Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria

Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph; 21 August 1858 – 30 January 1889), was the only son and third child of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria. He was heir apparent to the Imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from birth. In 1889, he died in a suicide pact with his mistress, Mary Freiin von Vetsera, at the Mayerling hunting lodge.[1] The ensuing scandal made international headlines. He was named after the first Habsburg King of Germany, Rudolf I, who reigned from 1273 to 1291.[2]

For the friend and patron of Beethoven, see Archduke Rudolf of Austria (1788–1831).
Rudolf
Crown Prince of Austria
Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia
Born(1858-08-21)21 August 1858
Schloss Laxenburg, Laxenburg, Lower Austria, Austrian Empire
Died30 January 1889(1889-01-30) (aged 30)
Mayerling, Lower Austria, Austria-Hungary
Burial
Imperial Crypt, Vienna
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1881)​
IssueArchduchess Elisabeth Marie
Full name
German: Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph
English: Rudolph Francis Charles Joseph
HouseHabsburg-Lorraine
FatherFranz Joseph I of Austria
MotherElisabeth of Bavaria
ReligionRoman Catholicism
Austrian Royalty
House of Habsburg-Lorraine
Francis I (Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor)
Children include
Archduchess Marie Louise
Ferdinand I
Archduchess Maria Leopoldina
Archduchess Clementina
Archduke Franz Karl
Grandchildren include
Franz Joseph I
Archduke Maximilian
Archduke Karl Ludwig
Archduke Ludwig Viktor
Great-grandchildren include
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Otto Franz
Ferdinand I
Franz Joseph I
Children
Archduchess Sophie
Archduchess Gisela
Crown Prince Rudolf
Archduchess Marie Valerie
Grandchildren include
Archduchess Elisabeth Marie
Charles I
Children include
Crown Prince Otto
Archduke Robert
Archduke Felix
Archduke Karl Ludwig
Archduke Rudolf
Grandchildren include
Archduchess Andrea
Archduchess Monika
Archduchess Michaela
Archduchess Maria-Anna
Archduke Simeon
Archduchess Gabriela
Archduchess Walburga
Archduke Karl
Archduke Georg
Archduke Lorenz
Great-Grandchildren include
Archduke Ferdinand Zvonimir
Archduchess Eleanore
Archduke Amedeo

Background

Rudolf was born at Schloss Laxenburg,[3] a castle near Vienna, as the son of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth. Influenced by his tutor Ferdinand von Hochstetter (who later became the first superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum), Rudolf became very interested in natural sciences, starting a mineral collection at an early age.[3] After his death, large portions of his mineral collection came into the possession of the University for Agriculture in Vienna.[3]

In 1877, the Count of Bombelles was master of the young prince. Bombelles was the former custodian of his aunt Empress Charlotte of Mexico.[4]

Rudolf was raised together with his older sister Gisela and the two were very close. At the age of six, Rudolf was separated from his sister as he began his education to become a future Emperor of Austria. This did not change their relationship and Gisela remained close to him until she left Vienna upon her marriage to Prince Leopold of Bavaria.

In contrast with his deeply conservative father, Rudolf held liberal views that were closer to those of his mother.[5] Nevertheless, his relationship with her was, at times, strained.[5]

Marriage

In Vienna, on 10 May 1881, Rudolf married Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, a daughter of King Leopold II of the Kingdom of Belgium, at the Augustinian Church in Vienna. Although their marriage was initially a happy one, by the time their only child, the Archduchess Elisabeth, was born on 2 September 1883, the couple had drifted apart, and he found solace in drink and other female companionship. Rudolf started having many affairs, and wanted to write to Pope Leo XIII about the possibility of annulling his marriage to Stéphanie, but the Emperor forbade it.[5] In 1886, the spouses were diagnosed with gonorrhea, which rendered Stéphanie sterile.[6]

Affairs and suicide
Main article: Mayerling incident

In 1886, Rudolf bought Mayerling a hunting lodge.[7] In late 1888, the 30-year-old Crown Prince met the 17-year-old Marie Freiin von Vetsera, known by the more fashionable Anglophile name Mary, and began an affair with her.[8] On 30 January 1889, he and the young Freiin (Baroness) were discovered dead in the lodge as a result of an apparent joint suicide. As suicide would prevent him from being given a church burial, Rudolf was officially declared to have been in a state of "mental unbalance", and he was buried in the Imperial Crypt (Kapuzinergruft) of the Capuchin Church in Vienna. Vetsera's body was smuggled out of Mayerling in the middle of the night and secretly buried in the village cemetery at Heiligenkreuz.[7][9] The Emperor had Mayerling converted into a penitential convent of Carmelite nuns and endowed a chantry so that daily prayers would eternally be said by the nuns for the repose of Rudolf's soul.[10]

