Monday, June 30, 2014

Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg

The Cross of Laeken honors the beautiful morganatic wife of Franz Ferdinand, who died with her husband. To quote:
Yesterday was a sorrowful centennial, marking a hundred years since the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo.  As is known all too well, the killing triggered the First World War.  Above is a lovely pastel painting of the assassin's less well-known victim, the Archduke's beloved, morganatic wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.  Below is a photograph of the couple with their three surviving children.  Sophie died along with her husband, just a few days before their fourteenth wedding anniversary.   Here is an article on their tender courtship, loving marriage, and tragic deaths.   Here is an interview with a great-granddaughter of the couple. (Read more.)
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4 comments:

May said...

Thank you for the link!

Unknown said...

The obsession of the Hapsburg dynasty to preserve their family's power (might) meant many cases of canon law "lapses" re proper conjugal "rights" within the seventh degree IMHO as this formerly Czech now Austrian great nephew of the Duchess, actor Friedrich von Thun und Hohingen in a 1992 series from ORF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522g5YGJ_mE&index=1&list=PLNyrEcdPKPGDiAnz0JykLsDPa_VIs66ND
Puts the Synod on the Family into sharper focus: please Episcopal powers learn from the mistakes of your brothers in times past, only right makes might!

Unknown said...

FYI the reason the couple were even together in Sarajevo was because it was one of the few rare occasions that they were legally permitted to! Because of the court protocol re rank she had to sit lower or follow behind anyone of higher rank at court including of course her husband the Archduke)

And FYI-II as morganatic offspring her children were not permitted to attend their own parents' funeral!

IMHO a godless moralism that deserved to be swept away!

elena maria vidal said...

Yes, canon law was bent many times. Franz Joseph married his own first cousin, in a long Habsburg tradition of consanguinity. Of course, that was not as bad as all the uncle-niece marriages of the past centuries. And you know that if FF had made Sophie his mistress no one would have minded. But they were both devout Catholics. I am so glad Pope Leo XIII supported them.