Scandalous, rebellious Sisi, the Empress of Austria, is a cult figure in Europe, figurehead of Vienna’s tourist industry. For the first time, the full story is revealed of all her English and Irish visits and her doomed love for an English officer. Controversial, extravagant, shy and beautiful, men adored her and women wondered why they fell for her. Elisabeth chose England and Ireland for holidays and for hunting. Her son the tragic Crown Prince Rudolf, who shot himself just a few years later, scorned his mother’s new friends as he made his Grand Tour of the British Isles.

Sisi broke every convention in the book. She scandalised the strict Viennese Court by befriending British and Irish gentry and aristocrats. These new friends were larger-than-life characters like ‘Chicken’ Hartopp who played with dynamite, American Jennie Jerome and her future lover Count Kinsky, the ‘untrusted’ Baltazzis and Earl Spencer. Through Spencer Sisi met the love of her life Bay Middleton but the devout Catholic empress could not follow her heart. Sisi is often compared with Diana, Princess of Wales who was a Spencer.

Set against the background of tension with Russia and with Ireland in a near-revolutionary state, Sisi caused havoc with Austrian, British and Irish relations. Whereas Rudolf charmed her, Sisi shunned Queen Victoria and angered London by visiting Maynooth seminary, seen as a hotbed of Irish dissent. Home rule leader Parnell exploited her visits and humiliated Britain’s viceroy the Duke of Marlborough.

Meticulously researched in England, Ireland, Scotland and Vienna from contemporary sources, newspapers, diaries and memoirs, Sisi in England adds to our understanding of a most extraordinary empress. Fully indexed and with comprehensive end notes, 80,000 words.