The Rest Is History - 445. The Habsburgs: Secrets of a Dynasty

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the Habsburg dynasty's mightiest ruler, was at once King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Lord of the Netherlands and Duke of Burgundy. With a lineage supposedly stretching back to Noah’s Ark, and a name born in Ancient Rome, the Habsburgs are one of the most influential dynasties in all of European history, shaping and changing the course of nations and empires. The first great Habsburg, Rudolph, was made King of the Romans in 1273, though it was from 1500, through a series of tactical marriages, that their ascendancy truly began. Key among these was the marriage of Maximilian I, Charles V’s grandfather, to the powerful heiress Mary of Burgundy. The resulting gigantic Habsburg dominion would eventually split into two dynastic branches, located in Spain and Vienna, forging remarkable, multinational empires, that dominated central Europe until the twentieth century. But is there any truth to the claim that the Habsburg’s notorious proclivity for inbreeding resulted in genetic deformities that would see the downfall of the family? In this week’s episode, Dominic and Tom are joined by none other than Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, to discuss his illustrious family’s tumultuous history, its most famous members, strange death rituals, romantic legends, and the seven rules he’s derived from the stories of the House of Habsburg. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!  *The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024* Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London! Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty By the grace of God, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomiria and Illyria, King of Jerusalem, etc., Archduke of Austria, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Krakow, Duke of Lorraine,

Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bucovina, Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastala, of Auschwitz and Sator, of Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa and Zara, princely count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Khyber, Gorizia and Gradiska, prince of Trento and Brixen, margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria, count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc., lord of Trieste, of Kataro, and on the Vindic March, Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia, etc. etc. So those, Tom Holland, are the titles of Franz Josef I of Austria-Hungary.

And frankly, we are pretty pitiful by comparison. Only your titles, Duke of Brixton, Supreme Voivode of South London. Yeah. They pale by comparison. Yeah, we love a grand title on The Rest is History, don't we? We do. We do. And I have to say that probably, has there ever been a family in history that has had a better array of titles than the Habsburgs?

I love the Habsburgs, Tom. There's a sort of a particular Habsburg nostalgia among people who've got nothing to do with the Habsburgs, not in Central Europe at all. People like me who like going to Vienna. Eating strudel. Eating strudel, Sascha Torte. Yes, and all that. Thinking about Mahler. Yes. Yeah, you do. You're a great lover of Habsburg Vienna, aren't you? And as you know,

I am a great lover of Archdukes. There's nothing I love more than to chat away to Archdukes and so on. I've been to Franz Ferdinand's castle, Konopishta. Have you? Full of all the creatures that he shot. Some people might think that distasteful. I loved it. Anyway, that's just a tangent. Talk about Archdukes. Okay. So listeners have probably been able to gauge from the tone of abject flattery that Dominic in particular is affecting. I'm after an honour, Tom. I'm after perhaps my periods. You want to be a member of the Order of the Fleece, don't you? The Order of the Golden Fleece. I do. I absolutely do. My life will be for nothing if I'm not.

So we talked about the Order of the Golden Fleece, which was set up by the Dukes of Burgundy with Bart Van Loo ages ago. And I saw then that your ears pricked up. I saw the glint of chivalric yearning in your gaze. So obviously, ever since then, it's been a huge ambition, not just to talk about the Habsburgs, but actually to get a Habsburg Archduke onto the podcast. And it's basically like getting a kind of member of the Julia Claudians or the Tudors or somebody. And we are very, very honored to be joined by a genuine Habsburg. Eduard Karl, Josef Michael, Marcus Antonius, Collarman, Volkard Maria, Habsburg Lotharingen, to be precise. The Archduke of Austria, better known, Edward, I think,

as you're just Habsburg-Lotharingen. Aren't you on your passport? Is that right? Yes, I am. In Hungary, it's more complicated because I'm Habsburg-Lotharingen. Okay, that is complicated. And you're not just the Archduke of Austria, you are also the Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See, to the Pope. Yes, in fact, I'm ambassador here since eight years, but I am not the Archduke of Austria because there's tons of us. In fact, every single Habsburg is an Archduke or an Archduchess. We did this in a rather creative way. We found this title belonged to us in an old document. So all of us are archdukes.

There is not the archduke, but every Habsburg is archduke or archduchess. I apologize profusely. Dominic, obviously, with his detailed knowledge of Central European peerage, would not have made that crashing mistake. But I want to add that I make myself sincerely unpopular in Austria, if I even mention the word Archduke, because using that title in Austria will lead to a fine. But we're talking on an English speaking podcast outside of Austria. You would genuinely get fined if you use that title in Austria. It's complicated.

If you went into a cafe and you said, I'm the Archduke, bring me hot chocolate. Someone can call the police and I can get into trouble. But I think the fine is not that high. It is a correspondent number to a rather low number of Kornen, I think. But Austria has a complicated situation here. In the rest of the world, people see this as a historic title that is stuck to the Habsburgs. And that's why they use it in speaking about the Habsburgs. Do you know, if I was an archdeacon, I'd use it all the time, even if I got a fine.

