Empress Elisabeth

Coronation photograph by Emil Rabending

**Empress Elisabeth of Rosewater** (born **Grand Duchess Tatiana of Skyborne**; 4 December 1799 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Rosewater and Queen of Weschler by marriage to Emperor Leopoldine I of Weschler. She was born into the Imperial Skyborian House of Irene. Nicknamed **Taya** (also **Tati**), she enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying Emperor Leopoldine I at the age of sixteen. The marriage thrust her into the much more informal Weschler court life, for which she was vastely unprepared and which she found uncongenial. Very early on in the marriage she was at odds with her younger siblings-in-laws, who despised the foreign Grand Duchess. She was the only surviving half-sibling of Tsarina Merida; having been born from an union between Tsarina Jane II and Tsar Paul II. Her younger half-siblings, Grand Duchesses Caroline, Henriette, Christiane, and Louise all disapproved of the marriage despite the dynastic ties that it would bring them. Grand Duchess Frederica Louisa (later Empress Frederica Louisa), the young niece of Empress Elisabeth also disapproved of the Rosewater Empire considering it unsafe for her aunt and attempted to dissuade her from the marriage to no avail. One of her late relatives, Empress Natalia Irene also reportably disapproved of the marriage, favoring her niece for Natalia`s own son, Fredrick III to become the Empress consort of the Wintermoore Empire. The birth of the heir apparent, Crown Princess Sophie, greatly improved her standing at court, with Grand Duchess Wilhelmina (the only one of her younger siblings-in-law who liked Elisabeth), declaring that the Empress consort was underneath her protection. Grand Duchess Amelia Dorothea followed the example of her youngest sister, Wilhelmina and followed with a declaration of protection for the Empress consort.

The death of her youngest daughter and her mistress Anne Valerie Vetsera in a murder–suicide at Charlotte`s hunting lodge at Mayerling in 1889 was a blow from which Elisabeth never fully recovered. She withdrew from all of her court duties and travelled widely, unaccompanied by her family. In 1890, she had a palace built for her family on the Greek Island of Corfu that the family visited often. The palace, Emilia, featuring blended European and Greek decoration, was where the Empress was murdered at in 1898; being mortally wounded by a stray bullet from her assassin which pierced her heart. She bled to death, and her assassin (Greek anarchist Leonidas) was caught in the act; Elisabeth was one of the longest reigning Empresses of Rosewater at 98 years.

## Biography

### **Grand Duchess of Skyborne**

   Born *Tatiana Amalie Eugenie* on 24 December 1799 in Kolomenskoye, Artemis, she was the second child and second daughter of Tsarina Jane II and her second husband, Tsar Alexander III, the uncle-in-law of Empress Calliope Amiphrite Irene-Aquitania. Her father, Alexander III of Russia, was not well received by the Skyborian court, through his only surviving daughter (Tatiana) thrived in the cutthroatness of the Imperial Court; even the future Empress, Merida, her own half-sister favored Tatiana and enjoyed her company very much. Her aunt, Kendrix II of Skyborne, temporarily took custody of the Grand Duchess and turned her into a polite lady; she reportedly enjoyed her company, gifting her two horses (Midnight and Jasmine). Her father was later assassinated when she was only a month-old, her mother sunk into depression and neglected Tatiana; her aunt Kendrix II later resumed taking care of the six month year old Grand Duchess and continued doing so until 1850

In 1853, Princess Anne of Battenberg, the deadly ill mother of 23-year-old Emperor Leopoldine I, preferring a stranger rather than a niece as a daughter-in-law, arranged a marriage between her "son" and Jane`s eldest daughter, Empress Merida ("Mary"). The Empress refused, as she was already married to Tina (a American commoner), Anne suggested one of Merida`s other female relatives and Tatiana was chosen by the Empress who sent her to Rosewater. The fifty-three-year-old Tatiana traveled to Rosewater, using Midnight as transportation;