Archduke Heinrich Anton of Austria explained

Archduke Heinrich Anton
Spouse:Leopoldine Hofmann
Issue:Marie Rainiera von Waideck (1872–1936)
Full Name:Heinrich Anton Maria Rainer Karl Gregor
House:House of Habsburg-Lorraine
Father:Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria
Mother:Princess Elisabeth of Savoy
Birth Date:9 May 1828
Birth Place:Milan, Lombardy–Venetia
Death Place:Vienna

Archduke Heinrich Anton of Austria (Heinrich Anton Maria Rainer Karl Gregor), (May 9, 1828, Milan – November 30, 1891, Vienna) was an Archduke of Austria and Lieutenant field marshal.

Biography

Ernst was the fifth son of the viceroy Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria and Princess Elisabeth of Savoy. In 1852 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

Heinrich Anton had a military career and became Feldmarschallleutnant and commander of a division in Graz and later Brünn. He saw action in the War against Italy and distinguished himself during the Battle of Custoza (1866).

Heinrich Anton married morganatically on February 4, 1868, in Bolzano with singer Leopoldine Hofmann (1840–1891), who became Freifrau von Waideck in 1878. They had one daughter Marie Rainiera (1872–1936), Countess von Waideck, who married in 1892 Enrico Lucchesi Palli, Duke della Grazia and Prince of Campofranco (1861–1924), grandson of Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, the famous Duchess of Berry.

The Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria disapproved of this morganatic marriage and Heinrich Anton was expelled from the royal family. He laid down all his military functions and moved to Luzern in Switzerland, where the couple lived until he was pardoned by the Emperor in 1871.

The couple returned to Tyrol where Heinrich Anton retired from the army and lived in a palace in the Musterstreet in Bolzano. On a rare visit to Vienna in 1891, both Heinrich Anton and his wife contracted pneumonia (see also 1889–1890 pandemic) and they died in the same night.

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