Yeah, I would too. So Edward, you've written a book, The Habsburg Way, Seven Rules for Turbulent Times, in which you offer the example of your family dynasty, I might almost say, as a guide to making sense of the present. But before we come to those seven rules, could we just sketch out for people who may not know much about the Habsburgs, where your family come from, and what they've done over the course of the centuries? Because they've obviously done a great deal. Well, the introductory chapter in my book, which is just a few pages, gives you an overview of our family history. I wrote that for the

members in my family who are too lazy to read the entire book, but want to know a bit. Oh my God. Because being born as a Habsburg doesn't mean that you automatically know our history. As I point out, we are not like the Bene Gesserit. We don't have other memories, but we have to learn them too. So yes, a very short overview would say that we come from the romantic little corner between Germany, Switzerland, and France, where we were around the year 1200, 1250.

We were counts in the area around the Bodensee, Limon Lake. I don't know how you say that in English. Yeah, Lake Limon, yeah. And then in 1273, the first member of our family was dragged onto the stage of world history by being elected King of the Holy Roman Empire. He was never Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire because he wasn't crowned by the Pope, but the job was the same. They thought they would choose an elderly, respectable count that will definitely never fund the dynasty and can be controlled. How wrong they were.

Boy, were they ever wrong. And then from 1273 to about 1918, the Habsburgs played an important role in most of the years of European history. They then sort of disappeared from the stage again for nearly 200 years because the prince electors decided never to make that mistake again. And the Habsburgs were then thrown out of Switzerland by the Swiss and took a foothold in Austria and surrounding countries and then finally made it back to the imperial throne again after a hiatus. And then a huge history begins that I could talk about for hours. So the name of Habsburg comes from this period when your ancestors have been thrown out of Switzerland and they moved to Hofburg. Is that right? Which then becomes Vienna. Am

I misunderstanding that? No. The name Casa de Austria was used by us after having been thrown out of Switzerland. But Habsburg, of course, is a tiny little castle not too far away from Zurich in the Canton Argao in Switzerland, where a ratbot of Habsburg built that one around the year 1000. Oh, I see. Right. Yes. Sorry. And that still stands, by the way, and you can visit it. This is where our family name Habsburg comes from. When we moved to Austria, we took the more elegant title Casa de Austria

because it was a bit of a difficult time for the Habsburgs. They had been emperor for one moment in time, and then suddenly they were out again. They wouldn't be one of the prince electors. So they worked on their legend. That's also when we discovered the documents that proved that we were archdukes. So we'll come to the documents in a little while because I want to talk about that in the context of your rules. But at the beginning, you have five dates that you think absolutely everybody should know about the Habsburgs. So you've mentioned one of them, which is 1273, when Rudolf I, his title is King of the Romans, isn't it?

Yes. That's the Holy Roman Empire. I know it's incredibly confusing. For those people who don't know, that's effectively the kind of Leviathan that dominates Central Europe, Germany, neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire. Is it Voltaire said that, Edouard? I would disagree. I would disagree. I would disagree.

Okay. I know you would. So there's 1273. Now the next really important date that you identify is round about 1500. So what happens then that's so important? I would say around 1450, 1460, the Habsburgs were still a family of dreamers sitting around Vienna. And then with a series of marriages, they really explode onto the world history stage. And then after very few years, all over the lifespan of Maximilian, suddenly are everywhere in the world. They go from Austria via Burgundy to Spain and the rest of the world in very few years' time, around the year 1500. So this is when Maximilian is the one who marries the daughter of Charles the Bold,

the Duke of Burgundy, who we talked about with Barth van Leeuwen. And so that's where the Order of the Golden Fleece and all that inheritance of lands in the Low Countries comes from. Yes, yes. And the Spanish protocol. If I begin to speak about Maximilian, you could have me for hours. He is probably one of the greatest, most romantic characters we ever had in the family. He wrote three autobiographies. They were all pimped up versions of his life as nightly adventures. He was friends with Dürer.

He was friends with the greatest artists in his time. But most of all, he had no money and he sat south of Vienna in the castle of his father, when suddenly history called and he was called to marry and to save the most beautiful princess in the world. So his life suddenly became one of those nightly romances that he always read. What had happened was that Charles the Bold had somehow agreed with Maximilian's father that their children should get married. I think the deal was that he might then get the title of king from the emperor, Frederick III, father of Maximilian. And then suddenly, Charles the Bold was killed in a battle with the Swiss. And this young girl was suddenly

the heir sitting in Burgundy, helpless, while the French king moved his armies to take Burgundy, finally take it back to France, and marry her off to his, I think, 13-year-old son. She had been writing letters with Maximilian for years, very nice. They never met, of course, as you usually never did before you got married as a Habsburg or prince at that time. And she just wrote him a letter and said, come and save me, my knight. And he, of course, had a horse and a knightly armor and a few friends and a few soldiers and no money. So he got on his horse south of Vienna and he rode up the Danube towards Burgundy.

And on the way, more and more people joined him, bishops and princes and counts with their armies, with the soldiers. He still never had enough money, but they knew, of course, that he was the son of Emperor Frederick. So very probably going to be elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, too. So it paid to be on his side, I think. And he made it in time to arrive with a huge golden army and beautiful armor to Burgundy, more or less days before the French arrived. And they got immediately married. They were a beautiful couple.

