Anton I of Aldenburg

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Anton I of Aldenburg

Anton I von Aldenburg , (born February 1, 1633 in Kirchhatten ; † October 27, 1680 in Varel ) was a German imperial count and, as the illegitimate son of Anton Günther von Oldenburg (1583–1667), governor of the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst after his death for the Danish king.

Life

parents

Anton's mother Elisabeth Ungnad von Weissenwolf

Aldenburg was the illegitimate son of Count Anton Günther of Oldenburg and from the Austrian Exulantenfamilie of Ungnad originating Baroness Elisabeth von Ungnad (* either 1603 or 1614, † 1683), a godchild of his widowed grandmother Elisabeth von Oldenburg (1541-1612, daughter of Count Günther von Schwarzburg ) and lady-in-waiting of Juliane von Hessen-Darmstadt , married princess of East Friesland. His father is said to have given her a promise of marriage signed in his blood, but one of his councilors talked it away from her under an excuse and dropped it into the fireplace. His mother left Oldenburg after giving birth and returned to East Friesland, where her father Andreas Ungnad had settled after his conversion to Calvinism .

Early years

Aldenburg grew up at the Oldenburg court and received a careful education, at the end of which there was a three-year cavalier tour that took him from 1650 to 1653, accompanied by his court master Sebastian Friedrich von Kötteritz, to Italy and through Western and Northern Europe . Anton Günther's marriage remained childless and so Anton was looked after with great care in the following years despite his illegitimacy. On March 16, 1646 Aldenburg was from Emperor Ferdinand III. Elevated to the nobility , with the title chosen as the oldest form of the name Oldenburg. Aldenburg was the founder of the House of Aldenburg, later called House of Aldenburg-Bentinck . On February 25, 1651 the elevation to the baron status followed and on July 15, 1653 to the imperial count status. Anton Günther also took care of the material equipment corresponding to these titles. In lengthy negotiations with the Danish royal family and the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , who were to be the successors of the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst in the event that Anton Günther did not have legitimate descendants, he obtained free disposal rights in the Rendsburg Treaty of 1649 on certain income and goods that were specifically stipulated in a separation treaty in 1653. Aldenburg was given the office of Varel as early as 1654, the Bailiwick of Jade in 1655 and Kniphausen in 1657/1658 as free property. In his will of April 23, 1663, Anton Günther consequently appointed Aldenburg as his illegitimate son in the context of a family fideikommiss as an allodial heir in these estates, secured him a third of the Weser customs revenue and also bequeathed him a number of preliminary works and individual goods, including the estate Rooster .

In 1656 Aldenburg was accepted into the Fruit Bringing Society under the company name of the Estimated .

Governor of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst

View of the Varel orphanage
Detailed view of the orphanage with the coat of arms of Anton I.

In order to secure his inheritance settlement, Anton Günther handed over the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst to his feudal successors in 1664, who recognized Aldenburg as the future governor of the two counties. After Anton Günther's death, he assumed this office immediately. This ended the direct membership of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation for the two counties, and the period outside the empire began . In 1667 Aldenburg increased his property by purchasing Doorwerth Castle , which he only rarely used. In order to secure his property and to reduce possible areas of friction with Denmark, Aldenburg exchanged his goods located in the counties for the Bailiwick of Schwei in 1669 and in 1676 even offered to waive his Weser tariff. In 1671 he founded the orphanage in Varel, which still exists today with the original purpose of the foundation and is a national monument . On October 27, 1680, he died surprisingly and under unexplained circumstances in Varel. His wife accused the doctor Ringelmann of deliberately mistreating her husband. Aldenburg's successor in the governorship of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst was Burchard Graf von Ahlefeldt as the Danish Oberlanddrost . He was followed in 1683 in Anton Wolf von Haxthausen (1647–1694), Aldenburg's son-in-law in this office.

family

Aldenburg was married twice. On April 27, 1659, he married Augusta Johanna Countess of Sayn-Wittgenstein (* April 12, 1638 - May 15, 1669), the daughter of the Brandenburg governor Johann von Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein .

From Aldenburg's first marriage there were five daughters:

After the death of his first wife he married on May 29, 1680 in Copenhagen from France Dating Princess Charlotte Amélie de La Trémoille (* 3 January 1652; † 21 January 1732), daughter of Henri Charles de La Trémoille and Emilie from Hessen-Kassel . The son and heir Anton II (1681–1738), who came from this marriage, was born seven months after the father's death. The rule over the Aldenburg possessions of Kniphausen and Varel therefore initially took over Aldenburg's widow for the underage son, who then took over from 1706.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Membership database of the Fruitful Society. Membership number 653
  2. ^ Wilhelm Gilly de Montaut: Fortress and Garrison Oldenburg. Oldenburg 1981, ISBN 3-87358-132-9 , p. 11.
  3. ruler of a dwarf state . Nordwestzeitung, November 7, 2009
  4. Hans Friedl (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch zur Geschichte des Landes Oldenburg . Oldenburg 1992, p. 14, lb-oldenburg.de (PDF; 4.6 MB)
  5. Hans Friedl (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch zur Geschichte des Landes Oldenburg . Oldenburg 1992, p. 27, lb-oldenburg.de (PDF; 4.6 MB)
  6. JHF Berlien: The Elephant Order and its knights . Copenhagen 1846 ( books.google.de ). , P. 73