Archduchess Elisabeth Marie of Austria - Early Life

Early Life

Elisabeth was born at Schloss Laxenburg on 2 September 1883, to Rudolf and Stéphanie, daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium. The only child of his only (deceased) son, Erzsi was the favorite granddaughter of her paternal grandfather, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.

In 1889, when Erzsi was a little over five years old, her father and Baroness Mary Vetsera, his mistress, were found dead in what was assumed to be a murder-suicide pact at the Imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling. Her father's death interrupted the dynastic succession within the Austrian imperial family of Habsburg-Lorraine, fractured her grandparents' already tenuous marriage, and was a catalyst in Austria-Hungary's destabilization which culminated in the First World War and the subsequent loss of the Habsburg Empire.

After Rudolf's death, Franz Josef took over guardianship of Erzsi; by his order, she was forbidden to leave Austria with her mother. At a young age she displayed a strong personality, as well as an opposition to the Viennese court.

Her grandmother, the beautiful and capricious Empress Elisabeth, did not enjoy being identified as a grandmother and was therefore not close to any of her grandchildren. However, after her assassination in 1898, her will specified that outside of a large bequest of the sale of her jewels to benefit charities and religious orders, all of her personal property was bequeathed to Erszi, her namesake and, of course, Rudolf's only child. The Empress was open in her dislike of her daughter-in-law prior to the scandal, and after Mayerling blamed Stéphanie's jealous behavior for her son's unhappiness and suicide. Rudolf's wife, the Crown Princess Stéphanie, mother of the young Archduchess Elisabeth, was entirely dependent on the Emperor's charity. Following Rudolf's death, the resulting lack of Imperial support towards Stephanie impacted Elisabeth's relationship with her mother negatively; the parent and child were never close.

In 1900 Stéphanie renounced her title of Crown Princess to marry the younger – and Protestant – Hungarian Count Elemer Lonyay. Although Franz Josef provided her with a dowry and Lonyay eventually converted, Elisabeth broke off all contact with her mother as she disapproved of the marriage, feeling it a betrayal of her father's memory. Later, following her marriage, Stéphanie retaliated by disinheriting her only child, Elisabeth, in 1934.