He was incredibly strong, handsome, and a daring fighter, very cultivated. They read nightly novels together, like we would be watching The Crown or something together on an iPad. They write nightly novels. And their common language was Latin because they didn't speak the same language. It was a great love story. They really loved each other. And unfortunately, Mary died very soon from a writing accident. But in the meanwhile, she has given birth to important children. and with these two children the whole marrying off and building networks and taking over the

world by marriage politics of the Habsburgs began because the key one is they have a son called Philip and he marries the heiress of Castile doesn't she and that brings in Spain and so a generation later you have Charles V I mean he's basically king of everywhere or emperor of everywhere including America except France and England including yeah vast swathes of the you have Charles V. I mean, he's basically king of everywhere or emperor of everywhere. Including America. Except France and England, including, yeah, vast swathes of the Americas. So the Habsburgs now have their hands on Spain, Burgundy, Central Europe, their heartland in Austria, just this colossal empire. I guess at that point, when you consider it contains but it's nominally much of South America, the largest empire anybody has seen.

Yes. Parts of America, parts of North America too. Yeah. Many islands in the Pacific. The Philippines are called after King Philip of Spain. Yeah. So that was the famous realm where the sun never set. Yeah. So the first global empire, the first properly global empire.

Yeah. Yes. So the Habsburgs solved that problem by having two lines of the family, two branches, one of them in Spain and one of them in Vienna. And the way they cut up the world was that the Spanish looked after the world empire, Spain, Sicily, and the Austrian one looked after Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and always the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire for about 180 years. And what they also did was getting married among each other rather frequently. So just on the two branches for a second. So you're obviously the Central European branch, aren't you? Yes. But do you have anything to

do with the Spanish Habsburgs or have you lost touch with them? Dominic, they died out in 1700. So we don't meet them too often. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to ask. The other date that I suggest, the third date that I suggest is the year 1700. And one of the major topics on Twitter when people talk to me is, of course, the inbreeding, the Habsburg jaw, and the marrying between the Austrian and the Spanish branch that happened several times over the centuries, which in the end, definitely, we know this nowadays, led to the last Spanish Habsburg dying absolutely incapable of having children from genetical diseases. But are there no leftover illegitimate Spanish Habsburgs?

You know, that's my question. So in other words, I find it implausible to imagine, given the behavior of monarchs over the centuries, that there are no little offshoots somewhere in lurking around in, you know, the back streets of Seville or something. Burgos. You mean walking through Seville and suddenly seeing a face saying, you look like me. Exactly. Exactly. Dominic, Tom, you know, as historians, that the further you go back into history, the more we are related to everyone. Yeah, we're all descended from Genghis Khan, aren't we?

Every European person now is somehow descended from Charlemagne. Okay. But no, the Spanish branch is definitely gone. And 1700 is a good year because this is the end of the Habsburg rule in Spain. The last Habsburg there dies. The Spanish War of Succession happens. And you only have the Austrian branch. And then for a few years, it seems that the Austrian branch will also die out, which is

probably one of the most dramatic moments in our history is Charles VI realizes that first of all, for 10 years, he doesn't have children. Then after 10 years, he has two daughters. And then he knows that he will have to find a way to make his daughter carry on the family. He goes around Europe and negotiates with every ruler. They agree to the pragmatic sanction, which is when and if Maria Theresa gets married, she adds the name of her husband to her own, and she can carry on the family. And of course, if Maria Theresa didn't have any children, that would have been it. But she had 16.

Yeah. And that restarted the Habsburgs around 1740 onwards. And it's no coincidence that she won the female Habsburg championship on Twitter. You're aware I did a Habsburg championship on Twitter where I very democratically asked people to vote for their favorite Habsburgs. I began with 16 male and 16 female. And then, you know, like in a football championship,

we went down four, two can go on to the next round. And in the end, among the males, you have blessed Emperor Karl. I know why he won. I was pretty certain he would win in the male team. But Maria Theresia won. And she's really incredible because her taking over of the empire is one of the most dramatic things in Habsburg history. Her father died rather unexpectedly.

He hadn't really prepared her for this. She was by then married, had her first children. And immediately when his father died, Frederick of Prussia began to move his armies towards Silesia. This is Frederick the Great. Yes, Frederick the Great. You know, my grandfather always used to say, Frederick of Prussia, who some call the Great. The Duke of Bavaria immediately moved his armies into Austria and said, I am the Archduke. You know, the pragmatic sanction doesn't count. She was alone.

She wasn't a soldier. She had a crumbling empire, a badly shaped army, bad finances, and old ministers. And then she showed what she was made of. She was incredibly dynamic, and she went to the Hungarians. So, you know, one of the topics of my book is the complicated relationship between the Habsburgs and Hungary. And that's also the topic of the introduction by Viktor Orban. The Hungarians weren't exactly enthusiastic to be ruled by the Habsburgs. And Mary Theresa just went to Hungary and begged the Hungarians for help against Frederick of Prussia. And they said yes, because she stood there with her young son, Joseph, and all of that. And then she worked tirelessly, had 16 children, went out, danced, was cheerful, played cards. And many aristocrats remember how they were nearly ruined by playing cards with her. And at the same time was a very good Catholic and built a network. She really reestablished the Habsburgs in 1740 to 1780. And then the next big date, 1806, because that is the date when, under pressure from Napoleon, Francis II dissolves the Holy Roman Empire.

Yes. creation is gone, but a new multinational creation exists, which is effectively the Austrian Empire, or as it becomes with the compromise of 1867, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Does that mark a kind of a narrowing of the horizons for the Habsburgs, do you think? In a way, yes, and in a way not anymore, because by 1806, it wasn't the world empire anymore, and the Holy Roman Empire wasn't what it was anymore a few hundred years before that. But in a way, it doesn't change anything because that's one of the topics of my book,

especially the third point in my book, is the principles that they used from 1273 on and that ruled the way they were Holy Roman emperors became the principles of the Austrian empire. And whenever the Habsburgs did that right, it was fantastic. The Austro-Hungarian empire did many things right. My very humble opinion, the European Union still has to learn to get right.

