On This Day: Death of Stéphanie of Belgium, Would-Be Empress

August 23 marks the anniversary of the death of Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, the woman who, had events not occurred how they did, would likely have become the Empress of Austria.

Born in May 1864, she was the second daughter of King Leopold II of the Belgians and his Austrian Archduchess wife, Marie Henriette. An unhappy childhood was a symptom of her parents’ unhappy marriage; their three daughters were left to the care of staff as Leopold and Marie Henriette pursued individual interests outside of their family.

When Stéphanie was 15, the Crown Prince of Austria, Rudolf, visited Belgium at the invitation of the King. He found the young Princess, six years his junior, to be “pretty, good, clever” and proposed marriage a short time later. The pair were married on May 10, 1881 at St Augustine’s Church in Vienna, much to the despair of Rudolf’s mother, Empress Elisabeth, who was not impressed with the ‘young’ monarchy her new daughter-in-law came from (the two women would never have a close relationship).

A daughter – Elisabeth Marie, known as Erzsi within the family – was born of the marriage in September 1883, but Stéphanie and Rudolf’s relationship quickly soured as their personalities and interests clashed. Both were reported to have had affairs, and the Crown Prince sought a divorce but was denied by his father, the Emperor Franz Josef, and the Pope. Nonetheless, in January 1889, both Rudolf and Stéphanie were freed from their miserable union when  Rudolf and his mistress went through with a murder-suicide pact while at Mayerling.

Stéphanie was now a widow and was indirectly blamed for her husband’s death by his family and the Austrian court. She dealt with this by spending much of her time travelling, before remarrying in 1900 to the Hungarian Count Elemér Lónyay. This infuriated her father, who disinherited her, and destroyed what was left of the tense relationship she had with her daughter. Stephanie and the Count resided at his castle in Rusovce, in what was then Western Hungary, until the Second World War, when the Soviets forced them to flee.

At the age of 81, Stephanie died at the Benedictine abbey in Pannonhalma. Her wealth and personal archives – including her scandalous memoirs I Was To Be Empress – were willed to the abbey.

Filed under Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Historical Royals
Tagged Anniversary, Biography, Death, Stéphanie of Belgium.