Baltasar of Marradas

Baltasar von Marradas on a painting by an unknown artist, 1st half of the 17th century

Don Baltazar de Marradas et Vique or Maradas (born November 28, 1560 in Valencia , † August 12, 1638 in Prague ) was a Spanish nobleman , knight of the Order of Malta , imperial field marshal during the Thirty Years War and governor in Bohemia .

Life

Engraving with the portrait of Baltasar von Marradas from the Theatrum Europaeum from 1662

Marradas came to the court of Emperor Rudolf II in 1599 and became a council of war there . In the Gradiscan War of 1617 he fought against the Republic of Venice . In 1619 he went to war with a Spanish cavalry regiment against the winter king Friedrich V.

Although he could not show any great military successes, he and his brothers Franz and Georg were raised to the rank of imperial count in 1621 . Provided with plenty of land, he resided at Schloss Frauenberg on the Vltava . He sold the Dominium Künisches Gebirge and Velhartice Castle to Colonel Don Martin Hoeff Huerta Freiherr von Welhartitz. In 1626 he was appointed field marshal and in 1627 lieutenant general. Marradas was involved in the negotiations for the deposition of Wallenstein in 1630 in Regensburg. In 1631 he surrendered Prague to the advancing Saxon troops under Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg without a fight . After further failures in Silesia, he was deposed in 1632 at the instigation of Wallenstein. Marradas was one of the masterminds behind the murder of Wallenstein in 1634.

He died unmarried in 1638 as Privy Councilor and Governor of Bohemia. His nephew Don Francisco de Marradas Count von Salent, son of his brother Georg Count de Marradas, inherited the South Bohemian properties Wodnian ( Vodňany ) and Frauenberg ( Hluboká nad Vltavou ) from him, which he bought in 1661 for 385,000  Rhenish guilders (fl .)) to Johann Adolf Graf, later Imperial Prince of Schwarzenberg, sold.

literature

• Friedemann Needy : The Thirty Years War . Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-89678-287-8 .
• Hermann Hallwich :  Marradas, Baltasar Graf . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 421-428.
• Ernst Adalbert von Harrach : The diaries and diaries of Cardinal Ernst Adalbert von Harrach (1598-1667). edited by Katrin Keller and Alessandro Catalano. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78461-6 .
• Bernhard R. Kroener :  Marradas, Don Baltasar Graf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 249-251 ( digitized version ).
• Golo Mann : Wallenstein - his life. 2nd Edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-10-047903-3 , pp. 163, 201, 250, 279 f, 360, 373, 405 f, 408 f, 412, 467, 705, 729 f, 777 f, 794, 816, 850, 868 f, 961, 1012, 1080, 1088, 1106, 1158. (Text passages on Balthasar Don Marradas)
• Procházka novel : Genealogical handbook of extinct Bohemian gentry families. Verlag Degener & Co, Neustadt an der Aisch 1973, ISBN 3-7686-5002-2 , p. 281.
• Don Balthasar Marradas, count since 1621. In: Biographical lexicon for the history of the Bohemian countries. published on behalf of the Collegium Carolinum (Institute) by Heribert Sturm . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-486-52551-4 , p. 582.

Web links

• Illustration from 1627: Balthasar Marradas ... ( digitized version )