And one of the reasons for Brexit, I think, is because of our English friends not absolutely feeling respected in their vision. So the EU is not Habsburg enough. You said that. You said that. And so your final date is the 12th of November, 1918. And that is the date that you mentioned him earlier. So the Emperor Karl, he is the heir of Franz Josef the very famous kind of gigantic mustachioed emperor that everybody equates with kind of the 19th century. And Dominic, you talked about him, didn't you, on our 12 Days of Christmas episodes? I love him. He's very stoical. I love a dull

monarch, Tom, as you know, so I love George V. Yes, I know you do. Yes. And the more abstemious, unfun-loving. I love a monarch who gets up at four o'clock in the morning, has a cold shower, and then does his paperwork. Did he collect stamps? He's the kind of man who would, I think, Tom, even if he didn't. Right. He's a stamp collector in his soul. I think we should say that. Anyway, he's dead. That's the end of him. First World War. Karl comes in and Karl is booted out. Edouard, a very sad moment for you. Some listeners, who you would obviously absolutely have no time for, be saying this is a tremendous moment. The Republican listeners, I mean, he's booted out, but he doesn't abdicate. Isn't that right? He tries to come back to Hungary and reclaim his crown. So is there a

slight sense, I don't want you to give away state secrets, family secrets, but is there a sense in your Habsburg WhatsApp group that you're all waiting for the moment when you can put right- Waiting for the call. Yeah, when you can put right what happened on the 12th of November, 1918? Yeah. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. So I say crazier things have happened in history. I don't see monarchy coming back in Austria or Hungary right now, but as I said, crazier things have happened. Okay, that's a politician's answer. I'm a diplomat. Well, I think at some point in your book, you do say, you know, no Habsburgs are dreaming of coming back, brackets, or are they?

So, I mean, I think the question of what a Habsburg Europe might look now is a very interesting one that is opened up by the list of seven rules that you have given in your book. I think we should take a break now. Maybe when we come back, just very quickly, we could skim through these seven rules to try and get a sense of what the lessons of history are for politicians in Europe and perhaps beyond today. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes,

and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are talking about Habsburg history. We're in fact talking to a Habsburg about his own history, or rather he's talking to us. That is, of course, Edward Habsburg, the Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See, a man who could go into a Viennese cafe and introduce himself as an archduke,

but he would face a fine for doing so. So Edward, I think this is your chance to brandish that title as much as you can. There is no fines on the rest of his history. We completely acknowledge you as Archduke of Austria. So you have these seven rules that you think Europe should emulate. And these are the lessons to be drawn from Habsburg history. And so we're going to go through the seven and we'll pick a historical example or two for each one to sort of anchor them in the family story. So your very first rule is get married and have lots of children.

Now, some people would think that's very deleterious to your family income, the more children you have, because children are very expensive. But also, I mean, quite distracting these days, I'd have thought. Isn't it? Very distracting, Tom. Yeah. Particularly you're a prime minister or something, or president. Well, Edward is going to put us right. So explain to us, Edward, what's the gist of this? Well, the gist is, of course, I'm married and have six children. So I want everybody else to experience the same sense of happiness and fulfillment that I experienced from this marriage. I'm married since 28 years now, and it's cool. No, that's not just trying to convince everybody else, but it's also, I believe that a society

with large families is a good society. I think that around the dinner table, you learn all the values that you need for a just, for a merciful, and you learn all the virtues you need in modern democracy. You learn to look after your younger siblings, for instance, and all of that you learn in the big family. I mean, looking at the lessons of history, did the fact that the Habsburgs, you know, I mean, you talked about Maria Theresa having 16 children. Was that helpful for the Habsburgs or Maximilian having all his children?

Well, Maximilian is the big one, isn't he? Because marital diplomacy is the key to his success, isn't it, Edward? Okay, Tom, first to your question, there is a very nice quote. I think it's by Ferdinand II. He said, daughters should in all cases be welcome because they unite different countries. Sons, on the other hand, might tear one country apart. So yes, in Habsburg history, it wasn't always easy to have sons. It was always useful to have daughters because you use them in chips in marriage diplomacy.

And this is to your point, Dominic. What Maximilian did in the 15th, 16th century was incredible because first he used his two children to get the Spanish empire. Then he used their children to get the Hungarian and Bohemian crown. And that was all Maximilian over several years. And he, of course, married off his grandchildren while they were still very small. They weren't actually, of course, married, but it was all agreed upon. One of them, even before he was born, it was like, if yours is a boy and mine is a daughter,

then they get married. Just one final point on the whole marrying business. And you touched on it in the first half. And this is the issue of inbreeding and the Habsburg jaw. And I can't help noticing, gazing at you on our video call, that you're a very handsome man and that your jaw is impeccably shaped and framed. Why, thank you, Tom. Tom, I can't believe you're flirting with the Archdeacon of Austria. Shameless behavior. So talk us through the Habsburg jaw.

Where does it come from? Where does it go? And is it true that all Habsburgs are into bread or not? This is a very good and important question. I'm thankful that you make it. There was an article in The Economist about two years ago about that, that led to all sort of inbreeding jokes on my Twitter account, as you can imagine. So, first of all, yes, it is true.

