Archduke_Franz_Karl_of_Austria

Archduke Franz Karl of Austria

Archduke Franz Karl of Austria

Austrian archduke (1802–1878)


Archduke Franz Karl Joseph of Austria (17 December 1802 8 March 1878) was a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. He was the father of two emperors: Franz Joseph I of Austria and Maximilian I of Mexico. Through his third son Karl Ludwig, he was the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria – whose assassination sparked the hostilities that led to the outbreak of World War I – and the great-grandfather of the last Habsburg emperor Karl I.

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Life

Early life and marriage

Franz Karl at age 37, 1839.

Franz Karl was born in Vienna, the third son of Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire by his second marriage with Princess Maria Theresa from the House of Bourbon, daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Carolina of Austria. On 4 November 1824 in Vienna, he married Princess Sophie of Bavaria from the House of Wittelsbach, a daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria by his second wife Caroline of Baden. Sophie's paternal half-sister, Caroline Augusta of Bavaria was by this time Franz Karl's stepmother, having married his thrice-widowed father in 1816. The Wittelsbachs condoned the unappealing manners of Sophie's husband in consideration of the incapability of his elder brother Ferdinand and Sophie's chance to become Austrian empress.

Franz Karl was an unambitious and generally ineffectual man, although he was, together with his uncle Archduke Louis, a member of the Geheime Staatskonferenz council, which after the death of Emperor Francis II ruled the Austrian Empire in the stead of his mentally ill brother Ferdinand from 1835 to 1848. The decisions, however, were actually made by the Chancellor Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and his rival Count Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky. His wife Sophie had already transferred her ambitions, when she urged Franz Karl to renounce his claims to the throne at the time of his brother's abdication on 2 December 1848, allowing their eldest son Franz Joseph I to take the throne.

Death and burial

Archduke Franz Karl died in Vienna in 1878, six years after the death of his wife. He is buried at the Imperial Crypt at the Capuchin Church. Franz Karl was the last Habsburg whose viscera were entombed at the Ducal Crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral and whose heart was placed at the Herzgruft of the Augustinian Church according to a centuries-long family rite.

Honours and awards

He received the following awards:[1]

Issue

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See also

Ancestors


References

  1. Boettger, T. F. "Chevaliers de la Toisón d'Or - Knights of the Golden Fleece". La Confrérie Amicale. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  2. Teulet, Alexandre (1863). "Liste chronologique des chevaliers de l'ordre du Saint-Esprit depuis son origine jusqu'à son extinction (1578-1830)" [Chronological list of knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit from its origin to its extinction (1578-1830)]. Annuaire-bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France (in French) (2): 117. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  3. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreichs Bayern (in German). Königl. Oberpostamt. 1867. p. 8. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
  4. Almanacco di corte (in Italian). 1858. Retrieved 2019-04-24.
  5. Liste der Ritter des Königlich Preußischen Hohen Ordens vom Schwarzen Adler (1851), "Von Seiner Majestät dem Könige Friedrich Wilhelm III. ernannte Ritter" p. 20
  6. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1836), "Großherzogliche Orden" pp. 27, 42
  7. Sergey Semenovich Levin (2003). "Lists of Knights and Ladies". Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-called (1699-1917). Order of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine (1714-1917). Moscow.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Hessen (1869), "Großherzogliche Orden und Ehrenzeichen" p. 8
  9. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Hannover (1865), "Königliche Orden und Ehrenzeichen" pp. 38, 75
  10. Sveriges statskalender (in Swedish), 1877, p. 368, retrieved 2018-01-06 via runeberg.org
  11. Staatshandbuch für den Freistaat Sachsen (1867) (in German), "Königliche Ritter-Orden", p. 4
  12. Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Großherzogtums Oldenburg: für das Jahr 1872/73, "Der Großherzogliche Haus-und Verdienst Orden" p. 30
  13. Staatshandbücher für das Herzogtums Sachsen-Altenburg (1869), "Herzogliche Sachsen-Ernestinischer Hausorden" p. 21
  14. Wurzbach, Constantin von, ed. (1861). "Habsburg, Maria Theresia (deutsche Kaiserin)" . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). Vol. 7. p. 60 via Wikisource.
  15. Wurzbach, Constantin von, ed. (1860). "Habsburg, Franz I." . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). Vol. 6. p. 208 via Wikisource.
  16. Wurzbach, Constantin von, ed. (1861). "Habsburg, Maria Ludovica (deutsche Kaiserin)" . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). Vol. 7. p. 53 via Wikisource.
  17. Genealogie ascendante jusqu'au quatrieme degre inclusivement de tous les Rois et Princes de maisons souveraines de l'Europe actuellement vivans [Genealogy up to the fourth degree inclusive of all the Kings and Princes of sovereign houses of Europe currently living] (in French). Bourdeaux: Frederic Guillaume Birnstiel. 1768. p. 9.
  18. Wurzbach, Constantin von, ed. (1861). "Habsburg, Maria Theresia von Neapel" . Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich [Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire] (in German). Vol. 7. p. 81 via Wikisource.

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