Osra Princess of Ruritania

The second in order of the Anthony Hope Ruritanian novels is *The Heart of Princess Osra* (published 1896). It is a series of short tales about the princess, daughter of King Henry the Lion and sister of King Rudolf III of Ruritania, a woman of such remarkable beauty that she has an powerful impact on all men who meet her, from blacksmiths to aristocrats, and not always in a good way.

Osra is a rare name but not invented by Hope. It is said to have been the feminine form of the Franco-Germanic Osric. In the Arramverse she is named after an earlier Osra, the last sovereign duchess of Rothenia of the line of Ruric, who married the Swabian aristocrat Rudolf Elphberg in 1436. Oskar von Tarlenheim observes in **HOP**' that Rothenians used the phrase 'Oskar und Osra' in the same way the English use 'Darby and Joan'.

### Osra in the Arramverse

Arram assigns her the dates 1719-1802. She makes the occasional appearance in the Arramverse. Henry Atwood admires her striking tomb in the choir aisles of Medeln Abbey in **HFR**. She is only a main character in **ISP**, where a history is sketched in for her very different from Hope's. To Hope she is a passive and hypnotic object of male fantasy, a *belle dame sans merci* in the romantic love tradition. To Arram she is a woman of huge political and cultural ambitions, out to transform Germanic Ruritania into a Slavic Rothenia. He decides to name her Osra Madeleine, presumably because an 18th-century Catholic princess with such an unusual given name would combine it with a baptismal name which had no pagan and tribal associations.

She cannot however escape the fate of princesses of her day, to be dynastic chess pieces. At the time of her father's death in 1739 she was promised as husband to John Casimir of Glottenburg, who is her first cousin, younger son of her aunt Princess Dorothea Sophia of Ruritania and Duke Willem Stanislas IV. The marriage was intended to perpetuate the military alliance between the two Rothenian powers. In 1747 John Casimir succeeded his childless and unmarried elder brother and became himself Duke of Glottenburg. Their marriage produced one child, John Casimir who inherited Glottenburg in 1771, and immediately makes it clear he wants his mother out of the duchy, discontented at the size of the marriage settlement owed her.

With the help of her beloved brother, King Rudolf III, Osra puts together a compensatory endowment including the royal domain of Zenda and its castle and the commendatory abbacy of Medeln. However there were other forces at work. She had already been created one of the two levites, the guardians of the supernatural power then housed at the abbey. Unlike previous levites Osra determines to use the power to pursue political aims, the premature reunion of Ruritania and Glottenburg into a kingdom of the Rothenians, to be ruled by her grandson, Duke Willem Stanislas VI. The rival power of Jonas Niemand curbs her ambition, and Arram depicts her last years passed quietly at the abbey where she achieved a reputation for charity, being known in Husbrau for many years after her death as the *Dobra Dama* 'the Good Lady Osra'. In **HFR** Henry Atwood and Gavin viewed her tomb which indicated it had been raised by her nephew King Ferdinand. Gavin also noticed that she wore the brooch of office of a levite sculpted on her effigy.

### The Osraeum

A number of the Peacherverse stories refer to and feature the palace in Strelsau called the Osraeum, named from its long possession by the princess, and supposedly rebuilt as a town house for her by her brother, Rudolf III. However, it was older than that and its original name was the Vesterborg Palace. Its site had been previously occupied by the city residence of Ulrica, duchess of Zenda and countess of Vesterborg, the mistress of King Henry the Lion. It was on Gartengasse to the west of the Residenz or Hofburg of Strelsau, and rebuilt by Rudolf III in a more purely classical style than the original. The Emperor Napoleon resided in it during his occupation of Ruritania in 1807. In **ME** Maxim Rassendyll bought it in 1909 and lavishly restored it during his campaign to usurp the Crown, and after his success lived in it rather than move to the Residenz. After Maxim's abdication it came into the hands of the State, but it was restored to the royal domain in 2006. It was used thereafter as apartments for lesser royals, such as Elenja, princess of Vinodol, and her grandaughter and namesake, the Princess Royal. General Count Tomasz Bernenstejne, the king's cousin, and his family also had lodging rights there, as we learn from **TR**.

### Osra and the Crisis of 1739

One of Anthony Hope's tales of Osra is adopted by Arram into **ISP**. This was 'The Sin of the Bishop of Modenstein' where Count Nikolas of Festenburg an ambitious and wealthy noblemen, entices the king into gambling and gets him to pledge the domain of Zenda, near Festenburg. The count wins the bet and the castle, which he rides to secure, There he finds Osra in residence who disputes his right, and challenges him to three throws of the dice, staking her own virtue for the castle. Though she loses she catches him cheating and threatens to expose him. He abducts her to Festenburg, but on this mad gallop he attracted the notice on the road of Frederick of Hentzau, Bishop of Modenstein, who pursues him into the castle and there duels and kills Count Nikolas.

In **ISP** Count Nikolas is one of the supporters of the Count of Vesterborg's war of succession against Rudolf III on the old king's death in 1739. He seizes Zenda and imprisons Osra, but Franz Count of Tarlenheim, colonel of the Royal Liebgarde rides for the castle, and tricks his way past the gate and fights his way to the princess to find her door being held against Count Nikolas by her armed Jesuit chaplain, Frederick of Hentzau. He resigns to Tarlenheim the privilege of putting down the traitor, which he does in the castle courtyard. Rudolf III rewarded the chaplain by making him Bishop of Modenheim, 'a strange reward for sin', as the bishop was often to say.

**AA** *After Alex* **AD** *Alike in Dignity* **BR** *Blue Rainbow* **CO** *Count Oskar* **CP** *Chav Prince* **GP** *The Golden Portifor* **GS** *The Green Side* **HaTE** Henry and the Eschaton **HBP** *Henry and the Balance of Probability* **HFR** *Henry in Finkle Road* **HHP** *Henry in High Politics* **HO** *Henry in the Outfield* **HOP** *Heart of Oskar Prinz* **HS** *Hide and Seek (formerly The Chav Prince)* **ISP** *In the Service of Princes* **ME** *Maxim Elphberg* **TF** *The Fall* **TR** *The Regency* **UA** T*he Unnatural Archeologist*