AI Summary
5 min readA Murderous Affair: Death at Mayerling (Part 2)
On the 5th of November 1888, a 17-year-old baroness named Mary Vetsera wrote to her former governess describing a secret meeting with the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Crown Prince Rudolf. She had been led through dark staircases and rooms in the Imperial Palace until a black bird—"some kind of raven"—flew at her head. On his desk sat a revolver and a skull. "Suddenly Rodolf came in and took it from me with deep apprehension," she wrote, "but when I said that I wasn't afraid he smiled." The letter reads like something out of Gothic melodrama or Bram Stoker, but it was real. Within three months, both of them would be dead at a hunting lodge in the Vienna woods, in what became one of the most scandalous murder-suicide pacts in European royal history.
The Gothic Affair
Crown Prince Rudolf was 30 years old, the son of Emperor Franz Joseph and the famously beautiful, melancholy Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi"). By 1888, he was a deeply troubled man—almost certainly suffering from incurable gonorrhea, likely addicted to morphine, and consumed by a sense of futility as he waited for his father to die and vacate the throne. His personality matched the morbid Viennese cultural atmosphere of the time, the world of Klimt, Freud, and Mahler.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Advertisements for Lloyd's, Tremfya, and Accenture** - Promotional content for a 5k deposit mortgage, a Crohn's disease treatment, and ad-sales workflow software.
- 2 (02:55) **A Gothic Meeting: Mary Vetsera's First Encounter with Crown Prince Rudolf** - The 17-year-old Baroness describes a secret meeting with Rudolf at the Hofburg, complete with a raven and a skull.
- 3 (05:29) **Setting the Scene: Vienna 1888** - The hosts recap the key figures: a morbid Crown Prince Rudolf (30), suffering from gonorrhea and morphine addiction, and the precocious, romantic Mary Vetsera.
- 4 (09:49) **A Tale of Reincarnation?** - Rudolf's aide recounts a story of a Jewish girl in Prague who died of a broken heart for Rudolf, suggesting Rudolf believed Mary was her reincarnation.
- 5 (12:31) **The Pact and a Death Wish** - Mary writes to her governess about a pact with Rudolf: "after a few happy hours... we will enter death forever."
- 6 (14:36) **A Wagnerian Excuse and Secret Trysts** - Mary uses a dislike for Wagner to skip the opera, instead slipping out to meet Rudolf at Schönbrunn Palace.
- 7 (16:38) **A Tense Christmas and a Hatred for the Kaiser** - The Imperial family gathers for Empress Sisi's birthday, where Rudolf gives thoughtful gifts but is consumed by hatred for Kaiser Wilhelm II.
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Show Notes
What really happened at the Habsburgian hunting lodge, Mayerling? Did Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera, really commit a romantic murder suicide, or did the heir cold-heartedly murder the 17 year old girl? And, why did the Austrian royal family try to erase all traces of this tragic incident?
Join Dominic and Tom as they solve the mysterious tale of the Mayerling Incident.
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