Quick Facts
Biography
Archduke Franz Karl Joseph of Austria (17 December 1802 – 8 March 1878) from the House of Habsburg was father of two emperors (Franz Joseph I of Austria and Maximilian I of Mexico) as well as the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, whose assassination sparked the hostilities that led to the outbreak of World War I, and the great-grandfather of the last Habsburg emperor Karl I.
Life
Early life and marriage
He was born in Vienna, the third son of Emperor Francis II (I) by his second marriage with Princess Maria Theresa from the House of Bourbon, daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Carolina of Habsburg-Lorraine. On 4 November 1824 in Vienna he married Princess Sophie of Bavaria from the House of Wittelsbach, a daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria by his second wife Caroline of Baden (Sophie's paternal half-sister, Caroline Augusta of Bavaria was by this time Franz Karl's stepmother, having married his thrice-widowed father in 1816.) The Wittelsbach condoned the unappealing manners of her husband in consideration of the incapability of his elder brother Ferdinand and Sophie's chance to become Austrian Empress.
Franz Karl was an unambitious and generally ineffectual man, although he was together with his uncle Archduke Louis a member of the Geheime Staatskonferenz council, which after the death of Emperor Francis II ruled the Austrian Empire in the stead of his mentally ill brother Ferdinand from 1835 to 1848. The decisions however were actually made by the Minister of State Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and his rival Count Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky. His wife Sophie had already given up her ambitions, when she urged Franz Karl to renounce his claims to the throne at the time of his brother's abdication on 2 December 1848, allowing their eldest son Franz Joseph I to take the throne.
Death and burial
Archduke Franz Karl died in Vienna in 1878, six years after the death of his wife. He is buried at the Imperial Crypt at the Capuchin Church. Franz Karl was the last Habsburg whose viscera were entombed at the Ducal Crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral and whose heart was placed at the Herzgruft of the Augustinian Church according to a centuries-long family rite.
Honours and awards
He received:
Austro-Hungarian
- Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary
German
Baden :- Knight of the Order of Loyalty
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Zähringer Lion
Kingdom of Bavaria : Knight of the Order of Saint Hubert
Kingdom of Hanover :- Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order
- Knight of the Order of St. George (Hanover)
Grand Duchy of Hesse : Knight of the Order of Louis- Ernestine Duchies : Knight Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order
Prussia :- Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle
- Knight, First Class of the Order of the Red Eagle
Kingdom of Saxony : Knight of the Order of the Rue Crown
Württemberg : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown (Württemberg)
Foreign
Empire of Brazil : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross
Kingdom of France : Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit
Kingdom of Greece : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer
Duchy of Parma Senator of the Grand Cross with Collar of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George
Russian Empire :- Knight of the Order of St. Andrew
- Knight of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (Russia)
- Knight of the Order of St. Anna (Russia)
- (Poland) : Knight of the Order of the White Eagle
Sweden : Knight of the Order of the Seraphim
Two Sicilies : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Ferdinand and of Merit
Issue
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Sophie, Princess of Bavaria (27 January 1805 – 28 May 1872; married on 4 November 1824 in St. Augustine's Church, Vienna) | |||
| Franz Joseph | 18 August 1830 | 21 November 1916 | Succeeded as Emperor of Austria; married his first cousin Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria, and had issue |
| Maximilian | 6 July 1832 | 19 June 1867 | Proclaimed Emperor of Mexico executed by a firing squad married Charlotte, Princess of Belgium, no issue |
| Karl Ludwig | 30 July 1833 | 19 May 1896 | Married 1) his first cousin Margaretha, Princess of and Duchess in Saxony, (1840–1858) from 1856 to 1858, no issue, married 2) to Maria Annunziata, Princess of the Two-Sicilies (1843–1871) from 1862 to 1871, had issue (three sons and one daughter) and married 3) to Maria Theresia, Infanta of Portugal, (1855–1944), from 1873 to 1899, had issue (two daughters) |
| Maria Anna | 27 October 1835 | 5 February 1840 | Died in childhood, no issue |
| Stillborn son | 24 October 1840 | 24 October 1840 | |
| Ludwig Viktor | 15 May 1842 | 18 January 1919 | Died unmarried, no issue |
Ancestors
| Ancestors of Archduke Franz Karl of Austria | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||