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Princess Stephanie of Belgium (May 21, 1864 - August 23, 1945). Belgian princess and Crown Princess of Austria by marriage, daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium and his wife, archduchess Maria Henriette of Austria, born at Laeken . Her full name was Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte, of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duchess of Saxony, Princess of Belgium.
On 10 May 1881 in Vienna, when she was almost seventeen, she married the Austrian crown prince Rudolf. After an initially happy marriage,
difficulties soon developed between them. Rudolf was highly intelligent, unconventional and very liberal, while Stephanie was more formal and nobility orientated. In 1883 their only child, archduchess Elisabeth, was born.
She received no support from the Imperial family. Especially the Empress Elisabeth avoided her, calling her 'a moral heavyweight' and an 'ugly elephant'. When Rudolf infected her with a venereal disease, which made further children impossible, they even talked about divorce. In 1889 Rudolf committed suicide with the seventeen-year-old Mary Vetsera, and this killed Stephanie's hopes for a better future as it isolated her even further from the court in Vienna. She also had a bad relationship with her own father and had to fight him in court for her inheritance.
To distract herself she undertook many journeys, using different names, like Countess Lacroma, Eppan or Godrecourt and even Lady Bonchurch. On 22 March 1900 at Miramar, to the disgust of her father, she married a much lower nobleman, Count Elemer Lonyay de Nagy-Lonya et Vasaros-Nameny who, in 1917, was elevated by the Emperor to the rank of Fuerst. In Hungary they had a very happy marriage. In 1935 she wanted to publish her memoirs to set the record straight, but this caused a scandal and a court forbade the distribution of these memoirs.
When the Russians invaded Hungary she was forced to leave her castle Oroszvar and, on 23 August 1945, died in the Benedictine monastery at Pannonhalma.
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