Prince Leopold Clement of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

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Prince Leopold Clement
Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Duke of Saxony
Born(1878-07-19)19 July 1878
Szentantal, Hungary
Died27 April 1916(1916-04-27) (aged 37)
Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Austria-Hungary
Burial
St. Augustin, Coburg
Names
Leopold Clement Philipp August Maria
HouseSaxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry
FatherPrince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
MotherPrincess Louise of Belgium

Prince Leopold Clement Philipp August Maria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (19 July 1878 – 27 April 1916) was an

Austro-Hungarian officer and the heir apparent to the wealth of the House of Koháry. His death in a murder–suicide
shocked the royal courts of Austria and Germany.

Background

Prince Leopold Clement was the elder child and only son born in the troubled marriage of

Princess Maria Antonia Koháry.[1]

Fatal affair

A

Austro-Hungarian Empire before settling down in an apartment in Vienna.[3]

Rybicka, however, was not satisfied with being only the Prince's lover and demanded that he marry her.

officer's commission.[1]

When her pleas, intrigues and threats all failed to secure her marriage to Leopold Clement, she was offered 4 million Austro-Hungarian krones as compensation. On 17 October 1915, the Prince called her to his first-floor flat in

smashed a bottle of sulfuric acid in his face,[1][5] before firing the sixth bullet through her own heart.[6] Neighbours testified that they heard him scream in agony.[5] The half-naked Rybicka was lying dead by the bed when the police came, but the Prince was alive on the floor and still screaming.[5][6] Rybicka was cremated in Jena, Germany in December 1915.[4] Having lost an eye and much of the flesh on his face, Prince Leopold Clement died after six months of suffering.[1] His remains were interred in the vault of St. Augustin in Coburg.[7]

Aftermath

Following the death of his only son, Prince Philipp bequeathed his fortune to his grandnephew, Prince Philipp Josias.[1] The deaths of Prince Leopold Clement and Camilla Rybicka shocked the royal courts of Austria and Germany. They were reminiscent of the 1889 Mayerling incident, a murder–suicide involving Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, Prince Leopold Clement's maternal uncle, and Rudolf's teenage mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera.[3]

Honours

Ancestry

Notes

  1. ^ Her name is sometimes given as Lotte, and her surname as Rybika or Rybicska.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Was the Surrender of King Leopold a "Runs-in-The-Family" Tragedy?". The Milwaukee Sentinel. 21 July 1940. Retrieved 15 June 2013. [dead link]
  2. ^ Olivier Defrance et Joseph van Loon, La fortune de Dora : Une petite-fille de Léopold II chez les nazis, Bruxelles, Racine, 2013, p.120
  3. ^ a b c d e "Royal Love Tragedy: A Woman's Revenge". 1916. Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Princes' Matrimonial Scandals". The Argus. 11 December 1915. Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  5. ^
    ISBN 0709185820
    .
  6. ^ a b Duff, Albert (1972). Albert & Victoria. Müller. The last bullet she had kept for herself. She lay, half naked, by the bed, shot through the heart.
  7. ISBN 3-00-008525-4
    .
  8. ^ "Herzoglich Sachsen-Ernestinischer Hausorden und Sachsen Meiningensche Ehrenzeichen", Hof- und Staats-Handbuch für das Herzogtum Sachsen-Meiningen (in German), Meiningen: Brückner & Renner, 1912, p. 23, retrieved 3 December 2019
  9. ^ 刑部芳則 (2017). 明治時代の勲章外交儀礼 (PDF) (in Japanese). 明治聖徳記念学会紀要. p. 150.
  10. ^ "조선왕조실록".

External links

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