with Rudolf’s scandalous suicide at Mayerling in 1889. For the 25-year-old […]
Rudolf, the son of Emperor Francis Joseph and Empress Elisabeth (Sisi), was born on 21 August 1858. His unusual name, recalling the 13th-century Habsburg emperor Rudolf I, was chosen to emphasise continuity with the dynasty’s past. Francis Joseph granted his only son the title of Crown Prince to distinguish him from the other archdukes. The […]
It is time to commemorate another Habsburg ‘wedding of the century’ — this time the one that belonged to the 15th century: Duchess Mary of Burgundy and Archduke Maximilian, the son of Emperor Friedrich III, were married on 19 August 1477. Mary was young, beautiful and immensely wealthy, and she had grown up at the […]
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