The Habsburgs did marry dozens of times between the Austrian and the Spanish branch between the 16th and the 17th century. Yes, that's true. And yes, that led to genetic mutations and deformations in the later Habsburgs in the Spanish branch. However, it's very important to realize that the Habsburg jaw that looks spectacular, it's the lower mandible standing out very strongly, doesn't come from the inbreeding. And, you know, there's a famous joke, the French diplomat reports home saying that Charles V played tennis. It was jeu de paume at the time. And it rained and the drops came into his mouth. And he complained to his teacher that the drops came into his mouth.

And the teacher told him, well, then close the mouth, which solved the problem for him. Very ironically, he writes all of that. So they had a very, very strong forward-jutting lower jaw, but that happened before the Spanish branch even existed. That happened in the generation above Maximilian, and nobody married any Habsburgs then at that time. It came from Zimburga, who was his, I think, Polish grandmother. And I suppose it was probably made more prominent, perhaps, by the inbreeding, but it doesn't come from the famous Habsburg inbreeding.

Another point I make in my book, too, is that among those 74 marriages—I think it was 74 altogether over 150 years between Vienna and Madrid—ne all of them were very, very happy marriages, not because they were cousins, but because they had the same set of values, the same faith, the same ideas about marriage, about family. They had the same sense of humor. They lived in a very similar cultural world. And so they married someone they never met, but they met somebody who came from a world they couldn't understand. To be fair, Edward, we've talked before in the podcast about a very different family who are famous for interbreeding, which is the Ptolemies, the descendants of Ptolemy

Alexander the Great's friend and kind of captain who take over Egypt. And they married each other and then had the most hideous family feuds and sort of always murdering each other and plotting and stuff. And the Habsburgs never really seemed to have done that, actually. When you look at the history, families who dominate history are often famous because they all hate each other. But the Habsburgs are quite unusual, and they do seem to have rubbed along pretty well. You think?

I mean, I'm not just making another play for the Golden Fleece. I think I'm well ahead of you there. There are remarkably few kind of coups, palace plots, conspiracies, all these kinds of things. So is there a genuine esprit de corps, do you think, among the Habsburgs at their peak in, I don't know, the 18th or 17th century or whatever? Dominic Flattery will get you anywhere. Brilliant. But you will remember that I complimented your chin. Yes.

If you're deciding which of us is to join the Order of the Golden Fleece, just remind me of that. So I think there's two reasons why the Habsburgs are an awfully nice family without backstabbing murder and horrible things. One of them is that from the beginning, they had to look after an incredibly complex set of countries, had to be very diplomatic and couldn't afford power games, violence. There were a few moments where family insight intrigues in the early times. But apart from that, they were always, you're absolutely right, a very esprit de corps and they were all Catholic.

Right. So this is your second rule, isn't it? Yes. Your second rule is be a Catholic. Dominic pulling a very Protestant face at that. So could you just talk through that? Why you think that's significant for the success of the Habsburgs over the sweep of history? I think that the Habsburgs saw their job of being emperor or being archduchess married out somewhere as part of their vocation as catholics and as christians and as something they would one day have to render accountability to god in the last judgment nowadays we're used to cultural catholics or salon catholics or catholics by baptism but

you were a serious catholic in the 15 16 17 18th, 17th, 18th century. Well, 18th century, you had the Enlightenment. Things got a bit different. But the faith was something that shaped your every decision. And you thought twice about doing something nasty because you knew that you could, of course, go to confession. But in the end, God would ask you, you were emperor over your people. Did you do this right? And this was a serious

matter. So the Habsburgs took their faith very serious. You could even say a joke like, are the Habsburgs Catholic? It's almost like, is the Pope Catholic? They were always Catholic, and they still are. I may add our like four to 500 family members that still hang around. Most of us are active Catholics, devout Catholics. We still have lots of children. So it's something that shaped our family a lot. And yes, I believe that it led to the harmonious parts of our family history. Could I just ask about one very celebrated Habsburg who seems not to have been perhaps as orthodox in his Catholicism as he might have been, and that is Rudolf II. He's based in Prague, isn't he? Towards

the end of the 16th century. And he's a great enthusiast for alchemy and secret rites and all kinds of things like that. And he refused the sacrament on his deathbed, didn't he? He had no time for all this. Carry on. He and his father both did that. Very, very dark moment in our family history. So they're the dark sheep. In a way they are, in a way they are. And I regularly pray for them. On the other hand, it was difficult to be a Holy Roman Emperor in a moment where Protestantism and the Reformation broke into the German lands. And I mean, the Holy Roman Empire was mostly centered around the German speaking lands. And half of your princes suddenly were Protestant.

And you somehow had to come to grips with that and somehow had to live with that situation. And people like later Ferdinand II, they sort of stood strong and even too strong. I mean, people hated them. Yeah, I was going to say Ferdinand II. I mean, he's ultra-Catholic, isn't he? He's identified with the Counter-Reformation. He's one of the great protagonists of the Thirty Years' War. But maybe, Edward, you will say I've been reading too much Protestant historiography, because in a lot of the histories of the Thirty

Years' War, the implication is if he had been less Catholic, if he had been less insistent on orthodoxy and maybe more tolerant of the Protestant princes, the great bloodbath of the 30 Years' War might not have unfolded. Now I know I'm talking myself out now of that honor, but I'm going to stick with it anyway. Keep going, Dominic. Keep digging. So what's your take on Ferdinand II? Because you did hint there that he might have been too Catholic.

