Christian August of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian August von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg , pseudonym Augustus Lohstein and similar forms of name (born April 30, 1639 in Norburg ; † January 5, July / January 15,  1687 greg. In London ) was a prince from the House of Schleswig- Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg , traveler and British naval officer.

Life

Christian August von Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg was the first son of Duke Friedrich from his second marriage to Eleonore von Anhalt-Zerbst (born November 10, 1608 in Zerbst; † November 2, 1681 in Osterholm), daughter of Rudolf von Anhalt-Zerbst . He had an older half-brother from his father's first marriage, Johann Bogislaw , and a younger brother Rudolf Friedrich (1645–1688), who became the father of Elisabeth Sophie Marie and Ernst Leopold . His sister Elisabeth Juliane (* May 24, 1633; † February 4, 1704 in Wolfenbüttel) married Duke Anton Ulrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1633–1714), a relative of her mother , in 1656 . Another sister Dorothea Hedwig (* April 18, 1636; † September 23, 1692) had been a Protestant abbess of Gandersheim since 1666, but converted to Catholicism in 1678 and married Christoph von Rantzau .

to travel

In 1655 his mother hired Adolph Hans von Holsten as his councilor and court master . You went to the Sorø Academy at the end of the year . On November 21, 1657 Christian August gave a Latin speech Palladis simulacrum here , which he gave to King Friedrich III. dedicated Holsten contributed a Latin congratulatory poem. In 1658 his father, Duke Friedrich, died; he had appointed Christian August's older half-brother Johann Bogislaw as the only heir. In the inheritance contract of January 19, 1659, Johann Bogislaw committed himself to the maintenance of his half-siblings. Christian August was to receive 1,600 speciestalers a year and received the Hirschsprung estate (Danish: Hjortspring ) as security.

Then he began a grand tour with von Holsten in 1660 . It began in northern and central Germany and ran through the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, all of Italy and Sicily. You were guests of Pope Alexander VII in Rome and climbed Mount Vesuvius twice with Athanasius Kircher . The journey ended in Norburg at the end of May 1662 . In the meantime, the financial situation in the heavily indebted Norburg had deteriorated further. Holsten accompanied Christian August and his younger brother Rudolf Friedrich to Copenhagen . It did not succeed against the overlord King Friedrich III. to enforce the participation of the younger half-siblings in the administration of the almost bankrupt divided duchy . Christian August went on further journeys, initially accompanied by Holsten: From August 1662 he traveled to Spain via Berlin, Leipzig , Nuremberg , Metz , Paris and Perpignan . In 1663 it went back to Paris and from there to London . He arrived in Hamburg on May 28, 1663 . In 1665 he returned briefly to Norburg before setting out again. This time he traveled to Prague via various royal courts in southern Germany and Breslau . Here, under the name of Baron von Binnendorff , he joined the imperial embassy to Istanbul under Walter Leslie (1607–1667) , the great embassy to the Sublime Porte . In Istanbul he left the embassy and traveled alone to Asia Minor, Aleppo and the Holy Land as far as Jerusalem . He came to Venice via Damascus and Tripoli , where he arrived on September 20, 1666. After a short stay there, he went back to northern Germany, Holland and Denmark.

How these extended trips were financed is not documented by the sources. The lack of the promised debit payments certainly embarrassed him. In 1669 the Danish king pulled in the bankrupt Duchy of Norburg completely and reduced the maintenance payments to 1000 thalers. After his brother had been in the service of Wilhelm III for several years . from Orange-Nassau , Christian August had to find a new source of money.

In February 1670, a scandalous incident occurred in Gandersheim Abbey when his sister Dorothea Hedwig, the abbess, was injured by a stick blow from her liege, Thomas Ludolf von Campen , in her bedroom in Hachenhausen Castle . Von Campen wanted to take revenge on Christian August for insulting him.

