March 18, 1438: Duke Albrecht V of Austria is Elected As Albrecht II, King of the Romans

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Albert II of Germany, Albert V of Austria, Elisabeth of Luxemburg, Emperor Sigismund, Expulsion of the Jews, jure uxoris, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, King of Hungary, King Sigismund of Hungary, Pope Martin IV

Albrecht V-II the Magnanimous, Duke of Austria and elected King of the Romans as Albrecht II (August 10, 1397 – October 27, 1439) was king of the Holy Roman Empire and a member of the House of Habsburg. By inheritance he became Albrecht V, Duke of Austria. Through his wife (jure uxoris) he also became King of Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, and inherited a claim to the Duchy of Luxembourg.

Albert was born in Vienna as the son of Albert IV, Duke of Austria, and Joanna Sophia of Bavaria, daughter of Albrecht I, Duke of Bavaria and his first wife Margaret of Brieg.

Albrecht V, Duke of Austria

He succeeded to the Duchy of Austria at the age of seven on his father’s death in 1404. His uncle Duke Wilhelm of Inner Austria, then head of the rivaling Leopoldinian line, served as regent for his nephew, followed by his brothers Leopold IV and Ernst the Iron in 1406.

The quarrels between the brothers and their continued attempts to gain control over the Albertinian territories led to civil war-like conditions. Nevertheless, Albrecht having received a good education, undertook the government of Austria proper on the occasion of Leopold’s death in 1411 and succeeded, with the aid of his advisers, in ridding the duchy of the evils which had arisen during his minority.

Expulsion of the Jews

Though the Jews in the Austrian duchy had been subject to local persecutions during the 13th and 14th century, their position remained relatively safe. Jewish communities prospered in several towns like Krems or the area around the Judenplatz at Vienna. During the confusion after the death of Duke Albrecht IV in 1404 their situation worsened sharply, culminating in the blaze of the Vienna synagogue on November 5, 1406, followed by riots and lootings.

When Albrecht V came of age in 1411 and interfered in the Hussite Wars, he repeatedly established new taxes imposed on the Jewish community to finance his campaigns. On the other hand, after the Hussites had devastated the duchy, the Austrian Jews were accused of collaboration and arms trade in favour of the enemies. The accusations of a host desecration at Enns in 1420 gave Albert pretext for the destruction of the Jewish community.

According to the 1463 Chronica Austriae by chronicler Thomas Ebendorfer, the duke on May 23, 1420, at the behest of the Church, ordered the imprisonment and forcible conversion of the Jews. Those that had not converted or escaped were sent off in boats down the Danube, while wealthy Jews remained under arrest, several of them tortured and stripped of their property.

Coronation of Albrecht of Austria as King of the Romans

The forced baptism of Jewish children was stopped on intervention by Pope Martin V. On March 12, 1421 Albert sentenced the remaining Jews to death. Ninety-two men and 120 women were burned at the stake south of the Vienna city walls on March 12, 1421. The Jews were placed under an “eternal ban” and their synagogue was demolished. The persecutions in several Austrian towns are explicitly described in a 16th-century script called Vienna Gesera.

In 1422 Albert married Elisabeth of Luxemburg, the daughter and heiress of the King Sigismund of Hungary (later also Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia), and his second wife, the Slovenian noblewoman Barbara of Celje. Besides Hungary, Albrecht’s marriage brought him claims to several Slavic kingdoms and principalities as well.

Albrecht assisted his father-in-law Sigismund in his campaigns against the Hussites, involving the Austrian duchy in the Hussite Wars. In return Sigismund designated him as his successor and granted him the title of a Margrave of Moravia in 1423. The Austrian lands were devastated several times and Albert also participated in the 1431 Battle of Domažlice where the Imperial troops suffered an embarrassing defeat.

Albrecht II, King of the Romans

When Sigismund died in 1437, Albrecht was crowned King of Hungary on January 1, 1438, and just as his predecessor did, he moved his court to the Hungarian Kingdom from where he later oversaw his other domains. Although crowned king of Bohemia six months after ascending to the Hungarian throne, he was unable to obtain possession of the country. He was engaged in warfare with the Bohemians and their Polish allies, when on March 18, 1438, he was elected “King of the Romans” at Frankfurt, an honour which he does not appear to have sought. He was never crowned as Holy Roman Emperor.

