Catharina von Wartenberg

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Anna Catharina von Wartenberg (born Rickers; baptized January 12, 1674 in Lobith ; † March 19, 1734 in The Hague ) was a German maitress of King Friedrich I of Prussia .

Life

Catharina was born as the daughter of the wealthy Lower Rhine customs inspector Christoffel Rickers (-1694) near Emmerich in the Duchy of Kleve , which belonged to the Electorate of Brandenburg . A royal valet Peter Biedekap met her there and brought her to Berlin in 1690 after her marriage . Here she became the mistress of the imperial baron Johann Kolb , who later became Prime Minister at the court of King Frederick I. Her brother Johann von Rickers was raised to the nobility by the Prussian king in 1702.

A son and a daughter emerged from the marriage with the valet, whom the king later elevated to imperial barons of Assbach. After Biedekap's death, Kolbe married the widow in 1696 and took his wife to the king as mistress. In 1699 she became countess with her husband. She gained great influence over the king, although it is uncertain whether they became intimate. The king and mistress were together every day, as the time dictated. With her hunger for power and vanity, Catharina caused many scandals in court life, repeatedly snubbed Queen Sophie Charlotte , but also the king with other favorites, etc. a. with the English ambassador, Thomas Wentworth, My Lord Raby (1672–1739). It was said that a landlord's daughter ruled Prussia, which was based on slander. In 1705 the king left her the Monbijou pleasure palace , which had previously served the queen. When Count Kolbe von Wartenberg was overthrown at the end of 1709, Catharina had to leave for Frankfurt am Main with him, Monbijou was returned to the king for compensation. He died in Frankfurt in 1712 at the age of 69. After a trip to Utrecht to see her son, the widow began an affair with the French Marshal d'Huvelles (probably Marshal d'Huxelles ) and lived in Paris. Wentworth and d'Huxelles were involved in the peace negotiations for the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. She later moved to The Hague, where she died in 1734 at the age of 60. She herself said "that one could count the shells on the beach of Schev (en) ingen rather than their gallant adventures", but Friedrich I was not among them, "as much as I would have loved to have made this undisputedly most honorable conquest".

In 1694 she inherited the Borghees castle near Emmerich from her father , which she let her brother manage.

progeny

The von Wartenberg couple had six children, two of whom died soon after birth:

  • Friedrich Kasimir (born January 9, 1697 - † October 19, 1719)
  • Elisabetha (* March 21, 1698; † 1698)
  • Kasimir (* May 6, 1699; † October 2, 1772) ∞ Marie Sophie Wilhelmine Eleonore zu Solms-Rödelheim and Assenheim (* July 4, 1698; † October 1, 1766)
  • Friedrich Karl (born July 29, 1704; † September 20, 1757) ∞ Anna Regina (Wagner) von Treuenfels (born September 25, 1711; † September 2, 1782)
  • Wilhelm Anton (born August 31, 1705 - † September 6, 1778)
  • Sophie Dorothea (February 10, 1707; † 1707)

The countess had already given birth to a son and a daughter from her first marriage with the valet Biedekap, who were named " Bidekap von Aßbach " (or "Aschbach") at the instigation of Kolbe von Wartenberg (after the Kolb property of Aschbacherhof near Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate) ) were ennobled. (Imperial nobility in Vienna on July 27, 1699 for Friedrich Eberhard Christoph and Helene Sophie Eleonore Bidekap, children of the Brandenburg secret chamberlain and secretary Peter Bidekap and Anna Catharina Rickers, re-wed Countess Kolb v. Wartenberg, with the predicate "von Aschenbach" and Kurbrandenburg Confirmation of nobility on March 28, 1700 under the name "Bidekap von Aschbach".) Baroness Helene Sophie Eleonore Bidekap von Aßbach († 1775 in Königsberg) married Count Ernst Sigismund von Schlieben , ten years older, on February 24, 1706 at the age of thirteen royal Prussian chamber president.

literature

  • Emma Willshee Atkinson: The memoirs of the Queens of Prussia , London 1858 (unreliable)
  • Max Bauer : German prince mirror. Pictures from the German past are described according to the sources with numerous authentic images in the text. Kaden & Comp., Dresden 1928 p. 176 (unreliable)
  • Erich Hubbertz: Catharina Countess von Wartenberg (= Emmerich research. 8). Emmericher Geschichtsverein, Emmerich 1986 ISBN 3-923692-07-2 .

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Christoffel Rickers. In: Bosch van Rosenthal family. Gelders Archief, accessed December 31, 2019 (Dutch).
  2. ^ Gerhard Jaeckel: The Charité: The history of a world center of medicine from 1710 . Berlin 2018, p. 5 f . ( google.de ).
  3. ↑ S. Fischer-Fabian, Preussens Gloria: Der Aufstieg einer Staates (1979/2007), p. 62ff., Takes up this after the words of Sophie Charlotte's mother. Then there was also a diatribe against the red-haired "witch".
  4. ↑ Genealogical description of all counts and gentlemen now living in the HR empire, including the same wives, gentlemen, and misses, also brothers, sisters and relatives, as their birth, government, marriage and residences are annotated . Seidel, 1722 ( google.de [accessed January 4, 2020]).
  5. ↑ The genealogical Archivarius: who carefully notes everything that changes among the high people who are now living in the world in the form of births, marriages, advances and deaths, with impressions of many life descriptions ... Heinsius, 1734 ( google.de [ accessed on January 4, 2020]).
  6. ↑ Quotation of the antecedent in: A vagabond courtier: from the memoirs and letters of Baron Karl Ludwig Pöllnitz : ed. Edith E. Cuthell, 1913, p. 333. In this English edition, the denial of the relationship to Friedrich is not, as it is Fischer-Fabian quotes.
  7. ↑ A vagabond courtier; from the memoirs and letters of Baron Charles Louis von Pöllnitz . London: S. Paul, 1913 ( archive.org [accessed January 4, 2020]).
  8. ↑ Hubbertz, Catharina, pp. 55f.
  9. ^ GHdA , Adelslexikon Volume I, Volume 53 of the complete series, Limburg an der Lahn 1972, p. 386
  10. ↑ Helene Sophie Bidekap of Asbach
  11. ↑ Ernst Sigismund von Schlieben
  12. ↑ Martin Ernst von Schlieffen, Message from some houses of the von Schlieffen family (1784), p. 390 f.
  13. ↑ Karl von Ledebur, King Friedrich I of Prussia , p. 325 f.
  14. ^ Robarts - University of Toronto: Memoirs of the queens of Prussia . London: W. Kent, 1858 ( archive.org [accessed January 2, 2020]).
personal data
SURNAME Wartenberg, Catharina von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anna Catharina Rickers (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Maitresse
DATE OF BIRTH January 1674
PLACE OF BIRTH Lobith
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1734
Place of death The hague