Austrian Order
The Austrian Order did not suffer from the political difficulties of the Spanish, remaining an award solely for Catholic royals and nobles. The problem of female inheritance was avoided on the accession of Maria Theresa in 1740 as sovereignty of the Order passed not to herself but to her husband, Francis.
Upon the collapse of the Austrian monarchy after the First World War, King Albert I of Belgium requested that the sovereignty and treasure of the Order be transferred to him as the ruler of the former Habsburg lands of Burgundy. This claim was seriously considered by the victorious allies at Versailles but was eventually rejected due to the intervention of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who took possession of the property of the Order on behalf of the dethroned emperor, Charles I of Austria. Sovereignty remains with the head of the house of Habsburg, which was handed over in 2007 by Otto von Habsburg to his eldest son, Karl von Habsburg.
Read more about this topic: Knights Of The Golden Fleece
Famous quotes containing the words austrian and/or order:
“An Austrian army, awfully array’d,
Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade;
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Deal devastation’s dire destructive doom;”
—Alaric Alexander Watts (1797–1864)
“In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self- respect.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)