The Coronation of Francis Joseph as King of Hungary in 1867

On June 8th 1867 there took place the coronation in Budapest of Francis Joseph as King of Hungary.

This followed upon the negotiation of the Ausgleich which created the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary and re-configured relationships within the Habsburg empire. The background to this settlement and its details can be read here. There is a fuller account with several maps here

Like all compromises the Ausgleich can be viewed in different ways. It brought stability to the Habsburg Empire, but entrenched Magyar authority over the whole realm of Hungary. Whereas before a single central authority in Vienna could balance - or play off against one another - the various minorities now power lay firmly over the Kingdom in Budapest with the Magyar elite. The possibility of a genuinely federal union based on historic and linguistic or ethnic divisions was pushed into the background. The Austrian half of the empire developed along more modern lines whilst it might well be argued than the Hungarian kingdom which retained a landowning agricultural model. However that agricultural base fed the whole empire so all did reasonably well.

The prosperity of post-1867 Budapest is obvious from the expansion and development of the capital city and its acquisition in these years of expansive and impressive public buildings on each bank of the Danube, including the restoration of the coronation church, the extension to the Royal Palace and most strikingly the enormous Parliament building with its inherent celebration of the realm's historic constitution.

Relations between the two realms were not always smooth and the Hungarian government acted as a brake on Austrian ideas of siding with France in 1870.

By the early twentieth century nationalist pressure groups were stirring - though how much and to what effect can be debated - and a feeling amongst some, notably Archduke Franz Ferdinand - that the Hungarians ought to be brought into line for the wider good of the Habsburg monarchy, meant that trouble was potentially brewing once the Emperor-King Francis Joseph died. having helped put the Dual Monarchy in place the Emperor-King refused to consider amending a project to which he had sworn.Events, of course, conspired to prevent the Archduke from trying to reconfigure it, and it was still in place when King Charles IV was crowned in 1916.

The history of the ceremonial and its significance within the historic Hungarian constituion can be read at Coronation of the Hungarian monarch

 

  The coronation of the King by the Prince Primate Archbishop of Esztergom and Count Andrassy

  Image: Pinterest/forum.aleaxanderpalace.org

 

A contemporary print by V.Katzler

The Hungarian King of Arms can be seen in the centre with his tabard and plumed hat.Behind the King and Andrassy is an Eastern-Rite bishop. Queen Elisabeth is on the left

 Image:Wikimedia 

 
 

A contemporary engraving of the Coronation 

Eastern-Rite bishops can again be seen in the right foreground. The Archbishop of Esztergom is shown here wearing achasuble rather than a cope as in the preceding and subsequent images

Image:Wikimedia

 

  A later painting of the Coronation

Image: Wikimedia

   

 The King ceremonially flourishes the sword in defence of the realm

 Image: Look and Learn from the Illustrtaed London News June 29 1867

 

 

Traditionally the Queen of Hungary is touched upon the right shoulder with the Holy Crown as part of her Coronation

Image: Pinterest

 

The King and Queen receive the acclamation of their people

Image: Wikipedia 

Queen Elisabeth on the day of the Coronation

Image: Pinterest

The following piece by Stephan Gruber is taken from the website The World of the Habsburgs ( Die Habsburger.net):

 

His spelling still not entirely reliable, the nine-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf gave an account in his school exercise book of the coronation ceremony held in St Matthias’ Cathedral in Budapest. Here, on 8 June 1867, using the Crown of St Stephen, Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were crowned King and Queen of Hungary by Hungarian Prime Minister Count Andrássy and the Primate of the Catholic church:

"In the church there were many magnates and officers, then the music started and the Primate and many Catholic and Greek bishops and very many other priests. Then came Papa and Mama. Mama sat down on a kind of throne, and Papa went to the altar, where a lot of Latin was read out … Afterwards, the drums resounded and Andrássy and the Primate put the crown on Papa’s head. Then the imperial orb and sceptre were placed in Papa’s hands.“

As a result of defeats in Italy in 1859 and against Prussia in 1866, Franz Joseph’s position within the Monarchy had been considerably weakened. This forced the Emperor into a hasty compromise with the representatives of Hungary, something his wife Elisabeth had also strongly favoured. In 1867, Franz Joseph agreed to the Compromise plan, which required the restoration of traditional rights and Hungary’s independence, and which reinstated the old Hungarian constitution dating back to the period before the 1848 Revolution. In personal union, Franz Joseph was now simultaneously King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria, but through the Compromise, the two halves of the Empire were two formally independent states of equal status.

