Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria

1858 – 1889 · Generation XXI · Crown Prince · Habsburg-Lorraine

Rudolf (1858 – 1889). Crown Prince. Married Stéphanie in 1881. Only son of Franz Joseph; died in the Mayerling incident. Born at Laxenburg and named for Rudolf I, the first Habsburg King of Germany, he was devoted to his elder sister Gisela, but his early schooling under Leopold Gondrecourt was abusive. His tutor Ferdinand von Hochstetter kindled a lasting love of natural science, and much of his mineral collection later went to Vienna’s agricultural university. Liberal in outlook, like his mother and unlike his conservative father, he had drifted apart from Stéphanie by the birth of their daughter Elisabeth in 1883, and he then drank heavily and took many lovers. A serious illness in 1886, most likely venereal, left Stéphanie unable to bear more children and Rudolf reliant on morphine. On 30 January 1889 he and the seventeen-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera were found dead at his hunting lodge; declared mentally unbalanced so that he could have a church burial, he was laid in the Imperial Crypt.

Place in the family

Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria was a son of Franz Joseph I of Austria.

One of 24 people of Habsburg-Lorraine (from 1736) in this archive. Maria Theresa’s marriage carried the inheritance into a new name, which its heirs still bear.

Parents

Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830 – 1916)
Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837 – 1898)

Partners

Married Princess Stéphanie of Belgium (1864 – 1945) in 1881

Life

1858 — Born
1881 — Married Stéphanie
1889 — Died