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Royalty |
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Royalty
In the hundreds of years of Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, a great tradition of royalty evolved in the houses Babenberg and Hapsburg. Although Austria's royalty ended after WWI, some of the names below live on till this day.
Karl I of Austria, Hapsburg-Lorraine (1887-1922)
He was the last Emperor of Austria, the last King of Hungary, the last King of Bohemia, Croatia and the last monarch of the Hapsburg dynasty. He reigned as Charles I Emperor of Austria and Charles IV as King of Hungary from 1916 until 1918, when he "renounced participation" in state affairs, but did not abdicate. He spent the remaining years of his life attempting to restore the monarchy until his death in 1922. Following his beatification, he has become commonly known as Blessed Charles.
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, Hapsburg-Lorraine, 1863-1914)
Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. This caused countries allied with Austria-Hungary (the Triple Alliance) and countries allied with Serbia (the Triple Entente Powers) to declare war on each other, starting World War I.
Franz Joseph I of Austria, Hapsburg-Lorraine (1890-1916)
Franz Joseph I was born at Schönbrunn Palace in 1830. In 1848, at the age of 18, he succeeded his uncle, Ferdinand I, as Austrian emperor after the latter had been forced to abdicate during the course of the suppressed revolution and on account of his epilepsy. Franz Joseph's father, Archduke Franz Carl, had previously relinquished his claim to the throne. With a population of 56 million, the empire had developed over the course of the centuries into a multi-ethnic monarchy in which many different nationalities, including Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Rumanians, Slovakians and Italians, lived under the one crown.
The early years of Franz Joseph's reign were overshadowed by a series of military defeats which saw the loss of the Italian possessions of Lombardy and Venetia as well as Austria's dominant position in the German League following the Battle of Königgrätz against Prussia. Franz Joseph continued the conservative policies of his predecessors, but found himself confronted with the growing tensions between the various nationalities in his empire. 1867 saw the Compromise with Hungary which laid the foundations of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy and ensured extensive independence for the Magyar nation. In the same year the emperor was crowned king of Hungary. Franz Joseph's reign saw the building of the Neue Hofburg on Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square) and the completion of the Michaelertrakt (St Michael's Wing), which gave the Hofburg the characteristic appearance it still has today. In 1854 he married his cousin, the sixteen-year-old Archduchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, known to her family as “Sissi”.
Elisabeth “Sissi”, Empress of Austria (1837-1898)
Empress Elisabeth developed into a beautiful and extravagant woman whom Franz Joseph I worshipped his whole life long. The emperor and empress had four children; their first child, Sophie, died at the age of two, their surviving daughters Gisela (1856-1932) and Marie Valerie (1868-1924) both married and had several children, from whom there are numerous descendants. Their only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, born in 1858, took his own life together with his mistress, the seventeen-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera, at his hunting lodge at Mayerling in 1889. His marriage to Stephanie of Belgium had produced a daughter, Elisabeth, who after her divorce from Prince Windisch-Graetz joined the Social Democratic Party and married the socialist Leopold Petznek, going down in Austrian history as the 'Red Archduchess'.
Franz II of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of Austria (1768-1835)
At the beginning of the 19th century, in reaction to the coronation of Napoleon I Bonaparte as emperor of France in 1804, Emperor Franz II proclaimed the Empire of Austria. In 1806, against the background of Napoleon's military victories, he finally dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, which, having been the supranational empire of Christendom for over a thousand years, then ceased to exist.
Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France (1755-1793)
She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. At the age of fourteen, on the day of her marriage to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, she became Dauphine de France. At the death of King Louis XV, in May 1774, her husband ascended the French throne as Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette assumed the title of Queen of France and Navarre. During the Reign of Terror, at the height of the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette's husband was deposed and the royal family was imprisoned. Marie Antoinette was tried, convicted of treason and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793, nine months after her husband.
Maria Theresa of Hapsburg, Archduchess of Austria (1717-1780)
In 1740 the daughter of Charles VI, Maria Theresa followed him as successor to the Hapsburg Empire. During the early years of her reign Maria Theresa successfully defended her inheritance against France and Prussia, although she was forced to cede the rich province of Silesia. Her reign was influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, and she took the first steps towards reforming the administration, introduced compulsory elementary education and abolished torture. Married to Franz Stephan of Lorraine, she continued the traditional Hapsburg policy of marriage alliances, marrying off the majority of her 16 children to members of various royal houses in Europe and thereby earning herself the epithet of 'the mother-in-law of Europe'. She resided in the famous Schönbrunn Castle in Vienna. After her death her former apartments were used as the magnificent state rooms of the Habsburg residence until the end of the monarchy.
Maximilian I of Hapsburg, Holy Roman Emperor (1459-1519)
He was the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal. He had ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of his father's reign, from circa 1483. He expanded the influence of the House of Hapsburg through both war and marriage, but also lost the Austrian territories in today's Switzerland in the battle of Dornach 22 July 1499, where the Swiss won a final decisive victory. King Maximilian I had no choice but to agree to a peace treaty signed on 22 September 1499 in Basel granting the Swiss Confederacy de facto far-reaching independence from the Habsburgs. He is often referred to as "The Last Knight".
Rudolph I of Hapsburg (1218-1291)
Also known as Rudolph of Hapsburg (German: Rudolf von Hapsburg, Latin Rudolfus; 1 May 1218 was King of the Romans from 1273 until his death. He played a vital role in raising the Hapsburg family to a leading position among the German feudal dynasties; he was the first Hapsburg to acquire the duchies of Austria and Styria, territories that would remain under Hapsburg rule for more than 600 years and would form the core of the present-day country of Austria.
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