I’ve finally solved the mystery of the Mayerling Affair

It was the mother of royal scandalabras, as Walt Winchell might have said, and remains one of the greatest historical conundrums of all time. I refer to what became known as the Mayerling Affair: the sensational apparent murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, son and heir of Emperor Franz Josef and the tragic Empress Elizabeth, and his young lover, Baroness Marie Vetsera. Both Elizabeth and Rudolf happen to be collateral ancestors of mine, and I recently visited their gilded and frescoed rooms at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, wondering what really befell the wretched prince, and, armed with new information, including personal letters never before published, I may (scoop alert!) be in a position to solve the Mayerling mystery once and for all.

A troubled family background foreshadowed the violence that was to occur on a winter’s night in 1889.