In English service

At the end of November 1670 Christian August came to London a second time. According to Christian Gottlieb Jöcher , Christian August is said to have entered into “a marriage outside of his class” in England. But there is nothing else to do with this. In any case, he seems to have made the decision to enter the service of the Royal Navy . From June 1671 he was on board HMS Tyger , a 4th class frigate with 38 cannons. On it he sailed into the Mediterranean and experienced the sea ​​battle in the Solebay ( Southwold Bay ) in May 1672 during the Anglo-Dutch naval wars .

In spring 1773, he received his first command on the HMS Antelope . He followed the terms of the test record by receiving the sacrament according to the Anglican rite and taking the prescribed oaths. In May he took over the frigate at Woolwich . Its main task was to secure supplies . This saved him from a direct confrontation with his brother Rudolf Friedrich, who commanded a Holstein regiment paid for by the Dutch and defended the coast near Scheveningen with 18 cannons. In the autumn Christian August came under the command of Admiral John Narborough . Together with Narborough, he experienced the wedding of the then Lord High Admiral Jacob von York, who later became King James II , with Maria Beatrice d'Este on his ship off Dover .

After the Peace of Westminster , with which the Third Anglo-Dutch Sea War ended on February 19, 1674, he was initially released in April 1674. In May he traveled to Duffel , the Netherlands , where the headquarters of Wilhelm III. of Orange located. He brought a letter from the Dutch ambassador in London, Frederik van Reed, to Jan Willem Bentinck and in return received a letter from Wilhelm III. to General Adrian Graf von Horn . After a dinner with the Dutch Field Marshal John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen , his cousin, he traveled to Eppegem ( Zemst ) into the camp of his brother. On June 10th he returned to England.

The Hollandia

In Torquay he went on board the Dutch liner Hollandia . It belonged to a naval formation under the command of Admiral Cornelis Tromp , who undertook an expedition along the French coast, with a temporary occupation of the Île de Noirmoutier , and to Spain. The naval war against France shifted to the Mediterranean . In October 1674 the Golf de Roses was reached before it declined. Christian August arrived again in Antwerp at the beginning of December. His actual role on this trip and his clients remain unclear; it seems certain, however, that he was involved in the drafting of reports which appeared in the Diarium Europaeum under the names of von Tromp and von Horn . In February 1675 he returned to England from Holland.

Destruction of 4 corsair ships in the port of Tripoli in January 1676, drawing by Willem van de Velde the Younger

In 1675 and 1676 he was on the road on a similarly unclear assignment. In July he embarked on a merchant ship for Livorno , the Cosimo III. de 'Medici had recently declared a free port on March 11, 1675 , and traveled through central Italy. In December he went on board the frigate HMS Portsmouth in Livorno and accompanied Narborough's action against the barbarian corsairs . On January 24, 1676, Narborough managed to penetrate the port of Tripoli and destroy four anchored corsair ships. Thereupon the Dey concluded a favorable agreement for the British. Christian August's ( August van Holsteyn ) detailed report is still considered to be one of the most important sources on the history of Tripoli in the 17th century. Instead of returning to England on the Portmouth , Christian August travels overland through France.

Christian August received his second British command in 1677 on HMS Newcastle . He commanded the frigate from April 4, 1677 to 1679. On August 22, 1677, the Newcastle ran out as part of a squadron that accompanied British merchant ships to Tangier . In Tangier he rejoined Admiral Narborough and sailed to Algiers and Livorno. From there he directed British merchant ships that came from Zakynthos and Gallipoli to England. On board he had the body of the 5th Duke of Somerset , who had been shot in Lerici by an Italian nobleman. On October 6, 1678, he ran into Sheerness .

After returning from this trip, Christian August received no further command. From his correspondence with Samuel Pepys it can be inferred that rumors had spread that he had converted to Catholicism like his sister Dorothea Hedwig. On June 30, 1679, Christian August left the British Navy. He settled his debts with the help of a royal gratuity and traveled to Glückstadt in September . He spent the winter in Hamburg. In February 1680 he was back in London, from where he set off as a volunteer for another voyage to the Mediterranean on a British frigate in June . In 1681 there was another trip to Hamburg and a visit to his brother on his newly acquired property in Silesia through marriage . In summer and autumn he traveled through the Baltic Sea region from Copenhagen via Lübeck and Danzig to Königsberg and Stockholm. On November 2, 1681 his mother died. Christian August stayed in Denmark and Sweden for another six months and almost two months in Hamburg before returning to London.