I'm a diplomat and my heart tells me he was a good Catholic emperor. The diplomat in me sees that he could have achieved things, like Kissinger says in his book on diplomacy, where he says the absolute not understanding by Richelieu how Ferdinand could be so stupid not to make small steps to achieve something for Austria. The Catholic in me says because Ferdinand remained firm, Austria is still Catholic. The diplomat in me says, well, he could have made some agreements

and perhaps we would have had less problems also with Prague and with Bohemia and with these parts of the event. So we don't know. It went the way it went. If you look at the history of Ferdinand II and the way he was raised, educated, shaped, the vows he made to keep Austria Catholic. He couldn't have gone any other way.

In my book, I say I think that he did the right thing. Of course, I do because I'm a Habsburg. But as I said, the diplomat in me understands your position. But we can rarely ask the question, what would have happened if? It's not allowed to historians we for instance could ask if franz ferdinand's car yeah wouldn't have stopped and turned around at exactly that point where gavriel prince of by coincidence was walking after his first attempt imagine no first world war yeah two years later emperor franz ferdinand with a very balanced view of the Slavic people in his empire. No Germany humiliated by Versailles, no fertile ground for Hitler, no Second World War. Imagine, but you can't do that.

This is music to my ears. We should have done a deal and turned on the French. Edward, there's no doubt about that. This is shameless, shameless power play. So that actually kind of leads us on to the third point that you make, which is believe in empire and subsidiarity. Now, subsidiarity is a word that's very popular in the EU, isn't it? The idea that you kind of cede power back to the various parts of the imperial entity. But enthusiasm for empire isn't something that you tend to get these days. So what's the justification for empire? In my book, I speak about the difference between the empire in Star Wars and in Dune, in the Dune novels, and of course in the movie too. Our idea of empire is a ruthless power

grab by one emperor over many, many different countries that are all uniform places where armies enforce obedience, and then a band of rebels, Luke Skywalker, et cetera, fight against that. The Holy Roman Empire was very different. And I think that's probably the central chapter in my book about subsidiarity, is the Habsburg Empire only worked and only worked well when the lower levels, the single nations, the single peoples were respected by the Habsburg Empire only worked and only worked well when the lower levels, the single nations, the single peoples were respected by the Habsburgs. From the beginning, you have that in the 13th century, you have Charles V writing this to

his son as a rule, and you have it up to the very last moment. I love the quote you give from Francis II, who was emperor during Napoleonic Wars. A good empire is when all the nations within it are moderately discontented in the same way. So maybe that's the best that can be hoped for. Yes. And the interesting question is, what could be done better in the EU? And apart from, of course, that it would be easier if we had an emperor. And you are ready to answer the call if required. No, I'm probably the penultimate of all the Habsburgs.

I would have to kill about 80 to 90 male Habsburgs to get to the throne. And I don't want to do that. Well, Dominic could be your man there. On the other hand, Tom, sometimes countries or other places called minor Habsburgs to take over,, it didn't go very well, if you remember. Mexico, yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah. But subsidiarity is an important point, and it is written into the founding document of the European Union in Article 5.

My country, Hungary, of course, where I'm ambassador for, very often feels stepped on their toes by Brussels and feels disrespected and feels Brussels interfering into our inner affairs. This is exactly what the Hungarians felt when the Habsburgs didn't do their subsidiarity right. And the moment that the Habsburg emperors respected the Hungarian diet, the Hungarian parliament, their legal structures, their language and all that, everything went well in the empire. But so Edward, the counter argument might be, this is obviously, we can't get too deep into the historiography of the Habsburg empire, but there has always been this argument among historians that the surging kind of passions of nationalism, the sense that as the 19th century

continues, the strong sense of national identity in Hungary, in Croatia, in Transylvania, yeah, Transylvania and the Czech lands and so on. The thing that you see in those books by, I mean, you see it to some extent in those books by Miklos Banfi, those brilliant books about life in Hungarian Transylvania at the end of the empire, the sense that the idea of dynastic loyalty is actually just being completely corroded by the new power of nationalism. Does that suggest that the end of the empire was always coming? Or to go back to your previous thing, do you think that business about Franz Ferdinand and the kind of United States of Austria that he dreamed of, do you think that was really realistic? First of all, I agree, Dominic, that

you have a very strong argument. If you look at what happened in 1848, 1848, you made two brilliant episodes about 1848, was the moment where at the beginning, Franz Joseph was ready to give concessions to Hungary and the others to get peace, then realized that this would blow the empire apart and then installed a reign of terror for about 10 years at least to keep everything together. I believe that after 1867, with the Ausgleich between Austria and Hungary and with the perspective of Franz Ferdinand becoming emperor… So that for our listeners is the bit where the empire is kind of divided in two, isn't it? They're between an empire of Austria and a kingdom of Hungary. So he's now the king and emperor, and the Hungarians run their own business. What you call the Kauka imperial and royal monarchy, the emperor only being king in Hungary and emperor in Austria, and Hungary getting a lot of rights, their own rights and being

