 He was a close confidant to his brother-in-law, Crown Prince Rudolf.On the morning of 30 January 1889, he and Count Josef Hoyos-Sprinzenstein and valet Johann Loschek discovered the bodies of Rudolf and his teenage mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera, who had also been shot dead.Philipp spent his last years at in Coburg, where he died in 1921, aged 77.