Dorothea Christina von Aichelberg
Dorothea Christina of Aichelberg , including: Dorothee Christine , Christiane , from Eichel Berg , of Aichelburg (* 23. January 1674 in Ploen , † 22. June 1762 in Reinfeld (Holstein) ) was a woman from Karlstein the wife of Christian Karl of Schleswig Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön-Norburg and, as his widow and mother of Duke Friedrich Karl of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön , was at the center of a succession dispute for years .
Live and act
Dorothea Christina was the daughter of Johann Franz von Aichelberg, court master and bailiff in Norburg , and his wife Anna Sophia von Trautenburg, known as Beyer. As a young woman, she was maid of the Duchess Elisabeth Charlotte .
After the death of Duke August von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg-Plön and the accession of Joachim Friedrich in 1699, she followed the dowager to the widow's seat Østerholm on Alsen . Here the relationship with Joachim Friedrich's younger brother Christian Karl developed, who at that time was a colonel in the Brandenburg-Prussian army and had only inherited from his father the Sebygaard estate and God's gift on Ærø , which formerly belonged to his uncle Bernhard of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön whereby, in his opinion, every nobleman in the country is slightly richer than him . Dorothea Christina von Aichelberg appeared to him to be an appropriate wife under these circumstances. Both the court in Norburg and the agnates , however, were strictly against the unequal connection. In this situation Dorothea Christina received an invitation to the court in Dillenburg . Christian Karl followed her to Frankfurt, where they met, and on February 20, 1702 they were in Curti Castle in Gross-Umstadt , which at that time as a condominium under the joint management of the Palatinate and Hesse-Kassel was from there Reformed superintendent Johann Jacob Müller married. Groomsmen were the landlord, the chief bailiff Carl Wilhelm von Curti and his wife Anna Helena, geb. Schenck to Schweinsberg .
The wedding was initially kept secret; However, his sister, the Danish Queen Charlotte Amalie , heard about Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel , and the ducal family through her. Duke Joachim Friedrich did not succeed in contesting the marriage - it was not morganatic , and Dorothea Christina was able to present a nobility trial with 16 ancestors - but he forced his brother to make a settlement. This was drawn up by a court commission, signed by the two brothers in Norburg on November 24, 1702, and confirmed by the Danish king on December 5, 1702. In this, he renounced all civil status and inheritance rights for his wife and any children in order not to further reduce the already very insignificant family property through further divisions; but this renunciation should no longer apply if the male offspring of the brother died out. He took the name of Karlstein for himself and his family .
A loophole in this comparison was that it did not say a word about what should happen if the Ploen House should die out, and then, according to the will of Duke August Joachim Friedrich, the Ploen lands and Christian Carl the Norburg lands. Such a case was highly unlikely in 1702, but possible, and occurred four years later. When in 1704 the Duke of Plön Hans Adolf , whose son Adolf August died (a few days before his father in a riding accident), the male line of the Plön line was only extended to the grandson of Hans Adolf and son of Adolf August, Leopold August ( 1702-1706), represented. He died at the age of four, which means that the right to the Plön inheritance passed to Joachim Friedrich.
First two daughters were born to the couple Christian Karl and Dorothea Christina: Charlotte Amalie Ernestine (1703– ?, died as a child) and Wilhelmine Augusta (born September 13, 1704; † 1749). Christian Karl died of the leaves on May 23, 1706 . Friedrich Karl was born as a posthumus on August 4, 1706 . Dorothea Christina lived another 56 years as a widow. Her task in the next few years was to work with her legal representative Friedrich von Reventlow and the guardians appointed by the king, Hansen von Ehrencron and CG von John, to secure the succession of their son. Expert opinions from the Kiel Faculty of Law and foreign lawyers such as Johann Peter von Ludewig and Christian Thomasius underpinned this claim in 1707. Their marriage was not a morganatic one, nor did the comparison of 1702 make it one. But Joachim Friedrich refused to acknowledge his nephew's ability to succession. At this point he was still hoping to have a son. But in two marriages only daughters were born; he died in 1722 deeply in debt and without male descendants.
King Friedrich IV recognized now in two diplomas from 18./19. December 1722 Friedrich Karl as a real and born Duke of Schleswig and Holstein and raised Dorothea Christina to the rank of prince. However, this recognition could only be enforced for the parts of the area in the Duchy of Schleswig under Danish fiefdom, such as Norburg, since Friedrich Karl's cousin Johann Ernst Ferdinand from the Schleswig-Holstein-Plön-Rethwisch branch also made claims and for the Holstein parts of the territory that were under the imperial fiefdom who had the support of the emperor. Therefore, Friedrich Karl could only take office in Plön with the death of his cousin († May 24, 1729). Recognition by the Reichshofrat took place in 1731. Dorothea Christina von Aichelberg experienced the late triumph that her marriage was declared "an orderly and princely legal matrimonium" by a conclusion of the Reichshofrat.
Dorothea Christina now lived on the widow's seat in Plön in Reinfeld and in the widow's palace in Plön. She died of breast disease in Reinfeld at an old age . Her body was transferred to Plön and buried on June 30, 1762 in the royal crypt at Plön Castle. Her descendants include the descendants of Karl August von Hardenberg via their daughter , and the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg and Anhalt-Bernburg houses via their son and his daughters .
As early as 1746 she had donated the Plön orphanage, which she also considered in her will, as well as the poor in Reinfeld and the local preacher widow's fund.
literature
- Christoph Gensch von Breitenau : Thorough report from the Princely Holstein-Plönischen controversial successions matter. Copenhagen 1725
- Digitized copy of the copy from the Bavarian State Library
- Georg Philipp Schmidt von Lübeck : Dorothea Christina von Aichelberg. Historical representation from the Schleswig-Holstein history of the 18th century. In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Blätter 3 (1837), pp. 406-443 ( digitized version ); Family tree ibid. After p. 451
- Siegfried Fitte: Unequal princes in earlier centuries. in: The border messengers . 65 (1906), pp. 632–644, here p. 636 ( digitized version )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmidt (Lit.), p. 413
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Aichelberg, Dorothea Christina von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German heir to the throne |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1674 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Plön |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 22, 1762 |
| Place of death | Reinfeld (Holstein) |