Prince Edmund Batthyany-Strattmann

Edmund Gustavus, 6th Prince of Batthyany-Strattmann (20 November 1826 – 29 October 1914), usually known in English as Count Batthyany, was a Hungarian prince, landowner, and yachtsman, a notable figure in Europe and the United States. His names and titles were given in different forms and translations, such as Batthyány Ödön in Hungarian and Edmond Gustave, Prince Batthyany, Comte de Strattmann, in French.

As well as being a prince and count of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also a hereditary member of the Hungarian House of Lords, a Ban of Croatia, and Lord Lieutenant of the County of Vas, or Eisenburg.

Life Batthyany was the son of Prince Gustavus Batthyany-Strattmann, a Hungarian nobleman who chose to live most of his life in England, and of his wife, Countess Wilhelmine von Bubna von Littitz née Baroness von Ahrenfeld (1791–1840), widow of Field Marshal Count Ferdinand Bubna von Littitz (1768-1825). His parents were married on 14 December 1828, two years after his birth, He won many races, including the Epsom Derby of 1875 with Galopin. Gustavus Batthyany's wife died at Richmond, Surrey, in 1840.

The young Edmund Batthyany was educated at Eton, where he was a wet bob. Soon after leaving school, he took up the sport of yachting, and with a yacht called Flying Cloud he won almost every race he entered. In 1874, the magazine Vanity Fair published a cartoon of Batthyany by "Ape" entitled "Yachting", reporting that from his youth he had been trained as an Englishman and that in pursuing his passion he had almost always owned the best vessel of the class he wished to race in. where in addition to sailing the garden parties he held at Eaglehurst House were very popular amongst those fortunate enough to be invited, featuring entertainments such as fire-balloons and a game of polo, played with hobby-horses.

In 1870 Philip, 4th Prince Batthyány-Strattmann, a second cousin of Batthyany's father, died without a son, and Gustav Batthyány succeeded him as Prince and also inherited some family land in Hungary and Austria, including the lordship of Güssing, Nevertheless, when he died in 1883, the 5th Prince left substantial settled estates in Austria, Hungary, and Croatia, in which his son Edmund succeeded him. On behalf of himself and his father's creditors, Edmund Batthyany then began a legal action against the trustees and executrix of his father's will for control of his father's property in England, including the proceeds from the sale of valuable horses, which took some years to come to a final judgement. They had no children. His wife became the owner of the Batthyany family estate at Rechnitz and died in 1893 at Körmend, a family castle in Hungary, aged 73. The Annual Register of World Events said of her in its obituary that she was "distinguished for great intellectual acquirements, and for her wide liberality to all in need."

Batthyany and his unmarried younger brother Gustavus were the last in the male line of Count Ludwig Batthyany (1696–1765). In 1902, the 75-year-old Batthyany married Amalie Holzmann, aged only 26, the daughter of a merchant, but this marriage was also childless. His brother died before him in 1906, and when Batthyany finally died at Körmend in October 1914