respected very strongly. And of course, all the Slavic people felt left out by that. They more or less said the Germans and the Hungarians separated the world among themselves. What about us? And of course, an improbable enthusiast for this model provided by the Habsburg monarchy is Arthur Griffith, the leader of Sinn Féin in the years before the Easter Rising. So if Sinn Féin can be fans of Habsburgs, who can't? So the fourth point you make is stand for law and justice and your subjects. And the great exemplar of that that you offer is your great, great, great grandfather, Archduke Joseph, the Palatine of Hungary, who lived between 1776 and 1847. So what is it about

him that you see as being exemplary for people? Well, he and his about 10 brothers were raised in the spirit of enlightenment. They knew that their job, wherever they were going to be sent, was to bring that country firmly into the 19th century, do everything to better the life of their subjects, and to work tirelessly for that. It's the counter-argument to the idea of the cackling evil ruler that we have nowadays. And when he arrived in Hungary in the 1790s as palatine for the emperor, he fell in love with that country, with the language, with their culture, and he went native.

Our family branch remained in Hungary until the Second World War. We became that much Hungarian. He did the difficult job of negotiating between the Hungarian leadership and the emperor. He founded the Academy of Sciences. He founded the first fire departments there. He did everything to bring the country firmly into the present and help Hungary. So he and his brothers are in the spirit of enlightenment, trying to be there for their subjects, trying to help them. And I think this is something that I see over the centuries in most Habsburgs. But of course, after enlightenment, even stronger up to the end, Habsburgs always saw themselves really as servants to their subjects.

It sounds a bit idealistic, but it was real. So could I, just to play devil's advocate, offer two counter examples, both from the 16th century, the first being the conquest of America and the lands in America that become subject to Habsburg rule. And the second also in the 16th and going into the 17th century is what happens in the Netherlands, where there is a massive revolt against Habsburg rule. I mean, where are the Habsburgs falling down there? Are they getting it right there or not? Tom, you may notice that these two examples barely make it into my book. Yeah, we did notice that.

Perhaps there's a reason for that. I had noticed. Indeed, I think they're not mentioned at all. I would say we were learning. We were learning. Okay. That's a very fair answer. Yeah. I think that will come, Tom, as a tremendous consolation to the people of Peru and indeed the Netherlands. Okay. So number five is know who you are. And this introduces what I think is absolutely my favorite detail of Habsburg history, which is that your title, Archduke they discovered some documents in a style, if you read them in Latin, that sounds like you and me trying to write a document in Latin during school. One is a letter by Caesar about his uncle, the dux of Comus Austria, and how important it is that one should obey to him.

And the other one is a document by Nero. And all the titles are wrong when you read it. It's so ridiculous. We found those things in our documents. There was the same time where we found very old family trees going back to biblical times. Brilliant. Yeah. You've got a family tree going back to Noah. Is that correct? Yes. To Noah, of course, which makes sense because Adam and Eve doesn't really make sense because everybody descends from Adam and Eve. But Noah is pretty good as an ancestor. Definitely. And this rule is called know who you are. And you talked about discovering these documents. Of course, if I was being harsh,

I might say, make up who you are. And that these documents were forgeries. Now, I know you will think this is Protestant skepticism run riot, but it's perhaps one of the great lessons of Habsburg history. Be the master of the narrative. Invent your own mythology. Dominic, I have to be very serious. These documents have been accepted by an emperor to be genuine. No matter that the emperor was a Habsburg, they were accepted by an emperor. Therefore, they have legal value. And therefore, we are archdukes. That's the first thing.

The second thing is, yes, indeed, after writing that chapter, I'm not totally adverse to people designing their own vision of who they are, if it encourages them to good things. And then you can build a bit of your own mythology. I don't have a problem with that. No, that's excellent. And you've correctly put Dominic in his place. And I wish more guests were robust with Dominic in that way. So number six is be brave in battle. You never spoke about the golden fleas, Tom. You never spoke about the golden fleas. Well, I think we could maybe talk about that when the show has ended and people aren't

listening in. A discreet discussion about it. You and me, Tom. You and me, Tom. Dominic is out now. Clearly. So number six is be brave in battle. And the example you cite is Archduke Charles, son of Leopold II at the Battle of Aspern in 1809, which is basically Napoleon gets defeated, unheard of. So this is a great victory for the Austrians. Whenever I write a tweet about that, everybody always says, well, but he won the next battle and don't make such a big show out of Aspern. But that's definitely not true. It's not just wishful thinking. It was a thunder that went through all of Europe. It was unthinkable for Napoleon to lose in a land battle. And why I use this image is also because

Archduke Charles really was brave. He was incredibly brave in that battle. It was a very hard, very tough battle. It wasn't an easy victory. And it was the first time Napoleon was defeated. That really sent a message. He can be defeated. And it was the first time Napoleon was defeated. That really sent a message. He can be defeated. And it was that moment that his star began to lose his shining, I think. And just on, you were mentioning Charles's bravery. So to give listeners a sense, it's 1809. They're crossing a river, aren't they? It's a battle over a river crossing. The French look like they're going to win. I mean, there was a colossal numbers of solstice the way with these great land battles in Central Europe.

French end up losing 20,000 men. But at the key moment, Charles leads a kind of counter charge with the reserves. He's on a white horse. He's got a flag in his hand. It's very kind of stirring stuff. Yeah, brilliant. And isn't there a statue of him, isn't there?

