In July 1866, Empress Elisabeth wrote to her husband, Franz Joseph, urging him to meet Count Gyula Andrássy. She wanted the emperor to hear out the Hungarian politician himself, and she wanted him to do it quickly. The Habsburg monarchy’s future, she told him, was at stake. Less than a year later, Andrássy helped place the Hungarian crown on Franz Joseph’s head.
Netflix released the third and final season of The Empress on Nov. 12. The trailer announcement describes a chance meeting between Elisabeth, played by Devrim Lingnau Islamoğlu, and Andrássy, played by Dejan Bućin, with an attraction on both sides. The surviving letter shows why Elisabeth wanted Andrássy in the room at a moment when Franz Joseph’s position had weakened.
What Elisabeth wanted Franz Joseph to hear
The letter, dated July 16, 1866, is reproduced in Hungarian Cultural Studies. Elisabeth told Franz Joseph that trusting Andrássy could help save Hungary and the monarchy. She worried that events were moving quickly and that the emperor might lose the chance to enlist his help. She pressed for a conversation in person.
Austria had just suffered a defeat by Prussia. The dispute with Hungary went back to the revolution of 1848 and 1849 and the years of Habsburg repression that followed. Elisabeth could press Franz Joseph to listen, while the terms of a settlement still had to be worked out with Hungarian political leaders.
The Compromise of 1867 gave Austria and Hungary separate governments and legislatures. Franz Joseph remained emperor of Austria and became king of Hungary. The two sides handled foreign affairs and the military jointly. They also negotiated how to split the cost of common responsibilities. Andrássy became Hungary’s prime minister under the new arrangement.
Austria initially paid 70 percent of the common expenses and Hungary paid 30 percent. Within Hungary, the restored parliament and government controlled domestic policy, including policy toward the kingdom’s different national groups. The Habsburg history project notes that Magyars made up only about a third of the population, yet minority groups could still face pressure to conform to Hungarian language and culture.
What happened at the coronation
Two days before the ceremony, Franz Joseph signed his coronation diploma at Buda Castle. It belonged to a Hungarian tradition in which an incoming sovereign pledged to respect the country’s constitution and laws. Franz Joseph agreed to a request from the Hungarian House of Representatives to crown Elisabeth on the same day. The signed document survives in the Hungarian National Archives. It was the first coronation diploma written in Hungarian. The archives trace the pledge back to a decree from 1440 and say it became a requirement for taking the throne in 1622. Franz Joseph’s signature came in the presence of parliamentary delegates and the archbishop of Esztergom.
Their young son Rudolf described the ceremony at Matthias Church in a school exercise book. In the account preserved by The World of the Habsburgs, Elisabeth sat while his father went up to the altar. Rudolf remembered the drums as Andrássy and the Catholic primate put the Crown of St. Stephen on his father’s head. Afterward, he saw his father take the orb and scepter. The royal couple were crowned on June 8, 1867. The church stood in Buda, which merged with Pest and Óbuda to form Budapest six years later.
The Swiss envoy who watched the ceremony noticed something Rudolf left out. As the envoy recalled it, during the Hungarian revolution Franz Joseph had signed a death sentence for Andrássy, whose name was displayed at the gallows in Pest. At Matthias Church in 1867, Andrássy was there to crown the same man as head of Hungary’s new government.
Andrássy also presented Gödöllő Palace to the couple in the name of the Hungarian people. It gave Elisabeth a country residence away from Vienna, where her frequent stays in Hungary drew criticism.
