Crown Prince Rudolf (1858-1889) Crown Prince Rudolf was born on August 21, 1858 in Schloss Laxenburg [1] near Vienna as the son of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Influenced by his tutor Ferdinand von Hochstetter (who later became the first manager of the Imperial Natural History Museum), Rudolf became very interested in natural sciences, starting a mineral collection at a very early age.[1] (After his death, large portions of his mineral collection came into the possession of the University for Agriculture in Vienna.[1]) In contrast with his deeply conservative father, Crown Prince Rudolf held distinctively liberal views that were closer to those of his mother. Nevertheless his relationship with her was strained and contained little warmth. On May 10, 1881, he married Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, a daughter of King Léopold II of the Belgians, in The Augustinian's Church in Vienna with all the pomp and splendour of a state wedding. Rudolf appeared to be genuinely in love, but his mother regarded her new daughter-in-law as a "clumsy oaf." By the time their only child, the Archduchess Elisabeth, was born on September 2, 1883, the couple had drifted apart, and he found solace in drink and female companionship. In 1887, Rudolf bought Mayerling and adapted it into a hunting lodge. In the autumn of 1888, the 30-year-old crown prince met the 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera, known by the more fashionable Anglophile name Mary. From the start, Mary adored him, and was ready to do anything for him. It was almost certainly not the great romance of his life, but Rudolf did have feelings for her, and was touched by her limitless, almost fanatical, love for him. According to official reports, their deaths were a result of Franz Josef's demand that the couple end the relationship: the Crown Prince, as part of a suicide pact, shot his mistress in the head, then himself. Rudolf was officially declared to have been in a state of "mental unbalance" in order to enable burial in the Imperial Crypt (Kapuzinergruft) of the Capuchin Church in Vienna. Mary's body was smuggled out of Mayerling in the middle of the night, and secretly buried in the cemetery of Holy Cross Abbey in Heiligenkreuz, and the Emperor had Mayerling converted into a penitential convent of Carmelite nuns. Today prayers are still said daily by the nuns for the repose of Rudolf's soul.     Rudolf with William I. of Germany Rudolf in January 1889   Suicide or murder? Many people however doubted the truthfulness of the report. Before her death in 1989, Empress Zita, widow of the last Austrian Emperor Karl (r. 1916–1918), repeated the claim that the young couple had been murdered as part of an attempt to cover up a French plot to overthrow his father, a pro-German conservative, and replace him with Rudolf, a pro-French Liberal. According to Empress Zita, Rudolf had indignantly refused to take part and threatened to inform his father. Empress Zita did not offer any new evidence and her claims, however widely reported, were not given much credence during her lifetime. In December 1992 the remains of Baroness Vetsera were stolen from the cemetery at Heiligenkreuz. When the missing remains were tracked down, the police, to ensure they were the correct remains, asked the Viennese Medical Institute to examine them. While they did confirm that they were the correct remains, the institution noted how the skull contained no evidence whatsoever of a bullet hole, the supposed means by which Vetsera had been killed by the crown prince. The evidence instead suggested she may have been killed by a series of violent blows to the head. Separately, evidence came to light in the form of a report on the remains of the crown prince, made at the time of the double death. His body showed evidence of a major violent struggle. A report at the time had also noted that all six bullets had been fired from the gun, which it was revealed did not belong to the crown prince.   The official state report of the deaths claimed that the crown prince shot Vetsera before shooting himself with his own gun. It made no mention of the facts subsequently revealed, leading to the conclusion that, for some reason, a cover-up of the actual manner of the deaths had taken place. It is unlikely ever to be clarified as to what really happened. Two theories have been postulated: • one theory is that the couple had a violent struggle, and that the crown prince murdered his lover by battering her before shooting himself; in other words, a clear case of murder rather than the suggested double suicide; however, that theory fails to explain the ability of the prince to fire the gun six times as he killed himself, or indeed where the gun came from, given that it was not his weapon; • the other theory is that some third party attacked both, battered Vetsera to death, and shot the crown prince. The latter theory does bear some resemblance to the theory postulated for eighty years by Empress Zita, who as Crown Princess from 1914 to 1916 had been a confidante of Rudolf's father, the aging Emperor Franz Josef, and so may have heard his theories, and those of other members of the Austro-Hungarian court, as to the manner of the death of Crown Prince Rudolf. It would have been difficult for the devoutly Catholic Emperor to admit that his son and heir had killed the girl and himself in a state of "mental unbalance". If there had been any way to claim that the two had been murdered by a third party, that version would have been infinitely preferable. There would have been no need to accuse someone in particular; it would have avoided the public admission that the Crown Prince was a insane murderer and that he had committed suicide.   Putting forward a third party as the killer though, would have likely led to a public demand that the killer be caught and a thorough investigation of the deaths. It may be that some thought that would be undesireable; in any case, the 'mental unbalance' theory was what was put forward. It should be also noted that, according to the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church, a man who committed suicide should not be given Christian Burial. However, after the Emperor's exchange of letters with the Pope, Rudolf was buried according to Catholic Rites. This also suggests that there was unreleased evidence, or maybe even the fact that the murder was ordered by the Emperor himself. There is a theory which suggests that Rudolf had been planning to overthrow the Emperor, or to claim the throne of an independent Hungary, and that his plots were uncovered by the Emperor's inner circle not long before Rudolf was found dead. Of course all this remains a mystery, at least until the Papal Archive decides to release the letter, which may contain the final and decisive proof.   Rudolfs dead body     Impact of the Crown Prince's death Following the death of the emperor's only son, the marriage of Franz Josef and Elisabeth collapsed completely, with the empress spending much of her time abroad, particularly in England and Ireland where she loved to hunt. The new heir presumptive to the Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian thrones was Archduke Karl Ludwig, eldest surviving brother of the emperor. After Karl Ludwig's death, his oldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand became heir presumptive. His assassination in 1914 led a chain of events that produced World War I. Had Rudolf lived, it is possible that Emperor Franz Josef would have abdicated as had his uncle, passing the thrones to an Emperor who was much more liberal in outlook and opposed to Austria's military alliance with Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany that played such a part in triggering the First World War. Instead however, the throne ultimately went to Franz Josef's grand-nephew, the Archduke Karl, who in 1916 became the last Austro-Hungarian monarch as Kaiser Karl of Austria, known as "The Peace Kaiser." Emperor Karl was ultimately unsuccessful, despite repeated attempts to negotiate an end to the War and to protect the Empire from its final collapse. He has since been Beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.   Text source: Wikipedia