After being engaged in defending Hungary against the attacks of the Turks, he died on October 27, 1439 at Neszmély and was buried at Székesfehérvár. Albrecht was an energetic and warlike prince, whose short reign as a triple king gave great promise of usefulness for the Holy Roman Empire.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire Part XI: Aftermath

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Bohemia and Croatia, Christian VII of Denmark, Congress of Vienna, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor of Austria, German Confederation, Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, King of Hungary

Aftermath

The Holy Roman Empire, an institution which had lasted for just over a thousand years, did not pass unnoticed or unlamented. The dissolution of the empire sent shockwaves through Germany, with most of the reactions within the former imperial boundaries being rage, grief or shame.

Even the signatories of the Confederation of the Rhine were outraged; the Bavarian emissary to the imperial diet, Rechberg, stated that he was “furious” due to having “put his signature to the destruction of the German name”, referring to his state’s involvement in the confederation, which had effectively doomed the empire.

From a legal standpoint, Franz II’s abdication was controversial. Contemporary legal commentators agreed that the abdication itself was perfectly legal but that the emperor did not have the authority to dissolve the empire. As such, several of the empire’s vassals refused to recognize that the empire had ended. As late as October 1806, farmers in Thuringia refused to accept the end of the empire, believing its dissolution to be a plot by the local authorities.

For many of the people within the former empire, its collapse made them uncertain and fearful of their future, and the future of Germany itself. Contemporary reports from Vienna describe the dissolution of the empire as “incomprehensible” and the general public’s reaction as one of horror.

The German Confederation

In contrast to the fears of the general public, many contemporary intellectuals and artists saw Napoleon as a herald of a new age, rather than a destroyer of an old order. The popular idea forwarded by German nationalists was that the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire freed Germany from the somewhat anachronistic ideas rooted in a fading ideal of universal Christianity and paved the way for the country’s unification as the German Empire, a nation state, 65 years later.

German historian Helmut Rössler has argued that Franz II and the Austrians fought to save the largely ungrateful Germany from the forces of Napoleon, only withdrawing and abandoning the empire when most of Germany betrayed them and joined Napoleon. Indeed, the assumption of a separate Austrian imperial title in 1804 did not mean that Franz II had any intentions to abdicate his prestigious position as the Roman emperor, the idea only began to be considered as circumstances beyond Habsburg control forced decisive actions to be taken.

Compounded with fears of what now guaranteed the safety of many of the smaller German states, the poet Christoph Martin Wieland lamented that Germany had now fallen into an “apocalyptic time” and stating “Who can bear this disgrace, which weighs down upon a nation which was once so glorious?—may God improve things, if it is still possible to improve them!”.

To some, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was seen as the final end of the ancient Roman Empire. In the words of Christian Gottlob von Voigt, a minister in Weimar, “if poetry can go hand in hand with politics, then the abdication of the imperial dignity offers a wealth of material.

The Roman Empire now takes its place in the sequence of vanquished empires”. In the words of the English historian James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce in his 1864 work on the Holy Roman Empire, the empire was the “oldest political institution in the world” and the same institution as the one founded by Augustus in 27 BC.

Writing of the empire, Bryce stated that “nothing else so directly linked the old world to the new—nothing else displayed so many strange contrasts of the present and the past, and summed up in those contrasts so much of European history”.

When confronted by the fall and collapse of their empire, many contemporaries employed the catastrophic fall of ancient Troy as a metaphor, due to its association with the notion of total destruction and the end of a culture.

The image of the apocalypse was also frequently used, associating the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire with an impending end of the world (echoing medieval legends of a Last Roman Emperor, a figure prophesized to be active during the end times).

Criticism and protests against the empire’s dissolution were typically censored, especially in the French-administered Confederation of the Rhine. Among the aspects most criticized by the general populace was the removal or replacement of the traditional intercessions for the empire and emperor in the daily church prayers throughout former imperial territory. Suppression from France, combined with examples of excessive retribution against pro-empire advocates, ensured that these protests soon died down.

