Empress Elizabeth of Diadochia

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Elisabeth of Diadochia (24 Dcember 1833 to 25 October 1898) was the wife of Emperor George VII, and thus Empress of Diadochia.

Born into Galician royalty, Elizabeth (Eliza) enjoyed an informal upbringing, before marrying Emperor George VII at 15. She was suddenly absorbed into Komnenoi court life, which she found stifling. Later in life she withdrew from court duties and travelled widely, unaccompanied by her family. In the palace, she was seen to be obsessively concerned with her health and beauty, having to be sewn into her leather corsets and spending two or three hours a day on her coiffure. Elizabeth was the longest serving Empress-consort of Diadochia, at 50 years. Ironically, due to her rebellion against the traditions of the imperial dynasty, she in fact represents the antithesis of Komnenoi tradition, above all in contrast to Emperor George VII, her husband, who is considered nothing less than an embodiment of Komnenoi values.


Marriage

For much of their marriage, George VII and Elizabeth were passionately in love. The union of George VII and Elizabeth was like a real life fairy tale, George VII was the handsome Emperor of a multiethnic empire who fell in love with a beautiful young princess and made her his Empress. The two were first cousins, their mother being sisters. The romance blossomed in December of 1847, when Eliza was only fourteen and George was twenty one. The two met each other at George's twenty first birthday party at Kaiservilla and the couple's engagement was announced the same night. Six months later in 1848, the fairy tale wedding was held in Atlantis. Elizabeth found life at Court extremely uncongenial, suffering from the strict protocol, the intrigues and her official duties as empress. However, in the early years, the young empress did strive to live up to expectations. She even fulfilled the most important duty of an empress, giving birth to an heir and a spare. However, she came increasingly into conflict with the conventions and rules of the Atlantean court, personified by her mother-in-law.

When the Emperor informed her his intention to marry her, Elizabeth is said to have said "I am so very fond of the Emperor! If only he were not an emperor!"

Empress

After enjoying an informal and unstructured childhood, Elizabeth, who was shy and introverted by nature, and more so among the stifling formality of Komnenoi court life, had difficulty adapting to the Imperial Court of Diadochia and its rigid protocols and strict etiquette. Within a few weeks, Elizabeth started to display health problems: she had fits of coughing and became anxious and frightened whenever she had to descend a narrow steep staircase.

Starting in 1849, the Empress was pregnant with her first child, the Archduchess Alexandra Georgievna (who died in infancy), followed by a second daughter, Archduchess Victoria Gisela in 1850, Princess Imperial, the long awaited heir Crown Prince Nikolas Georgiou, Byzantinóu of Diadochia was born in 1852, followed by the spare Archduke Eric Georgiou in 1854, followed by the Archduke Basil Georgiou in 1856, followed by Archduke Alexander Georgiou in 1859, followed by the Archduchess Marie Sophie Georgievna in 1862, followed by Archduke Demetrius Georgiou in 1866, followed by the Archduke Michael Georgiou in 1869.

Physicality

At 172 cm (5 feet 8 inches), Elizabeth was unusually tall (she was taller than her husband); even after nine pregnancies she maintained her weight at approximately 50 kg (110 pounds, 7 st 12 lbs) for the rest of her life. She achieved this through nearly constant fasting and rigorous exercise.

Whenever her weight threatened to exceed fifty kilos, a "fasting cure" or "hunger cure" would follow, which involved almost complete fasting. Meat itself often filled her with disgust. Elizabeth emphasized her extreme slenderness through the practice of "tight-lacing". During the peak period of 1859–60, her sexual withdrawal from her husband after six pregnancies in rapid succession, and her losing battle with her mother-in-law for dominance in rearing her children, she reduced her waist to 16 inches in circumference. Corsets of the time were split-busk types, fastening up the front with hooks and eyes, but Elizabeth had more rigid, solid-front ones made in Atlantis out of leather to hold up under the stress of such strenuous lacing. Elizabeth's defiant flaunting of this exaggerated dimension angered her mother-in-law, who expected her to be pregnant continuously.

Although on her return to Atlantis in August 1861, a lady-in-waiting reported that “she eats properly, sleeps well, and does not tight-lace anymore”, her clothing from this time until her death still measured only 18 1/2 – 19 1/2 inches around the waist, which prompted many people to describe her as “almost inhumanly slender.

In her youth Elizabeth followed the fashions of the age, which for many years were cage-crinolined hoop skirts, but when fashion began to change, she was at the forefront of abandoning the hoop skirt for a tighter and leaner silhouette. She disliked both expensive accoutrements and the protocol that dictated constant changes of clothing, preferring simple, monochromatic riding habit-like attire. She refused to wear petticoats or any other "underlinen", as they added bulk, and were often literally sewn into her clothes, to bypass waistbands, creases, and wrinkles and to further emphasize the "wasp waist" that became her hallmark. The Empress popularized the wasp waist, a fashion popular among the court ladies of Diadochia to this day

The empress developed extremely rigorous and disciplined exercise habits. Every castle and palace she lived in was equipped with a gymnasium, she installed mats and balance beams in her bedchamber so that she could practice on them each morning. She took up fencing in her 50s with equal discipline. A fervent horsewoman, she rode every day for hours on end, becoming probably the world's best, as well as best-known, female equestrian at the time. When, due to gout, she could no longer endure long hours in the saddle, she substituted walking, subjecting her attendants to interminable marches and hiking tours in all kinds of weather at all times of the year.

In the last years of her life, Elizabeth became even more restless and obsessive, weighing herself up to three times a day. She regularly took steam baths to prevent weight gain; by 1894 she had wasted away to near emaciation, reaching her lowest point of 95.7 lbs (43.5 kg). There is evidence in Elisabeth's diet that show signs of binge eating.

Legendary beauty

In addition to her rigorous exercise routines Elizabeth practiced a beauty cult, one that was highly ascetic, solitary, and prone to bizarre, eccentric, and almost mystic routines. Daily care of her abundant and extremely long hair, which in time turned from the dark blonde of her youth to chestnut brown, took at least three hours to prepare. Her hair was so long and heavy that she would often retire after lunch to rest; having suffered from nearly constant migraines and headaches. The Empress Elizasbeth had her servants wash her hair with special "essences" of eggs and cognac once every two weeks. During this time, the Empress refused to attend any activities and obligations that were scheduled for that day. At the end of her life her hair was described as "abundant, though streaked with silver threads from old age.

Unlike other women of her time, Elizabeth used little cosmetics or perfume, as she wished to showcase her "natural" beauty, but she tested countless beauty products prepared in the Imperial court pharmacy, or prepared by a lady-in-waiting in her own apartments, to preserve it. Although one favorite, "Crème Celeste", was compounded from white wax, spermaceti, sweet almond oil, and rosewater; she attached far less importance to creams and emollients, and experimented with a wide variety of facial tonics and waters, which she favored over others. Elizabeth slept without a pillow on a metal bedstead to retain her upright posture, with either raw veal or crushed strawberries lining her nightly leather facial mask. She was heavily massaged and often slept with cloths soaked in either violet- or cider-vinegar above her hips to preserve her slim waist, and her neck was wrapped with cloths soaked in warm water. To further preserve her fair skin tone, she took both a cold shower every morning (which in later years caused her arthritis to worsen) with and an olive oil bath in the evening.

After her thirties, she did not sit for any more portraits, and would not allow any photographs of her to be taken, so that her public image of the eternal beauty would not be challenged. The few photographs that were taken without her knowledge show a woman who was graceful, but inhumanly slender.




Issue

Empress Elizabeth and Emperor George VII of Diadochia had several children:

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