I find it extremely odd, in light of the fact that Austria had earlier (in 1878) approved the marriage of Archduke Friedrich (future Duke of Teschen, brother of Queen Maria Cristina of Spain) to Princess Isabella of Cro˙ -- a member of a MEDIATIZED house.
Also, Archduchess Margarethe Klementine of Austria (a great-granddaughter of King Louis-Philippe of the French) had married (in 1890) Albrecht, 8th Prince of Thurn and Taxis -- the head of another mediatized house (of course his mother, Duchess Helene in Bavaria, was a royal by birth, and her sister Elisabeth was the empress of Austria. As it was, the marriage in 1858 of his parents was initially opposed by King Maximilian II of Bavaria precisely because his father, Hereditary Prince Maximilian of Thurn and Taxis, was not a member of a reigning dynasty. The way the king saw it, his kinswoman was marrying beneath herself).
Why, then, was the union in 1903 of Emperor Franz Joseph's niece and a dynastic member of a SOVEREIGN house initially considered a mésalliance?
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