Crown Prince Rudolph Mary Vetsera
Crown Prince Rudolph
Mary Vetsera
Crown Prince
Rudolf of Austria Hungary was born on August 21 1858. He was the only son
and heir of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth. He was heir to
the vast Habsburg domains that had been in his family for centuries.
He dutifully married Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881, but their marriage
had been an arranged one, and involved little love between the couple.
The Crown Prince preferred to find his excitement elsewhere, in the arms
of his young and beautiful mistress Mary Vetsera.
The Crown Prince did not
get along very well with his father. Franz Joseph I was an autocrat in
the strictest sense and ruled his dominions with an iron hand. It was a
duel empire, composed of both Austria and Hungary. The Hungarians wanted
independence and their own sovereignty. They wanted to use their own language
of Magyar, and they wanted their own armies.
The Prince had a more liberal and modern outlook. He counted among
his friends the very outspoken and prominenet Hungarian nationalist Count
Stephen Karolyi. Rumours had it on the streets that he was involved in
a conspiracy with the Hungarians to unseat his father.
And then there was the question
of his mistress Mary. It is known that the Prince and his father had a
rather tempestous meeting on January 26, 1889 in which they quarreled about
something. Rumours flew that Rudolph had asked for his father's consent
to anul his marriage to the Crown Princess Stephanie, therefore enabling
him to mary his mistress Mary Vetsera.
A few days later,
Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and his forbidden lover Mary Vetsera were
found shot to death in the hunting lodge at Mayerling on the bitterly cold
day of January 30 1889. Since the pair were found in a room with
the door locked on the inside, it suggested a murder suicide, although
it was whispered on the streets at the time that it was an assasination.
The Emperor Francis
Joseph, after learning about the suicide decided that ‘anything is better
than the truth’ and swore his minister of police into secrecy. Because
of this initial coverup, to this day, the details remain shrouded in mystery.
The Habsburgs, being a Catholic family, had to ask the Pope for dispensation
in order to secure a Catholic funeral for their
son who had committed suicide.
The next heir presumptive
to the Austrian and Hugarian thrones became first Archduke Karl-Ludwig,
brother of the Emperor. After Karl-Ludwig's death, his oldest son, the
reactionary Franz-Ferdinand became heir presumptive. His assassination
in 1914 triggered off a chain of events that produced World War I.
But if Crown Prince Rudolf had lived, he would have likely been opposed
to Austria's military alliance with Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany that played
such a monumental role in triggering the first world war. The first world
war in all likihood would never have happened if Rudolph had been the Emperor.
But, Instead however the throne went to Franz-Josef's grand-nephew, Karl,
who in 1916 became Austrian emperor as Emperor Karl. He was the last
of the dynasty.
The story of Mayerling is
not the actual murder suicide itself, but rather the attempts to cover
it up and the events which occurred later in time. Mary's uncles were called
to come and get their neice's body out of Mayerling. They were instructed
to do in in the most secretive manner possible. They left in the darkness
of a bitter cold night with Mary sitting in the carriage between them -
propped up with a broomstick down her back so no one would know she was
dead!
They took her to a cemetery
a few miles away at Heiligenkreuz, but because her death was understood
to be a
suicide, the uncles had to argue with the Abbot to allow her a Christian
burial. Eventually the Abbot gave his permission on the grounds that she
"had committed suicide because of a temporary loss of her senses".
On May 16, 1889 Mary's grieving mother
had her daughter's grave opened and reburied her a few yards away to a
more permanant site. The wooden coffin was replaced by a copper one and
a simple monument was erected.
But still, Mary was not yet destined to rest in peace.
In 1945 during the war, her
tomb was opened by plundering Russians The copper coffin was broken
and when the fathers of the monastery repaired the grave they saw a small
skeleton inside the damaged coffin. The skull was there and they observed
that it seemed to have no bullet holes in it.
In 1959 poor Mary was disturbed
yet again. Because of the Russians plundering her grave, it was decided
to rebury By now the bones were in total disarray all over
the coffin. Her shoes were still there and a lot of long black hair
was collected. Once again, witnesses declared that the skull had not been
hit by a bullet. It was slightly damaged, but that was most likely
done by the Russians in 1945.
On 8 July 1991 Mary's coffin
was stolen from the grave by a furniture maker named Helmut Flatzelsteiner.
He was obsessed with solving the Mayerling mystery once and for all. He
took the coffin home to Linz and and had a medical examer examine it's
contents. But it was leaked to a newspaper in Vienna that Mary's grave
was now empty, and the police arrived with the press where once again the
grave was opened. It was empty. Flatzelsteiner finally confessed to the
deed and gave up Mary's remains to the Legal Medical Institute in Vienna
for further examination. They found the bones to be indeed a hundred
years old and those of a young woman around twenty, but part of the skull
was missing it and therefore they could not tell if there had ever been
a bullet hole present or not. Mary's remains were then put to rest
once more on the early morning
of October 28, 1993, under the guiding eye of Abbott Gerhard Hradil
- Perhaps finally this poor young woman will be left in peace!
Alas, at this rate,
we shall never know the real story of Mayerling Even Nostradamus
isn't too helpful here unfortunately, although he does give us some clues.
3-58 Near the Rhine and Noric mountains,
Will be born a great one of the people, but come too late.
One who will defend Lithuania and Hungary,
But no one will ever know, what happened to him.
Note in the numbering of this quatrain 3-58, we are given two digits of the year 1858, in which this Prince was born. The first line of this quatrain places the scene exactly in the middle of the heart of the Habsburg empire. Classical Noricum corresponded to the ancient Duchy of Austria. It was here, on July 24th 1858 that Crown Prince Rudolf was born.
Line
2 - a great one of the people - probably, if the prince had lived
and reigned, he would have been a man of the people, at least in comparison
to his Habsburg ancestors on the throne. He was very Liberal minded,
and that kind of thinking was unmentionable to the Habsburg monarchs of
the day. Was he actively plotting with the Hungarian nationalists? There
is plenty of evidence to suggest that he was, thus "defending Lithuania
and Hungary" against his oppressive and terribly autocratic father.
It is interesting to note what Nostradamus says also in line 2, that he
will be too late - when Crown Prince Rudolf died, it was like
a bell tolling the end of the Habsburg monarchy itself. It had lasted for
600 years, but it was soon about to end. However, there is a likely
chance that if Rudolf had lived, things may have ended up quite different.
Line
3 - no one will ever know what happened to him - How very true!
Although there have been many theories put forward over the years, no one
has ever actually determined the real truth. Possibly because the Emperor
himself, went to such extraordinary efforts to conceal it all!
Recommended further reading on this subject:
THE HABSBURG TWILIGHT by Sarah Gainham