Princess Maria Theresia of Liechtenstein


Princess Maria Theresia of Liechtenstein was the heiress to the Silesian Duchy of Troppau. Countess of Soissons by marriage, she was the last person to hold the title. She had one son who predeceased her in 1734. Her son was engaged to Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, duchess of Massa and heiress to the Principality of Carrara.

Biography

Her father was Prince Hans-Adam I of Liechtenstein – who had purchased the counties of Vaduz and Schellenberg, which is now the modern state of Liechtenstein. Her mother, Erdmuthe Maria Theresia of Dietrichstein was the great-granddaughter of Adam von Dietrichstein, Hofmeister to the court of Emperor Rudolf II and buried in St Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle.
Maria Theresia’s father had died in 1712 – and both her brothers before that.
In Vienna on 24 October 1713 Maria Theresia married Thomas Emmanuel, Count of Soissons and Governor of Antwerp, second son of Louis Thomas of Savoy-Carignano and his wife Uranie de La Cropte de Beauvais. They had one son, Eugenio Giovanni.
By this marriage she also became a princess of Savoy, having married into a cadet branch of the reigning dukes of Savoy. Her husband was a descendant of the princes of Carignano, which been raised by Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, into a principality as an appanage for his third son, Thomas Francis. The house of Carignano developed two junior branches, those of Soissons and Villafranca.
In 1662 the town of Yvois in the Ardennes was raised by Louis XIV of France into a duchy in his favour, its name being changed at the same time to Carignano. The famous Prince Eugene of Savoy was the second son of the first Prince of Carignano.
Prince Eugene was Thomas Emmanuel’s uncle. Eugene served under Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor – and for his leadership at the Battle of Vienna in 1683 he became known as "The Atlas of the Austrian monarchy". In 1697, as Field Marshal and chief of Austrian armies, he defeated the forces of the Ottoman sultan, Mustafa II, at the decisive Battle of Zenta in Hungary.
After her husband died in Vienna on 28 December 1729, Maria Theresia made Škvorec Castle her seat.
On 20 February 1772 Maria Theresia died in Vienna. She was a descendant of Georg Hartmann who had become Lutheran c. 1540, while her great-grandfather, Karl, a stattholder of Bohemia had found it wise to become a Catholic in 1599.
Maria Theresa’s son, Eugene Jean Francois, Count of Soissons and Duke of Troppau had died at only 20 years old, thus her estate passed to Franz Joseph I, Prince of Liechtenstein – great-grandson of Prince Hartmann III of Liechtenstein. The title of Count of Soissons became extinct with the young son’s death and was returned to the French crown.

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