With the death of Ruprecht von der Pfalz, Duke of Cumberland in November 1682, Christian August lost his most important sponsor in Great Britain. He turned to King Charles II with a request for an annual pension, which he was also granted. He traveled again to Hamburg and Italy in 1684/85. After his return he offered his services to the new King James II , but without finding any use. The last document is a petition to the king dated December 19, 1685, in which he warns of the lack of pension payments. There are no records of the last years of his life. He died in January 1687 “unconscious” “after feeling weak”.

Pseudonyms

Christian August used various pseudonyms in the course of his life . He joined the imperial embassy under the name of Graf von Binnendorf . In the documents and writings of his service in England he used names such as the anagram Augustus Lohstein or Gustav (us) Lhoesteine . Under the latter name, a British naval encyclopedia even listed him - as a native of Sweden.

Fonts

Christian August had a "pronounced write joy" with which he put notes and already about his early travels diaries and logbooks led. Many of these records are preserved in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel. Through his brother Rudolf Friedrich they came into the estate of his niece Elisabeth Sophie Marie von Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg , the third wife of Duke August Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . There are also official documents such as his captain's patents, which came into the Lower Saxony State Archives . One journal entered the British Library with the collection of Sir Hans Sloane .

In his diaries Christian August drew and described clothes, animals and buildings in the countries he visited and made comparisons between different customs. The logbooks were actually owned by the Navy, but he also enriched them with drawings. The records reveal that he quickly acquired the respective national languages. He spoke (at least) French, English, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.

  • Palladis simulacrum from ... Christiano Augusto, Hærede Norwegiæ, Sleswici, Holsatiæ, Stormariæ, Dithmarsiæq., Principe, Comite in Oldenburgh & Delmenhorst in Regia et Eqvestri Sorana publica oratione memoriter exhibitum d. XXI. Nov. M.DC.LVII. Soræ: literis Georgii Hantschenii 1657 ( digitized version , Danish Royal Library )
  • Travel diary and chronicle 1664–1669 and additions to 1678/81 (HAB Cod. Guelf. 221 Extrav.)
  • Translation by Luis de la Puente : Meditaciones , created in 1666 on the crossing from Tripoli to Venice, fair copy 1668 (HAB Cod. Guelf. 222 Extrav.)
  • Diary (1673–74) , in: Papers of the Englishman Augustus Lhosteine ​​(Lhostine), captain of the English naval warship "Antelope", consisting of lists, sample rolls, ship's invoices and other messages belonging to the service in English. Diary (1673–74), therein description of parts of Africa in Dutch, 1673–1679. Lower Saxony State Archives (Wolfenbüttel location) (NLA WO IX Hs 34)
  • Instructional or manual , compiled in 1674 on board the Hollandia (HAB MSS Extrav. 125.17)
  • Augustus van Holsteyn: Journal of voyage to Tripoli: 1675–1676. also: A Journal kept after my return ye 6th of February out of Holland from ye year 1675 untill 1676 , British Library (BL Sloane MSS 2755) A partial edition with an Italian translation was published in 1930:
    • Paoli Toschi: Fonti inédite di storia délia Tripolitania - Il "Voyage to the straits" by Augusto Holsteyn. In: Annali del R. Istituto orientale di Napoli 1930, pp. 46–91.
  • Ship's Diary 1677–1679: A Journal kept in y Newcastle fregat whereof I was appointed Comander by His Maj: Commission dated (y 4th of April, vid. No. 1, p. 31) y year 1677. (HAB Cod. Guelf. 125.3 Extrav.)
  • Travel diary 1655–1685, copy or fair copy (HAB Cod. Guelf. 257.3 Extrav.) This is probably the Hodeoporicon (travel description) described by Jöcher as being present in the manuscript.

