HEIR TO HAPSBURG THRONE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 152, 29 June 1914, Page 5

HEIR TO HAPSBURG THRONE

SKETCH OF ARCHDUKE'S CAREER.

Last November the Heir- Apparent, to tho Hapsburg Throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, paid a private visit to the King and Queen of England. On this, as on some previous occasions, His Imperial and Royal Highness was accompanied by his Consort, Her Highness the Duchess Hoheiiberg, neo Countess Sophie Chotek of Chotowa and Wogm'n, a member of tino of the most ancient families of the feudal aristocracy of Bohemia. The London Times, referring to the visit, wrote ; "The Archduko Francis Ferdinand is of an intense, impulsive nature. lie is in every respect a vigorous personality. In him the warm blood _ of his pother, the Archduchess Maria Annunziata, daughtet 1 of King 1 Ferdinand 11., of the Two Sicilies, has never belied its southern quality. Though his education was mainly Austrian, and was — up to the moment of his unexpected succession to the Heir-Apparentship after the tragedy of Mayerling in January, 1889 — scarcely calculated to fit him for his present position, he has striven manfully and successfully to broaden and deepen his knowledge. Save in military matters, his education, in the larger sense of the term, may be said to have begun at the age of twenty-six. By dint of application he has since mastered the Bohemian and the Magyar languages, and acquired extensive knowledge of law, history, administration, and constitutional government. 111-health compelled him in the early nifties to take a voyage round the world on an Austrotlurigrfitiiu ciuibpr, the Kaiserin Elizabeth, during which he usited Egypt, India. Australia, China, Japan. Canada, and the United Stateß, availing himjseif of rmmexoua opportunities 'to prove

his skill as" a crack shot, and developing, incidentally, that keen and states"Th'G serioub illness which, overtook Francis Feidinand shortly after the tragic death of Crown Prince Rudolf compelled him to lead for several years a quiet and retired life. It was & malady of such gravity that it. was regarded for a time as eliminating him from all consideration in connection with the succession to tho throne. Contrary to general expectation, he recovered, and his convalescence was signalised by a Tomance in which Countess Sophie Chotek, daughter ot a foimer Austrian Minister Plenipotentiary at Dresden and onetime lady in waiting to Archduchess Frederick, was the heroine. Francis Ferdinand insisted upon making the Countess his wife. Thero was only one means of doing this — namely, by a morganatic alliance — and all sorts of obstacles wero placed in the way thereof, mainly of a dynastic, political, and also of a more personal character. The dynastic and political objections to the match Avere due to the fact that he was declined to succeed the present Emperor on the throne of Austria and of Hungary. Tho personal O2:>position came largely from his relatives, especially from Archduchess Frederick, who, after his refusal to wed Archduchess Maria Dorothea, now Duchess of Orleans, had counted upon his marrying one of her daughters, and who was terribly disappointed to find that they had been cut out, so to speak, by her lady in waiting. ''Emperor Francis Joseph, however, ultimately gave his consent to tho match upon the Archduke registering a solemn oath on the Gospels and in writing in the presence of the Princes of his House and of the dignitaries of the realm whereby he pledged himself that on becoming Emperor he would never take advantage thereof to raise his morganatic wife to share his throve, or would seek to endow any sons born of the union with rights to the crown. Moreover, he renounced in the name of his unborn children all pretensions to Imperial rank_ and to tho sceptre. The difficulties which he had encountered in marrying the Countess, the anomalous position assigned to her as his morganatic wife, "whereby she- was deprived of any share in his honours as a member of the Teigning family, and the affronts to which she was subjected by certain of his relatives, as well as 'by 'some of tho great nobility, "who resented the idea that a mere Bohemian Countess Chotek should become the wife of their future Emperor, all 'contributed to keep the Archduke in the background during tho first few years of his wedded existence. Moreover, ho is exceedingly domestic in his tastes, and has been in tho habit of devoting all the time that he could spare from his representative and official duties to his wife and little ones. "Francis Ferdinand had three children by his marriage who bear their mother's princely title of Hohenberg, with the piedicate of serene highness The eldest is a girl, who has received her mother's name of Sophie ; and the others are boys, Prince Maximilian and his brother, Ernest."