Official and international reactions

King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden, who in 1806 issued a proclamation to his German subjects that the dissolution of the empire “would not destroy the German nation.”

In an official capacity, Prussia’s response was only formulaic expressions of regret owing to the “termination of an honourable bond hallowed by time”. Prussia’s representative to the Reichstag, Baron Görtz, reacted with sadness, mixed with gratitude and affection for the House of Habsburg and their former role as emperors.

Görtz had taken part as an electoral emissary of the Electorate of Brandenburg (Prussia’s territory within the formal imperial borders) in 1792, at the election of Franz II as Holy Roman Emperor, and exclaimed that “So the emperor whom I helped elect was the last emperor!—This step was no doubt to be expected, but that does not make its reality any less moving and crushing. It cuts off the last thread of hope to which one tried to cling”.

Baron von Wiessenberg, the Austrian envoy to the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, reported that the local elector, Wilhelm I, had teared up and expressed lament at the loss of “a constitution to which Germany had for so long owed its happiness and freedom”.

Internationally, the empire’s demise was met with mixed or indifferent reactions. Emperor Alexander I of Russia offered no response and King Christian VII of Denmark formally incorporated his German lands into his kingdoms a few months after the empire’s dissolution.

Franz I, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia

King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden (who notably hadn’t recognized the separate imperial title of Austria yet) issued a somewhat provocative proclamation to the denizens of his German lands (Swedish Pomerania and Bremen-Verden) on August 22, 1806, stating that the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire “would not destroy the German nation” and expressed hopes that the empire might be revived.

Possibility of restoration

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was constituted by Franz II’s own personal abdication of the title and the release of all vassals and imperial states from their obligations and duties to the emperor. The title of Holy Roman Emperor (theoretically the same title as Roman Emperor) and the Holy Roman Empire itself as an idea and institution (the theoretically universally sovereign imperium) were never technically abolished. Dissolved yes, abolished no.

The continued existence of a universal empire, though without defined territory and lacking an emperor, was sometimes referenced in the titles of other later monarchs. For instance, the Savoyard Kings of Italy continued to claim the title “Prince and Perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire (in Italy)” (a title originating from a 14th-century imperial grant from Emperor Charles IV to their ancestor Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy) until the abolition of the Italian monarchy in 1946.

In the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeats in 1814 and 1815, there was a widespread sentiment in Germany and elsewhere which called for the revival of the Holy Roman Empire under the leadership of Emperor Franz I of Austria. At the time, there were several factors which prevented the restoration of the empire as it had been in the 18th century, notably the rise of larger, more consolidated kingdoms in Germany, such as Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg, as well as Prussia’s interest in becoming a great power in Europe (rather than continue being a vassal to the Habsburgs).

Even then, the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, with a modernized internal political structure, had not been out of reach at the 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna (which decided Europe’s borders in the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat). However, Emperor Franz had come to the conclusion before the Congress of Vienna convened, that the Holy Roman Empire’s political structure would not have been superior to the new order in Europe and that restoring it was not in the interest of the Habsburg monarchy.

In an official capacity, the papacy considered the fact that the Holy Roman Empire was not restored at the Congress of Vienna (alongside other decisions made during the negotiations) to be “detrimental to the interests of the Catholic religion and the rights of the church”.

In the Holy Roman Empire’s place, the German Confederation was created by the 9th Act of the Congress of Vienna on June 8, 1815 after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. The German Confederation, which was led by the Austrian emperors as “heads of the presiding power” would prove to be ineffective.

The Confederation was weakened by the German revolutions of 1848–1849, where after the Frankfurt Parliament, elected by the people of the Confederation, attempted to proclaim a German Empire and designate Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia as their Emperor.

King Friedrich Wilhelm IV himself did not approve of the idea, instead favoring a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs of Austria, though neither the Habsburgs themselves nor the German revolutionaries, still active at the time, would have approved of that idea.

Prussia went to war in 1866 with Austria in an attempt to remove Austria from German politics. With Austria successfully removed from any participation in the affairs of the German states, by 1871 Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck used the war against France (The Franco-Prussian War 1870-71) to unite the German states into a new German Empire under the authority of the Prussian king as the new German Emperor.