literature

  • John Charnock: Biographia navalis; or, Impartial memoirs of the lives ... of officers of the navy of Great Britain from ... 1660 , Volume 1, 1794, p. 398. (L'Holstein, Gustavus)
  • Ernst Theodor Langer: Some peculiarities from Duke Christian August von Holstein-Sonderburg. In: Neues Göttingisches Magazin 2 (1793), pp. 524–543 ( digitized version )
  • An indefatigable prince , in: Friedrich Bülau : Secret stories and enigmatic people. Collection of hidden or forgotten oddities Volume 6, Leipzig: Brockhaus 1855, pp. 454–464.
  • Wolf-Dieter Otte: The newer manuscripts of the Extravagantes group. Part 3: 220.1 Extrav.-317 Extrav., Frankfurt a. M. 1993.
  • Ulrike Strauss: Duke, warship captain, adventurer. Unknown sources 1673-1675 from the Wolfenbüttel estate of Christian August von Holstein-Norburg. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 78 (1997), pp. 149–172. ( Digitized version )
  • Thomas Freller: Nobles on tour: The invention of the educational journey . 2013.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date and place of death according to Strauss (lit.), p. 157.
  2. ↑ CR Rasmussen, E. Imberger, D. Lohmeier, I. Mommsen: The princes of the country - dukes and counts of Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg. Wachholtz Verlag, 2008, pp. 260-262.
  3. ^ Ferdinand von Krogh: Contributions to the older history of the House of Holstein-Sonderburg. Berlin: Puttkammer & Mühbrecht 1877, p. 48.
  4. ↑ Thomas Freller: Nobles on tour: The invention of the educational journey . 2013, p. 95 f.
  5. ^ An indefatigable prince , in: Friedrich Bülau : Secret stories and enigmatic people. Collection of hidden or forgotten oddities Volume 6, Leipzig: Brockhaus 1855, pp. 454–464.
  6. ↑ Thomas Freller: Nobles on tour: The invention of the educational journey . 2013, p. 97.
  7. ^ Ferdinand von Krogh: Contributions to the older history of the House of Holstein-Sonderburg. Berlin: Puttkammer & Mühbrecht 1877, p. 50 f.
  8. ^ Hans Goetting: The dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Mainz. The Diocese of Hildesheim I. The Reichsunmittelbare Kanonissenstift Gandersheim (Germania Sacra NF 7) Berlin: de Gruyter 1971. ISBN 978-3-11-004219-1 ( digitized ), p. 137.
  9. ^ Christian August , in: Christian Gottlieb Jöcher : Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon. Part 1: A – C, Johann Friedrich Gleditsch, Leipzig 1750 ( digitized version ), p. 1891.
  10. ^ The mother of Johann Moritz, Margaretha, was a sister of Friedrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, the father of Christian August and Rudolf Friedrich.
  11. ↑ See Strauss (Lit.), p. 168, Diarium Europaeum , Volume 19, pp. 241–248 and 249–252 (Horn)
  12. ↑ See CR Pennell: Tripoli in the late Seventeenth Century: The Economics of corsairing in a 'Sterill Country'. In: Libyan Studies 16 (1985), pp. 101-112 ( online ).
  13. ↑ Thomas Freller: Nobles on tour: The invention of the educational journey . 2013, p. 101.
  14. ↑ Thomas Freller: Nobles on tour: The invention of the educational journey . 2013, p. 103.
  15. ↑ quoted from Strauss (Lit.), p. 157.
  16. ↑ Strauss (lit.), p. 155.
  17. ↑ Strauss (lit.), p. 154.
  18. ↑ See Strauss (lit.) p. 150 f.
  19. ^ Entry in the self-testimony repertory of the HAB
  20. ↑ Catalog entry
  21. ^ Entry in the self-testimony repertory of the HAB
  22. ^ Entry in the self-testimony repertory of the HAB
  23. ^ Christian August , in: Christian Gottlieb Jöcher : Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon. Part 1: A – C, Johann Friedrich Gleditsch, Leipzig 1750 ( digitized version ), p. 1891.
personal data
SURNAME Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, Christian August von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES L'Hostine, Augustus; Binnendorff, Baron von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince from the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, traveler and British naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1639
PLACE OF BIRTH Norburg
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1687
Place of death London