Archduchess Renata of Austria

Archduchess Renate was the second daughter of Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria and his wife, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, Princess of Tuscany. Both of her parents were closely related to Emperor Franz Joseph. Renata’s father was a grandson of Archduke Karl of Austria who had led the Austrian army against Napoleon Bonaparte. Her father was also a brother of Queen Maria Christina of Spain. Renate’s mother, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, Princess of Tuscany was a granddaughter of Leopold II, the last reigning Grand Duke of Tuscany, and of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies.[1]

Archduchess Renate was educated by private tutors with a special emphasis on languages. She learned German, Italian, English, French and, from 1895, Polish. Her father had followed a career in the Austrian Navy and Renate spent her formative years primarily in Istria in the then Austrian port of Pula on the Adriatic. Her father was very wealthy and the family had a winter residence in the island of Losinj in the Adriatic, a palace in Vienna and in 1895 her father inherited from Archduke Albert vast properties in Galicia. From 1907 the family’s main residence was in Żywiec Castle in western Galicia.[1]

Archduchess Renate and her husband Prince Jerome Radziwill, 1909

Archduke Charles Stephen put aside his career in the navy and centered his ambitions in creating a Polish branch of the house of Habsburg. He encouraged all of his children to become Polish and Archduchess Renata ended up marrying one of Poland's richest landowners, Prince Jerome Radziwill. Their engagement was announced in September 1908. The Radziwiłł family was one of the most distinguish families of Poland, but since his family did not belong to a list of ruling or former ruling princely families, Renata had to renounce all of her titles, along with the style of Imperial and Royal Highness. They signed a prenuptial agreement and separation of property. The wedding took place on 15 January 1909 in the chapel at Żywiec Castle.[2]

Archduchess Renate and Prince Jerome Radziwiłł had six children and lived at Balice Castle, one of the Radziwiłł estates:

• Princess Maria Teresa Radziwiłł (1910–1973), who died unmarried.
• Prince Dominic Rainer Radziwiłł (1911–1976), who married Princess Eugénie of Greece and Denmark in 1938.[3][lower-alpha 1] They divorced in 1946 and he married Lidia Lacey Bloodgood, a daughter of John Van Schaick Bloodgood and Lida Fleitmann Bloodgood.[6]
• Prince Karol Jerome Radziwiłł (1912–2005), who married Maria Luisa de Alvear y Quirno in 1949 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, later, Maria Teresa Soto y Alderete.
• Prince Albert Radziwiłł (1914–1932), who died young at Davos, Switzerland.
• Princess Eleonore Radziwiłł (b. 1918), who married Count Benedikt Tyszkiewicz in 1938.[4] She married Roger de Froidcourt in 1959.
• Prince Leon Jerome Radziwiłł (1922–1973).[7][8]

Her eldest son, Dominik, eventually married Princess Eugénie of Greece and Denmark in 1938. With the defeat and dissolution of the Austrian Hungary Empire after World War I, the destiny of her family was even more closely linked to Poland. Archduchess Renata lived at Balice Castle in Poland, where she died on 16 May 1935. Her husband outlived her for ten years. Prince Jerome remarried. Towards the end of World War II, Prince Jerome was captured by Russian troops and he was taken behind the Iron Curtain. He died in a concentration camp in 1945. The Radziwiłł properties were all lost.[2]

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