June 9, 1640: Birth of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia

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Archduke of Austria, Bohemia and Croatia, Holy Roman Emperor, House of Habsburg, King of Hungary, Leopold I, Peace of Westphalia, Philip IV of Spain, Thirty Years War, War of the Spanish Succession

Leopold I (Leopold Ignaz Joseph Balthasar Felician; June 9, 1640 – May 5, 1705) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, Daughter of King Felipe III of Spain and Archduchess Margaret of Austria, prior to her Imperial marriage she was considered a possible wife for Charles, Prince of Wales; the event, later known in history as the “Spanish Match.”

Born on June 9, 1640 in Vienna, Leopold received the traditional program of education in the liberal arts, history, literature, natural science and astronomy. He was particularly interested in music, as his father emperor Ferdinand III had been. From an early age Leopold showed an inclination toward learning. He became fluent in Latin, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. In addition to German, Italian would be the most favored language at his court.

Leopold became heir apparent in 1654 after the death of his elder brother Ferdinand IV, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia (1633 – 1654).

Elected in 1658, Leopold I ruled the Holy Roman Empire until his death in 1705, becoming the longest-ruling Habsburg emperor (46 years and 9 months). He was both a composer and considerable patron of music.

Leopold’s reign is known for conflicts with the Ottoman Empire in the Great Turkish War (1683-1699) and rivalry with Louis XIV, a contemporary and first cousin (on the maternal side; fourth cousin on the paternal side), in the west. After more than a decade of warfare, Leopold emerged victorious in the east thanks to the military talents of Prince Eugene of Savoy. By the Treaty of Karlowitz, Leopold recovered almost all of the Kingdom of Hungary, which had fallen under Turkish power in the years after the 1526 Battle of Mohács.

Leopold fought three wars against France: the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years’ War, and the War of the Spanish Succession. In this last, Leopold sought to give his younger son Charles the entire Spanish inheritance, disregarding the will of the late Carlos II. Leopold started a war that soon engulfed much of Europe.

The early years of the war went fairly well for Austria, with victories at Schellenberg and Blenheim, but the war would drag on until 1714, nine years after Leopold’s death, which barely had an effect on the warring nations. When peace returned with the Treaty of Rastatt, Austria could not be said to have emerged as triumphant as it had from the war against the Turks.

The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 (8 years after the birth of Emperor Leopold) had been a political defeat for the Habsburgs. It ended the idea that Europe was a single Christian 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 wars; 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 Holy Roman Emperors but strengthen them in their own hereditary lands, such as Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia.

In 1692, the Duke Ernst August of Hanover was raised to the rank of an Imperial 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 Friedrich III of Brandenburg. The net result of these and similar changes was to continue to weaken the authority of the emperor over the members of the Empire and to compel him to rely more and more upon his position as ruler of the Austrian Archduchy and of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia.

In 1666, Leopard married his first cousin and niece Infanta Margaret Theresa of Spain (1651–1673), daughter and first child of King Felipe IV of Spain born from his second marriage with his niece Infanta Mariana of Austria.

His second wife was Archduchess Claudia Felicitas of Austria, the first child and eldest daughter of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Further Austria and Count of Tyrol, by his wife and first-cousin Anna de’ Medici. On her father’s side, her grandparents were Leopold V, Archduke of Further Austria and his wife Claudia de’ Medici (after which she received her first name); on her mother’s side, her grandparents were Cosimo II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his wife Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria.

His third wife was Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. She was the oldest of 17 children born from Philipp Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuburg and Duke of Jülich-Berg and his second wife, Landgravine Elisabeth Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt. On her father’s side her grandparents were Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuburg and his first wife, Magdalene of Bavaria. On her mother’s side, her grandparents were Georg II, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Sophia Eleonore of Saxony.

November 21, 1916: Death of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, King of Hungary

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Archduke Franz Charles of Austria, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, Felix zu Schwarzenberg, Franz Joseph of Austria, Katharina Schratt, King of Croatia and Bohemia, King of Hungary, Sarajevo, Sisi, Sophie of Bavaria, World War I

Franz Joseph I (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia, and monarch of other states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from December 2, 1848 until his death. From May 1, 1850 to August 24, 1866 he was also President of the German Confederation. He was the longest-reigning ruler of Austria and Hungary, as well as the sixth-longest-reigning monarch of any country.