In the center, in the Heldenplatz. Yes. The center of Vienna with his flag on his horse. Yes, that exact moment. It is a very exciting moment, yeah. Although, as you said, the French did win the next battle. Of course. And then Karl had to step down from his post because he made a peace agreement with Napoleon

without consulting the emperor. So yes, of course, they won the next battle, but it was possible to beat Napoleon. I won't let anybody take that away from me. Okay, very good. Very strong. We'll put that in the ledger. And the final, the seventh and final rule is die well. Yes. I think we should all think a bit more about death. It gives your life perspective. It lets you question whether anything you're doing is really important. And of course, as a Catholic, I know that the moment of my death, besides also among other things about the way I will spend eternity, the Habsburgs were very aware of that. I'm just trying to bring that point home. And I've seen this put in practice because I was present at

the funeral of Empress Zita when she died and of Otto von Habsburg, where they both times did this famous Habsburg knocking ritual. You have a lovely description of that in your book. So this is at the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna, in the Neumarkt, in the center of the city. So tell us about the knocking ritual. What happens? The knocking ritual, first of all, you can watch it on YouTube. There are videos, both of Zita's and of Otto's funeral. And you arrive with a coffin at that church, which is on the Neumarkt. You knock at the door that leads down the stairs to the crypt. And then you have a voice from inside, a kapusin,

who guard, of course, the bodies of the Habsburgs in the crypt, asks who is there. And then the master of ceremony reads out the titles of the emperor, just as you did at the beginning of the show. And the voice answers, we don't know him. Then they knock again, and they read out all the achievements the emperor has done in his life. Again, the voice answers, we don't know him. The third knock comes, who is there? Then they would say, Zita, a poor, sinful woman. Then the door opens. That is the Habsburg attitude towards death in a nutshell. I give a few very nice examples, a few grandiose ones with Emperor Maximilian,

the way he disposed his body to be treated. That's an amazing story. He demanded that all his teeth be taken out, his hair cut off, and then his body was to be whipped and covered with lime and ash. What's all that about? Or is that perfectly reasonable in your way of thinking? We all do that. No, I think it was, as I told you, the Habsburgs were very aware that their life was being seen for many peoples like an example, like a sermon. So with every gesture around his funeral, he wanted to encourage people to die like a good Christian.

And this was a sign of humility. I was the emperor, but I'm only a poor sinner, probably in purgatory for what I did in my life. And he wanted to make that visible. The other thing that he did was the way he was buried in the steps under the altar in Wiener Neustadt, which I saw for the first time last year. Which is, you have steps leading up to the altar in Wiener Neustadt, which I saw for the first time last year, which is, you have steps leading up to the altar. And in the second step, there's just the word Maximilian. There is no huge sarcophagus. There is no images. It's just his name. And he wanted to be buried under the altar so the priest would say mass above his chest and pray for him. And probably the most famous Habsburg death of all is the youngest daughter

of Maria Theresa, Maria Antonia, but better known as Marie Antoinette. Wow. That's such a story. And I didn't discover it in a Habsburg book, but I discovered it in the extremely readable autobiography of the executioner of Paris, Charles-Henri Samson, who was there during the Terreur. By the way, a book everybody should read. It's incredible. He was on the little cart rumbling to her execution. And she was very unhappy and nervous and looking around all the time at the houses around. And he didn't understand why. And then she passed one house and her face lit up. And from then on, she was in peace.

And she went to her execution in total, absolute peace. And afterwards, after the revolution, he drove back to the house. He looked at the house. What is this house? He didn't find anything. And then after the revolution, he spoke with underground Catholics who told him the real story. She wasn't allowed to go to confession before her death, which for a Habsburg and for a Catholic is a horrible thing because you have to carry all the weight of your sins without being sure that they have been forgiven. So she had been told that a bishop would be standing at one of the houses and the window and give her the absolution in extremis from that window.

Of course, if the bishop would have been caught, he would immediately have been killed. It was forbidden for a Catholic bishop to be present even in Paris. And when she saw that bishop giving her the absolution, she knew it was good. She was going to death in peace with God. That's very typical for a Habsburg. And many Americans say on Twitter, I didn't know Marie Antoinette was a Habsburg. So yeah, there you have another one of those stories. Oh, very moving, very moving note on which to end, I think. So Tom, are you convinced by the seven rules? Are you going to live your own life in accordance with those Habsburg edicts? Well, I think that when I become a member of the

Order of the Golden Fleece, I will have no choice but to. Well, what I haven't told you is that I actually have another Habsburg friend. So my friend Max von Habsburg, who is a listener to the Rest is History, as you will know, Edward, he is a history teacher based in Oxford. So he is my ticket to the top. So I think that we will be hitching ourselves to rival Habsburgs. Brilliant. And the conflict will put the 30 years war into the shade. People sometimes say to me, do you think the rest of history will ever end? That's how it will end. It's a scene of Habsburg civil war.

Brilliant. Edward, thank you so much for coming on the show. Your book is The Habsburg Way, Seven Rules for Turbulent Times. And I know you're too diplomatic to answer this question fully, but there must be a bit of you that thinks, you know, Europe's not in a brilliant place at the moment. Do you think maybe the return of the double-headed eagle might just be what Europe needs? If we're ever needed, we're around. In the meanwhile, we're on Twitter. Very good.

That's the perfect note on which to end. Thanks so much, Edwin. Thank you, everyone, for listening. And we will be back very soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Goodbye. Thank you for having me on the show i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host the rest is entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews splash of showbiz gossip and on our q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club.

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