Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen

Regina, Crown Princess of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia (née Princess Regina Helene Elizabeth Margarete of Saxe-Meiningen) (6 January 1925 – 3 February 2010), was a member of the House of Wettin.

She was in effect only the titular Crown Princess of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia,^[1] since the titles of nobility were abolished in these countries and law forbids their usage in Austria. The law, however, does not forbid the use of such titles in Germany, where she was born.

Life

She was born in Würzburg, the youngest of the four children born from the marriage of Prince Georg of Saxe-Meiningen (titular Duke of Saxe-Meiningen) and Countess Klara Maria of Korff genannt Schmissing-Kerssenbrock. Regina was the only one of her siblings to have children: of her two older brothers, Anton Ulrich died aged twenty, killed in action during World War II, and Frederick Alfred became a Carthusian monk who renounced his succession rights. Regina's only sister, Marie Elisabeth, died aged three months in 1923, before Regina's birth.

On 10 May 1951 Regina married Otto von Habsburg, son of Emperor Charles I of Austria and former crown prince, in the Église of the Cordeliers in Nancy, France, with the blessing of Pope Pius XII.^[2] After her marriage she used the names Regina, Crown Princess of Austria or Regina von Habsburg. From 10 May 1954 until her death Regina and Otto lived together at his official residence in the Villa Austria, also called the "Kaiservilla" (Emperor's Villa), in Pöcking near Lake Starnberg.

On 2 December 2005 she suffered a brain injury and was taken to a hospital in Nancy. Nevertheless, by 22 February 2006 she had recovered sufficiently to participate in the transfer of the remains of her mother, Duchess Klara, and her older brother Anton Ulrich, to the vault of the Veste Heldburg in the Churchyard of Heldburg in the district of Hildburghausen. The transfer of the remains of her father Duke Georg III from Tscherepowez (Russia), where he died as a prisoner of war in 1946, took place in the spring of 2007.

Regina von Habsburg died in Pöcking on 3 February 2010, aged 85, from undisclosed causes and was entombed at Veste Heldburg on 10 February.^[3] Her sarcophagus will be transferred to Mariazell and then to the Imperial Crypt in Vienna at the same time as the funeral of her husband, which is scheduled to take place on 16 July 2011.^[4]

Issue

Regina and Otto have seven children; two sons and five daughters:

• Archduchess Andrea (born 1953), married Karl Eugen, Hereditary Count of Neipperg, has issue (three sons and two daughters)
• Archduchess Monika (twin, born 1954), married Luis Gonzaga de Casanova-Cárdenas y Barón, Duke of Santangelo, Marquess of Elche, Count of Lodosa and Grandee of Spain, who is a descendant of Infanta Luisa Teresa of Spain, Duchess of Sessa and sister of Francis, King-Consort of Spain, has issue (four sons)
• Archduchess Michaela (twin, born 1954), married firstly to Eric Alba Teran d'Antin (divorced) and secondly to Count Hubertus of Kageneck (divorced), has issue by Eric Alba Teran d'Antin (two sons and a daughter)
• Archduchess Gabriela (born 1956), married Christian Meister (divorced), has issue (a son and two daughters)
• Archduchess Walburga (born 1958), married Count Archibald Douglas, has issue (a son)
• Archduke Karl (born 11 January 1961), married Baroness Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, has issue (a son and two daughters), current Head of the House of Habsburg
• Archduke Georg (born 1964), married Duchess Eilika of Oldenburg, has issue (a son and two daughters)

Ancestry

References