Franz Joseph was born August 18, 1830 in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (on the 65th anniversary of the death of Franz of Lorraine, Holy RomanEmperorFranz I) as the eldest son of Archduke Franz Charles (the younger son of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II), and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria.

His mother, Princess Sophie of Bavaria (1805 – 1872) was born to King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Caroline of Baden. She was the identical twin sister of Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria, Queen of Saxony as wife of Friedrich August II of Saxony.

Because his uncle, reigning from 1835 as the Emperor Ferdinand, was weak-minded, and his father unambitious and retiring, the mother of the young Archduke “Franzi” brought him up as a future Emperor, with emphasis on devotion, responsibility and diligence.

Since no descendants were to be expected from the marriage of the heir to the throne, Archduke Ferdinand (emperor from 1835), his next elder brother Franz Charles was to continue the succession of the Habsburgs, which is why the birth of his son Franz Joseph at the Viennese court was given special importance.

Franz Charles was physically as well as mentally of weak constitution and was therefore hardly suitable for a reign. For this reason, Franz Joseph was consistently built up as a potential successor to the imperial throne by his politically ambitious mother from early childhood.

It was generally felt in the court that the Emperor should marry and produce heirs as soon as possible. Various potential brides were considered, including Princess Elisabeth of Modena, Princess Anna of Prussia and Princess Sidonia of Saxony.

Although in public life Franz Joseph was the unquestioned director of affairs, in his private life his mother still wielded crucial influence. Sophie wanted to strengthen the relationship between the Houses of Habsburg and Wittelsbach—descending from the latter house herself—and hoped to match Franz Joseph with her sister Ludovika’s eldest daughter, Helene (“Néné”), who was four years the Emperor’s junior.

Helene was the eldest daughter of Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria.

However, Franz Joseph fell deeply in love with Néné’s younger sister Elisabeth (“Sisi”), a beautiful girl of fifteen, and insisted on marrying her instead. Sophie acquiesced, despite her misgivings about Sisi’s appropriateness as an imperial consort, and the young couple were married on April 24, 1854 in St. Augustine’s Church, Vienna.

Their marriage would eventually prove to be an unhappy one; though Franz Joseph was passionately in love with his wife, the feeling was not mutual. Elisabeth never truly acclimatized to life at court, and was frequently in conflict with the imperial family. Their first daughter Sophie died as an infant, and their only son Rudolf died by suicide in 1889 in the infamous Mayerling Incident.

In 1885 Franz Joseph met Katharina Schratt, a leading actress of the Vienna stage, and she became his friend and confidante. This relationship lasted the rest of his life, and was—to a certain degree—tolerated by Elisabeth. Franz Joseph built Villa Schratt in Bad Ischl for her, and also provided her with a small palace in Vienna. Though their relationship lasted for thirty-four years, it remained platonic.

In December 1848, Franz Joseph’s uncle Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the throne at Olomouc, as part of Minister President Felix zu Schwarzenberg’s plan to end the Revolutions of 1848 in Hungary.

Franz Joseph then acceded to the throne. Largely considered to be a reactionary, he spent his early reign resisting constitutionalism in his domains. The Austrian Empire was forced to cede its influence over Tuscany and most of its claim to Lombardy–Venetia to the Kingdom of Sardinia, following the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859 and the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866.

Although Franz Joseph ceded no territory to the Kingdom of Prussia after the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the Peace of Prague (August 23, 1866) settled the German Question in favour of Prussia, which prevented the unification of Germany from occurring under the House of Habsburg.

Franz Joseph was troubled by nationalism during his entire reign. He concluded the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which granted greater autonomy to Hungary and transformed the Austrian Empire into the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

He ruled peacefully for the next 45 years, but personally suffered the tragedies of the execution of his brother Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico in 1867, the suicide of his son Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889, the assassination of his wife Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) in 1898, and the assassination of his nephew and heir-presumptive, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914.

After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria-Hungary turned its attention to the Balkans, which was a hotspot of international tension because of conflicting interests with the Russian Empire. The Bosnian Crisis was a result of Franz Joseph’s annexation in 1908 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been occupied by his troops since the Congress of Berlin (1878).

