A ROYAL ROMANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 22670, 9 June 1937, Page 2

A ROYAL ROMANCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —A brief cablegram last week from Budapest mentioned that the Archduke Albrecht of Austria had been divorced from his morganatic wife, Irene Lelbach, whom he had married at llrighton, England, in 1930. This was another romance of the u love before a throne” order, for it shattered the plana of his mother to place him on the vacant throne of Hungary. Albrecht was the only son of the Archduke Frederick, who died at the end of last year, aged 80, the last of the war-time field-marshals. Princess Radziwill, in her book, ‘ The Royal Marriage Market of Europe,’ tolls how this Archduke Frederick was considered the best match in the Habsburg family, for he was the sole heir of his uncle, Archduke Albrecht (1817-95), whoso wealth could bo counted by millions. But Frederick, when barely 22, married Fsabella of Croy, whose father was looked upon as a simple gentleman, in possession of large means and an old title. Isabella was clever and ambitious, so she was delighted with this proposal of marriage. But the Imperial family met it with a storm of opposition, and declared that the contemplated marriage must be considered morganatic. This stung the pride of the Duke of Croy, and he produced a sheaf of documents showing that from time immemorial his family had been considered the equal by birth of reigning houses. He therefore claimed that his daughter on her marriage should be called Archduchess. The matter was fiercely debated, but the Emperor Francis Joseph gave his decision in favour of the Duke of Croy, so Isabella became an Archduchess (1878). (But for some time she was coldly received by the Imperial family and the nobility, her own eldest sister Eugenie, wife of Prince Esterhazy, strongly objecting to Isabella taking precedence to herself. But the clever Isabella won her way into favour, and pleased the Hungarians by settling in Presburg and entertaining lavishlv, which her millions enabled her to do easily. But her first six children were daughters, and it was only after she had been married 19 rears that the longed-for son arrived—the Albrecht who for love renounced a throne. The ambitious Isabella tried to arrange brilliant matches for her daiighters, but suffered acute disappointmeats. Franz Ferdinand, heir of the Imperial throne, would be a good catch, but he fell in lovo with and married Isabella’s lady-in-waiting, the Countess Sophie Chotek. who, 14 years later, showed the tragedy of Serajevo. King Alphonso XIII. of Spain, was a first cousin to those daughters, but his fancy led him to propose to Ena of Battenberg. The disappointed Isabella then thought of Karl Franz Joseph (afterwards Emperor) as a desirable sou-in-law, but the young archduke chose Zita of Parma. Four of the daughters ultimately married ptinces who had no hope of a throne, and the mother’s ambitions were then centred on her only son Albrecht. But great was her chagrin and ire when, in August, 1930, he married Madame Irene Dora Rudnay (nee Lelbach), divorced wife of a Hungarian diplomat. When Albrecht had been very ill at the Hague some time before, Madame Rudnay nursed him back to health, and an annulment of her marriage by the Pope left her free to marry the archduke.

Holiday-makers proceeding to Brighton beach on August 16, 1930, shouted “ good luck ” to the wedding couple as they came dawn the steps of the registry office and enteredi their motor car, but so well had the secret been kept that not one of them guessed that the tall bridegroom had just signed the register with “ Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary,” for his rank or profession. The marriage led to a bitter quarrel with the archduke’s mother, for it prejudiced the chances of her son becoming King of Hungary. Reports of his having purchased an estate of 200,000 acres in South America appeared in the Press. A year after the marriage, however, the aged Archduchess Isabella was very ill in hospital at Budapest, and summoned her son to her bedside. Whether she forgave his mesalliance may possibly never be known. Hers has been a tragic life, inasmuch as all her schemes for the elevation of her son to a throne failed of success, although three times the Crown was almost within her reach. A month after the pathetic reunion with her eon Isabella died brokenhearted, She expressed a wish to be buried not with the Habsburgs in Vienna, but with the ancient Hungarian kings at Budapest.—l am, etc., Genealogist. June 8.