Vetsera's private letters were discovered in a safe deposit box in an Austrian bank in 2015, and they revealed that she was preparing to commit suicide alongside Rudolf, out of love.[11]

Effect of Rudolf's death

Rudolf's death plunged his mother into despair. She wore black or pearl grey, the colours of mourning, for the rest of her life and spent more and more time away from the imperial court in Vienna. Empress Elisabeth was murdered while abroad in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1898 by an Italian anarchist, Luigi Lucheni.[12]

Politically, Rudolf's death left Franz Joseph without a direct male heir. Franz-Joseph's younger brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, was next in line to the Austro-Hungarian throne,[13] though it was falsely reported that he had renounced his succession rights.[14] In any case, his death in 1896 from typhoid made his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the new heir presumptive. In 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand precipitated World War I. Emperor Franz-Joseph died in November 1916 and was succeeded by his grandnephew, Karl I of Austria. The demands of American President Woodrow Wilson forced Emperor Karl to renounce involvement in state affairs in Vienna in early November 1918. As a result, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceased to exist and a republic came into being without revolution. Karl and his family went into exile in Switzerland after spending a short time at Castle Eckartsau.

Titles, styles and honours

Titles and styles
  • 21 August 1858 – 30 January 1889: His Imperial and Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia[16]

Honours
Domestic[17]
Foreign[17]

Ancestors
  • Crown Prince Rudolf during his early adulthood, c. 1879.
  • Official engagement photo of Crown Prince Rudolf and Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, 1881.
  • Painting "Allegory on the betrothal of Crown Prince Rudolf and Stephanie of Belgium" by Sophia and Marie Görlich, dated 1881.
  • Mayerling Lodge as it appeared before Crown Prince Rudolf's death there in 1889.
  • Crown Prince Rudolf's letter of farewell to his wife.
  • Crown Prince Rudolf placed in a bed for private viewing by his family at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. His head had to be bandaged in order to cover gunshot wounds. When he later lay-in-state, his skull was reconstructed using wax so that his appearance was normal.
  • Crown Prince Rudolf's coffin lies to the right of his parents' coffins in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.
  • Statue in memory of Crown Prince Rudolf in the City Park of Budapest.