On June 28, 1914, the assassination of his nephew Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo resulted in Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia, which was an ally of the Russian Empire. That activated a system of alliances which resulted in World War I. The Emperor died in 1916, after ruling his domains for almost 68 years. He was succeeded by his grandnephew Charles.

October 21st, 1911: Marriage of Archduke Charles of Austria-Este and Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma

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Archduke Charles of Austria-Este, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Archduke Otto of Austria, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, House of Habsburg-Lorraine, King of Croatia and Bohemia, King of Hungary, Wedding, World War I, Zita of Bourbon-Parma

Archduke Charles of Austria-Este, the son of Archduke Otto of Austria and Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony, fifth child of King Georg of Saxony and Infanta Maria Anna of Portugal, herself the eldest surviving daughter of Queen Maria II of Portugal and her King Consort, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Koháry.

Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Koháry was the son Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Princess Maria Antonia Koháry de Csábrág who founded the Catholic cadet branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, after their marriage.

Charles became heir presumptive of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary after his uncle Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in 1914. Franz Ferdinand’ assassination was the spark that set off World War I.

Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, born as the seventeenth child of the dispossessed Roberto I, Duke of Parma, and his second wife, Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal, herself the seventh and last child of King Miguel of Portugal and Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. The unusual name Zita was given to her after Zita, a popular Italian Saint who had lived in Tuscany in the 13th century.

In the close vicinity of Schwarzau castle was the Villa Wartholz, residence of Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, Zita’s maternal aunt. Archduchess Maria Theresa was born as Infanta Maria Theresa of Portugal and the second daughter of Miguel I of Portugal and Princess Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. She was the stepmother of Archduke Otto, who died in 1906, and the step-grandmother of Archduke Charles of Austria-Este, at that time second-in-line to the Austrian throne. Archduchess Maria Theresa’s sister was Princess Zita’s mother, Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal.

Archduchess Maria Annunziata and Archduchess Elisabeth Amalie of Austria, were the two daughters of Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria were Zita’s first cousins and Charles’ half-aunts. Charles and Zita had met as children but did not see one another for almost ten years, as each pursued their education. In 1909, his Dragoon regiment was stationed at Brandýs nad Labem, from where he visited his aunt at Františkovy Lázně.

It was during one of these visits that Charles and Zita became reacquainted.,Charles was under pressure to marry (Franz Ferdinand, his uncle and first-in-line, had married morganatically, and his children were excluded from the throne) and Zita had a suitably royal genealogy.

Zita later recalled:

We were of course glad to meet again and became close friends. On my side feelings developed gradually over the next two years. He seemed to have made his mind up much more quickly, however, and became even more keen when, in the autumn of 1910, rumours spread about that I had got engaged to a distant Spanish relative, Don Jaime, the Duke of Madrid. On hearing this, the Archduke came down post haste from his regiment at Brandýs and sought out his grandmother, Archduchess Maria Theresa, who was also my aunt and the natural confidante in such matters. He asked if the rumor was true and when told it was not, he replied, “Well, I had better hurry in any case or she will get engaged to someone else.”

Archduke Charles traveled to Villa Pianore and asked for Zita’s hand and, on June 13, 1911, their engagement was announced at the Austrian court.: Zita in later years recalled that after her engagement she had expressed to Charles her worries about the fate of the Austrian Empire and the challenges of the monarchy.

Charles and Zita were married at the Schwarzau castle on October 21, 1911. Charles’s great-uncle, the 81-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph, attended the wedding. He was relieved to see an heir make a suitable marriage, and was in good spirits, even leading the toast at the wedding breakfast. Archduchess Zita soon conceived a son, and Archduke Otto, future Crown Prince of Austria, was born November 20, 1912. Seven more children followed in the next decade.

In 1916, Emperor Franz Joseph died and Charles became Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary (as Charles IV), King of Croatia, and King of Bohemia (as Charles III), and the last of the monarchs belonging to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to rule over Austria-Hungary.

At the end of the Great War, on the day of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, Charles issued a carefully worded proclamation in which he recognized the Austrian people’s right to determine the form of the state and “relinquish[ed] every participation in the administration of the State.” He also released his officials from their oath of loyalty to him. On the same day, the Imperial Family left Schönbrunn Palace and moved to Castle Eckartsau, east of Vienna. On November 13, following a visit with Hungarian magnates, Charles issued a similar proclamation—the Eckartsau Proclamation—for Hungary.