As a coronation gift, the royal couple were given the Baroque palace of Gödöllö. The Swiss envoy did not experience the ceremony in quite the same manner as the young Rudolf, finding it no longer contemporary in all its pageantry: ‘Despite its pomp and veritable magnificence, yet the entire procession gave the detached observer somewhat the impression of a carnival masquerade … This vestige from the Middle Ages simply does not fit with our times.’ The envoy moreover noted the irony of Franz Joseph being crowned by Count Andrássy:

"It gives an extremely strange impression to see the manner in which the man whose death sentence Emperor Franz Joseph had signed in 1849 and whose name was nailed to the gallows in Pest, now, eighteen years later, places the crown on the head of the monarch whose highest confidence he today enjoys.“

The Oath taking ceremony

A photograph that has been enhanced by engraving

Image: Wikiwand




The King taking the Oath


Image: Alamy



The King rides up the Coronation Hill

Image: Wikimedia



King Francis Joseph on horseback again flourishes his sword in sign of defending the realm from the Coronation Hill

Image: Die Welt der Habsburger



Statues in the Hungarian Parliament commemorating the Coronation of 1867

Image:Pinterest

All in all a veery impressive day and one which marked and symbolised a significant development in Habsburg and Hungarian history.

  

Mayerling

It was on the morning of January 30th 1889, 125 years ago today, that the staff of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary discovered the bodies of the heir to the throne and his teenage mistress Mary Vetsera in their bedroom at the hunting lodge at Mayerling in Lower Austria.

 The hunting lodge at Mayerling as it appeared in 1889

Image: Wikipedia

Immediately shrouded by the Imperial household and government to conceal what had actually happened the story remains mysterious and not fully explained to this day. From members of the Imperial family downwards there have been theories some more or less far-fetched to explain the events of that night and the attempts to present what had happened in as favourable light as possible given the dreadful circumstances.

Crown Prince Rudolf

This photograph apparently is from 1889, and shows him clean shaven apart from his moustache, as in the photograph of his corpse below. The side-whiskers and beard which he is often shown wearing in photographs appear to have been a fashion he had in earlier years but had abandoned by the time of his death.
He is wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece and the star of the Order of St Stephen.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

There is an online life of the Crown Prince which can be read at Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria 

abnd one of his wife, who diedin 1945, at Princess Stéphanie of Belgium. The unconventional life of their daughter, who died in 1963, can be read at Archduchess Elisabeth Marie. There is an online life of his mistress which can be read at  Baroness Mary Vetsera.
 

Baroness Mary Vetsera

 Image: Wikipedia

The last photograph taken of Baroness Mary Vetsera (at right), wearing the dress in which she was buried. On the left is Countess Marie Larisch, cousin of Crown Prince Rudolf who arranged assignations between him and Vetsera. Her memoirs My Life are usually regarded as a very unreliable account of her part in the story. They are, incidentally, a source for T.S.Eliot's The Wasteland

Image: Wikipedia

The events and theories which seek to explain what happened are set out in this online article which can be read on the Mayerling Incident.

From what I have read over the years of the story I am inclined to believe the simplest, that Rudolf, for whatever reason, killed Mary Vetsera and then, some hours later, shot himself, rather than elaborate theories of a French plot - as apparently was the opinion of the Empress Zita - or that he was assassinated by Austrian special forces as an embarrassment and threat - as in Judith Listowel's biography of the Archduke. Other theories and possibilities are discussed in the last link cited above.

The events of that night still have the power to shock, and it is not surprising they have spawned and inspired so many explanations and also so many films, dramas, a ballet and books.

Crown Prince Rudolf placed in a bed for private viewing by his family at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. His head had to be bandaged in order to cover gunshot wounds. When he later lay-in-state, his skull was reconstructed using wax so that his appearance appeared normal.

Image: Wikipedia

There is an account of Mayerling as it is today here. The hunting lodge was turned by his parents into an enclosed Discalced Carmelite convent of nuns to pray in perpetuity for the soul of the Crown Prince, and it remains that to this day, and that seems as appropriate way as any of marking the anniversary.

The memorial church constructed by the Emperor and Empress at the convent at Mayerling

Image:hotel.travel2austria.com

** I have seen one curious, indeed bizarre, modern memorial the events of 1889. It is a modern house in the village of Wressell in the East Riding near the remains of the medieval castle and which bears in large letters the name "Mayerling". What a name to choose for your home.