Anton II of Aldenburg

Anton II of Aldenburg

Anton II von Aldenburg , (born May 26, 1681 in Varel ; † August 6, 1738 ibid) was a German count and sovereign of the Kniphausen rule , the Varel office and other possessions.

Life

Aldenburg was the only son of Count Anton I von Aldenburg (1633-1680) and his second wife, the French Princess Charlotte Amélie de La Trémoille (1652-1732), a daughter of Henri Charles de La Trémoille and Emilie von Hessen-Kassel . Since he was born seven months after his father's death, a guardianship council was appointed for him, which, in addition to his mother, also included Count Ulrich Friedrich Gyldenlöwe and Baron Franz Heinrich von Fridag auf Gödens, who both married Aldenburg's half-sisters from his father's first marriage were.

As the illegitimate son of the last Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst Anton Günther von Oldenburg, Aldenburg's father was not entitled to inheritance, so the counties fell to the King of Denmark who was entitled to inherit . Aldenburg's father only exercised the governorship in the two counties. After his death, Denmark used the favorable opportunity that Aldenburg's period of underage offered to weaken the family's position politically and economically. Aldenburg's mother escaped the Danish pressure and constant harassment in 1684 by moving to the family estate of Castle Doorwerth near Arnhem , where he grew up and was brought up in the Reformed faith. As a result of further Danish pressure, his two co-guardians concluded the so-called Aldenburg treaty with Denmark on July 12, 1693, without their mother's consent , in which they waived the Bailiwicks of Jade and Schwei , the Hahn estate and the Aldenburg Weser toll income in the name of their ward . In return, Aldenburg was assured of the possession of the Varel lordship - albeit subject to the sovereignty of the Danish crown - and the imperial direct lordship of Kniphausen as well as the Aldenburg estates in the Wesermarsch and Jeverland . After he had come of age, Aldenburg ratified this contract on October 16, 1706 and thus took over the rule in Varel and Kniphausen as a sovereign ruler.

Family and succession

In 1705 Aldenburg married Anna von Kniphausen (* 1689), the daughter of Baron Wilhelm von Kniphausen on Nienoort near Groningen , from whom he divorced in January 1711. A few months later, on April 16, 1711, he married Wilhelmine Maria Landgräfin von Hessen-Homburg (January 7, 1678 - November 26, 1770), the daughter of Landgrave Friedrich II (1633–1708). In order to secure the successor to his only child, Charlotte Sophie (1715–1800), who arose from this connection , Aldenburg obtained Danish approval in 1731 to establish female succession for the Aldenburg possessions.

As a result, Aldenburg ran into financial difficulties because the properties as a dwarf state in the poorly developed north-west of the German Empire, which was repeatedly hit by storm surges, were not quite viable. He was therefore forced to borrow 337,000 guilders from Willem (Wilhelm) Graf von Bentinck (1704–1774), Herr auf Rhoon and Pendrecht, and also married his daughter to him. Through this marriage, the Aldenburg possessions finally came to the Bentinck family, who ruled them until 1854 under the name Aldenburg-Bentinck .

literature

Biographical

• Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 27-28 ( PDF; 4.6 MB ).

Fiction

• Achim Engstler : What's going on, Sophie? The novel of Count Aldenburg , Oldenburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-7308-1466-6 .

Web links

• Literature from and about Aldenburg, Anton von in the catalog of the German National Library