Although it has widely been cited as an “abdication”, the word itself was never used in either proclamation. Indeed, he deliberately avoided using the word abdication in the hope that the people of either Austria or Hungary would vote to recall him.

Encouraged by Hungarian royalists (“legitimists”), Charles sought twice in 1921 to reclaim the throne of Hungary, but failed largely because Hungary’s regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy (the last commander of the Imperial and Royal Navy), refused to support Charles’s restoration.

After the second failed attempt at restoration in Hungary, Charles and his pregnant wife Zita were arrested and quarantined at Tihany Abbey. On 1 November 1921 they were taken to the Hungarian Danube harbour city of Baja, were taken on board the monitor HMS Glowworm, and there removed to the Black Sea where they were transferred to the light cruiser HMS Cardiff. On November 19, 1921 they arrived at their final exile, the Portuguese island of Madeira. Compared to the imperial glory in Vienna and even at Eckartsau, conditions there were certainly impoverished.

Charles did not leave Madeira. On March 9, 1922 he had caught a cold in town, which developed into bronchitis and subsequently progressed to severe pneumonia. Having suffered two heart attacks, he died of respiratory failure on April 1, in the presence of his wife (who was pregnant with their eighth child) and nine-year-old former Crown Prince Otto, remaining conscious almost until his last moments. His last words to his wife were “I love you so much.” He was 34 years old. .

After her husband’s death, Zita and her son Otto served as symbols of unity for the exiled dynasty. A devout Catholic, she raised a large family after being widowed at the age of 29, and never remarried.

Zita lived a long life. After a memorable 90th birthday, at which she was surrounded by her now vast family, Zita’s habitually robust health began to fail. She developed inoperable cataracts in both eyes. Her last big family gathering took place at Zizers, in 1987, when her children and grandchildren joined in celebrating Empress Zita’s 95th birthday.

While visiting her daughter, in summer 1988, she developed pneumonia and spent most of the autumn and winter bedridden. Finally, she called Archduke Otto, in early March 1989, and told him she was dying. He and the rest of the family travelled to her bedside and took turns keeping her company until she died in the early hours of March 14, 1989. She was 96 years old, and was the last surviving child of Roberto, Duke of Parma from both his marriages.

Her funeral was held in Vienna on April 1. The government allowed it to take place on Austrian soil providing that the cost was borne by the Habsburgs themselves. Zita’s body was carried to the Imperial Crypt under Capuchin Church in the same funeral coach she had walked behind during the funeral of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1916.

Her funeral was attended by over 200 members of the Habsburg and Bourbon-Parma families, and the service had 6,000 attendees including leading politicians, state officials and international representatives, including a representative of Pope John Paul II.

Following an ancient custom, the Empress had asked that her heart, which was placed in an urn, stay behind at Muri Abbey, in Switzerland, where the Emperor’s heart had rested for decades. In doing so, Zita assured herself that, in death, she and her husband would remain by each other’s side.

Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, Holy Roman Empress. Part II.

Tags

Austrian Habsburgs, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, King of Hungary, Spanish Habsburgs

Marriage
At the end of 1626, Maria Anna was betrothed to Ferdinand, the younger brother of her first fiancé, and the new heir of Emperor Ferdinand II. Ferdinand was her first cousin, being the son of her mother’s brother. The formal engagement was preceded by a series of negotiations which were conducted in 1625.

That same year, Prince Ferdinand was crowned King of Hungary, and in 1627 King of Bohemia. In the negotiations were included all the life aspects of the Infanta at the court of her future spouse. Despite the desire of the groom that Maria Anna’s confessor would be the Jesuit Ambrosio Penalosa, the appointment eventually went to Capuchin Diego Quiroga. In the marriage contract signed by both parties in 1628, it was noted that Maria Anna could retain her rights of inheritance over the Spanish throne, while her older sister Infanta Anna, married to King Louis XIII of France in 1615, was forced to renounce to her rights.

