Archduke Franz Karl of Austria

Archduke Franz Karl Joseph of Austria (17 December 1802 – 8 March 1878) was a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. He was the father of two emperors: Franz Joseph I of Austria and Maximilian I of Mexico. Through his third son Karl Ludwig, he was the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria – whose assassination sparked the hostilities that led to the outbreak of World War I.

Early life and marriage


Franz Karl was born in Vienna, the third son of Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire 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 Austria. 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 Wittelsbachs condoned the unappealing manners of Sophie's 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 Chancellor Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and his rival Count Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky. His wife Sophie had already transferred 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 the following awards: • Austrian Empire:

• * Knight of the Golden Fleece, 1817

• * Grand Cross of St. Stephen, 1835

•  Kingdom of France: Knight of the Holy Spirit, 5 February 1824

•  Kingdom of Bavaria: Knight of St. Hubert, 1824

•  Duchy of Parma: Senator Grand Cross of the Constantinian Order of St. George, with Collar, 1827

•  Kingdom of Prussia:

• * Knight of the Black Eagle, 9 September 1835

• * Knight of the Red Eagle, 1st Class

•  Baden:

• * Grand Cross of the House Order of Fidelity, 1835

• * Grand Cross of the Zähringer Lion, 1835

•  Russian Empire:

• * Knight of St. Andrew, 1835

• * Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky, 1835

• * Knight of the White Eagle, 1835

• * Knight of St. Anna, 1st Class, 1835

•  Grand Duchy of Hesse: Grand Cross of the Ludwig Order, 30 August 1837

•  Kingdom of Hanover:

• * Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order, 1839

• * Knight of St. George, 1847

•  Württemberg: Grand Cross of the Württemberg Crown, 1844

• 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 Sweden-Norway: Knight of the Seraphim, 9 July 1850

•  Kingdom of Saxony: Knight of the Rue Crown, 1856

•  Oldenburg: Grand Cross of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig, with Golden Crown, 13 July 1858

•    Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, February 1859

•  Empire of Brazil: Grand Cross of the Southern Cross

•  Brunswick: Grand Cross of Henry the Lion

• 🇬🇷 Kingdom of Greece: Grand Cross of the Redeemer

•  Grand Duchy of Tuscany: Grand Cross of St. Joseph

•  Two Sicilies: Grand Cross of St. Ferdinand and Merit