See also

Notes
  1. As documented in several autograph letters by the two unfortunate lovers ANSA newsbrief (in Italian)
  2. Timothy Snyder (2008) 'The Red Prince, p.9. ISBN 978-0-465-00237-5
  3. "Crown Prince Rudolf (1858–1889)" (museum notes), Natural History Museum of Vienna, 2006, NHM-Wien-Rudolfe.
  4. http://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_B/Bombelles_Karl-Albert_1832_1889.xml
  5. Röhl, John C. G. (29 October 1998). Young Wilhelm. ISBN 9780521497527. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  6. Holler, Gerd (7 April 1980). "Bratfisch hat wundervoll gepfiffen". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  7. Schmöckel, Sonja. "CSI Mayerling – How did the crown prince really die?". The World of the Habsburgs. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  8. Louise of Coburg, My Own Affairs, George H. Doran Co., 1921, p.120
  9. Butkuviene, Gerda (11 March 2012). "Book Review: Myths of Mayerling". The Vienna Review. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  10. BUTKUVIENE, Gerda (March 2011). "Book Review: Myths of Mayerling Crime at Mayerling. The Life and Death of Mary Vetsera, by Georg Markus; The Habsburgs' Tragedy, by Leo Belmonto". Falter.at.
  11. Press release Archived 31 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine from the Austrian National Library, 31 July 2015 (German)
  12. "European royalty Austria: Crown Prince Rudolf". Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  13. Menger, Carl (January 1994). Carl Menger's Lectures to Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. ISBN 9781781008065. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  14. "The Crown Prince's Successor". New York Times. 2 February 1889.
  15. http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/5779956
  16. Kaiser Joseph II. harmonische Wahlkapitulation mit allen den vorhergehenden Wahlkapitulationen der vorigen Kaiser und Könige. Since 1780 official title used for princes ("zu Ungarn, Böhmen, Dalmatien, Kroatien, Slawonien, Königlicher Erbprinz")
  17. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie (1889), Genealogy pp. 1–2
  18. Boettger, T. F. "Chevaliers de la Toisón d'Or – Knights of the Golden Fleece". La Confrérie Amicale. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  19. "A Szent István Rend tagjai" Archived 22 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  20. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1876), "Großherzogliche Orden" pp. 59, 71
  21. Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Königreichs Bayern: 1870. Landesamt. 1870. p. 10.
  22. Koophandel (De) 6 March 1880
  23. Jørgen Pedersen (2009). Riddere af Elefantordenen, 1559–2009 (in Danish). Syddansk Universitetsforlag. p. 472. ISBN 978-87-7674-434-2.
  24. Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Hessen und bei Rhein (1879), "Großherzogliche Orden und Ehrenzeichen ", p. 12
  25. Italia : Ministero dell'interno (1884). Calendario generale del Regno d'Italia. Unione tipografico-editrice. p. 48.
  26. Membership of the Constantinian Order Archived 21 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  27. 刑部芳則 (2017). 明治時代の勲章外交儀礼 (PDF) (in Japanese). 明治聖徳記念学会紀要. p. 143.
  28. "Seccion IV: Ordenes del Imperio", Almanaque imperial para el año 1866 (in Spanish), 1866, p. 243, retrieved 29 April 2020
  29. Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (1874). "Chapter VI: Italy, Austria". The Diary of H.M. The Shah of Persia during his tour through Europe in A.D. 1873: A verbatim translation. Translated by James Redhouse. London: John Murray. p. 325.
  30. Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1885), "Großherzogliche Hausorden" p. 14
  31. Sachsen (1877). Staatshandbuch für den Freistaat Sachsen: 1877. Heinrich. p. 3.
  32. "Real y distinguida orden de Carlos III". Guía Oficial de España (in Spanish). 1887. p. 153. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  33. Sveriges statskalender (in Swedish), 1881, p. 378, retrieved 6 January 2018 – via runeberg.org
  34. Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 68
  35. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Württemberg (1886/7), "Königliche Orden" p. 22
  36. Wurzbach, Constantin, von, ed. (1860). "Habsburg, Franz Karl Joseph" . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). 6. p. 257 – via Wikisource.
  37. Wurzbach, Constantin, von, ed. (1860). "Habsburg, Franz Joseph I." . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). 6. p. 227 – via Wikisource.
  38. Wurzbach, Constantin, von, ed. (1861). "Habsburg, Sophie (geb. 27. Jänner 1805)" . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). 7. p. 149 – via Wikisource.
  39. Körner, Hans-Michael (1990), "Maximilian, Herzog in Bayern (Pseudonym Phantasus)", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 16, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 495–496; (full text online)
  40. Wurzbach, Constantin, von, ed. (1860). "Habsburg, Elisabeth Amalia Eugenia" . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). 6. p. 173 – via Wikisource.

Further reading
  • Barkeley, Richard. The Road to Mayerling: Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria. London: Macmillan, 1958.
  • Franzel, Emil. Crown Prince Rudolph and the Mayerling Tragedy: Fact and Fiction. Vienna : V. Herold, 1974.
  • Hamann, Brigitte. Kronprinz Rudolf: Ein Leben. Wien: Amalthea, 2005, ISBN 3-85002-540-3.
  • Listowel, Judith Márffy-Mantuano Hare, Countess of. A Habsburg Tragedy: Crown Prince Rudolf. London: Ascent Books, 1978.
  • Lonyay, Károly. Rudolph: The Tragedy of Mayerling. New York: Scribner, 1949.
  • Morton, Frederic. A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889. Penguin 1979
  • Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. Majestät, ich warne Sie... Geheime und private Schriften. Edited by Brigitte Hamann. Wien: Amalthea, 1979, ISBN 3-85002-110-6 (reprinted München: Piper, 1998, ISBN 3-492-20824-X).
  • Salvendy, John T. Royal Rebel: A Psychological Portrait of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988.
Rudolf von Habsburg-Lorraine
Cadet branch of the House of Habsburg
Born: 21 August 1858 Died: 30 January 1889
Austro-Hungarian royalty
Preceded by
Ferdinand Maximilian		 Heir to the Austrian throne
21 August 1858 – 30 January 1889		 Succeeded by
Karl Ludwig
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