Maria Anna had left Madrid for Vienna in December 1629, fully three years after her engegement, and nearly five years after the proposal for marriage was first mooted. The journey, once embarked upon, took more than a year to complete. En route by sea, in Genoa complications arose due to an epidemic of the plague that erupted in the Italian Peninsula. For this reason, the party was unable to stop in Bologna, where Cardinal Antonio Barberini (nephew of Pope Urban VIII), was waiting for the Infanta to give her the Golden Rose.

The party moved to Naples, where Maria Anna finally received the award. Leaving the Kingdom of Naples, the Infanta crossed the Papal States, having made a pilgrimage to the Basilica della Santa Casa. On this section of her journey, Maria Anna was accompanied by Roman aristocracy, led by another nephew of Pope Urban VIII, Taddeo Barberini, Prince of Palestrina. On 26 January 1631, she arrived in Trieste, where she met Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, her future brother-in-law, who would first stand in for his brother at a wedding-by-proxy and then escort the Infanta to Vienna. That very day, Maria Anna was married to King Ferdinand of Hungria-Bohemia per procura with Archduke Leopold Wilhelm serving as the proxy.

Before the official wedding, King Ferdinand, not trusting the previous portraits that he had seen of the Infanta, decided to secretly view his bride. The Royal oberhofmeister asked for an audience with Maria Anna; on this visit, he was accompanied by some nobles, among whom was her groom. Struck by the beauty of the Infanta, King Ferdinand immediately revealed his identity and began a conversation with Maria Anna in Spanish. The love and respect that the future emperor felt for his wife lasted throughout their marriage. He was never unfaithful to her and never had any illegitimate children.

In Vienna on February 20, 1631, Maria Anna was married to King Ferdinand of Hungary-Bohemia. The festivities lasted a whole month. The marriage was described as friendly. Maria Anna was described as happy-tempered, friendly, and intelligent, and she was able to relieve the feelings of the rather melancholic Ferdinand.

Survival of Monarchies

Tags

20th Century, Absolute Monarchy, Austrian Empire, Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, German Empire, King Felipe VI of Spain, King of Hungary, King of Prussia, Kingdom of England, Monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, World War I, World War ii

This is an introduction to a new series.

Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, King of Hungary.
Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, King of Prussia
Emperor Nicholas II of Russia
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Queen Wilhelmina V of the Netherlands.
King Christian IX of Denmark
King Alfonso XIII of Spain
King Carlos I of Portugal and the Algarves
King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway
King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy
King Otto of Bavaria
King Albrecht of Saxony
King Wilhelm II of Württemberg
King George I of Greece
King Alexander I of Serbia
King Carol I of Romania

King Leopold II of Belgium
Grand Duke Friedrich of Baden
Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mechlenburg-Schwerin
Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Grand Duke Ernst-Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine
Grand Duke Adolphus of Luxembourg

Duke Carl-Eduard of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein
Prince Albert I of Monaco
Pope Leo XIII Sovereign of the Vatican City

Prince-Grand Master Giovanni Battista Ceschi a Santa Croce of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

 

This is a list of the monarchs who were on their throne on January 1, 1901 the day the 20th century began. By the end of the 20th century this list would be much shorter. The majority of thrones were lost after World War I and then again after World War II. This series is going to examine a hypothesis that I have. It seems the more autocratic and Conservative a monarchy was the more difficult it was for them to change and adapt to the changes within their nations. On the other hand, the more Liberal a state was, where the monarch ruled with a constitution, the more adaptable they were and willing to adjust to the changes within their nations and thus survive.

I will be examining the two more liberal monarchies, The United Kingdom and Denmark, to see how these more Liberal states survived, and I will examine the three large Empires of Europe, Germany, Austria and Russia to see how these Conservative regimes collapsed. I will start at a point in their histories where each state was more autocratic and conservative and how they each adapted or resisted the changing social and political movements that happened in European history.

Next Friday I will begin this series with England/The United Kingdom

I will leave you with a list of monarchies that thrive as of July, 2014.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark
King Felipe VI of Spain
King Philippe of Belgium
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands
King Harald V of Norway
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg
Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein
Prince Albert II of Monaco
Pope Francis, Sovereign of the Vatican City

Prince-Grand Master Matthew Festing of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta