Ferdinand von Plettenberg (Hereditary Marshal)

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Ferdinand von Plettenberg around 1721/22, oil painting by Joseph Vivien

Baron Ferdinand Wilhelm Adolf Franz von Plettenberg , later Count von Plettenberg and Wittem , usually also called Ferdinand von Plettenberg for short , (born July 25, 1690 in Paderborn , † March 18, 1737 in Vienna ) was Prime Minister of the Electorate of Cologne , Chamberlain and Hereditary Marshal of Elector Clemens August of Bavaria and important supporter of Maria Theresa in the succession to the throne for the Habsburg hereditary lands .

Life

Ferdinand came from the noble family Plettenberg and was the son of the Electorate Cologne Chamberlain and Privy Councilor Johann Adolph von Plettenberg and Franziska Theresia Freiin Wolff-Metternich zur Gracht .

Nordkirchen Castle

As the nephew of the Prince-Bishop of Münster , Friedrich Christian von Plettenberg , he became the sole owner of the entire private property in Nordkirchen in 1711 after the death of his uncle, father and brother. He had Nordkirchen Castle built and completed: in 1715 a new church was built, in 1722 the Nepomuk Chapel, in 1727 the orangery, the pheasantry and the sextonry. In 1730 the poor house was converted into a large hospital. In 1734 the construction was largely completed.

In 1719 he became the Elector of Cologne and Bavaria of the Privy Council and thus entered the service of Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria and his brother, the Cologne Elector Archbishop Joseph Clemens . He helped the Bavarian elector to obtain the bishopric of Münster and Paderborn for his son Clemens August . As District Administrator of the Principality of Münster, Plettenberg was the chairman of the Münster estates.

When Clemens August was accepted by his uncle as coadjutor of the Archdiocese of Cologne with the right of succession, Plettenberg took care of the consent of the canons in the future election and overcame the resistance of the Cologne cathedral provost (and Primate of Hungary) Cardinal Christian August von Saxony-Zeitz . He also obtained the imperial and papal approval for the accumulation of offices. The election took place the following year, after the death of Joseph Clemens.

Clemenshof, as Plettenberger Hof, residence of the Prime Minister in the royal seat of Bonn

In 1723, Elector Clemens August Plettenberg appointed Prime Minister in Bonn for the Electorate of Cologne and the Principality of Münster , Paderborn , Osnabrück and Hildesheim and left him largely to rule. In Bonn, Plettenberg moved the previous Hof zum Sack and had the aristocratic seat , now called Plettenberger Hof , expanded and splendidly furnished.

On September 8, 1724 he was by Emperor Charles VI. as Graf von Plettenberg and Wittem in the imperial counts charged. In 1722 he had bought the dominions of Eys and Wittem in what is now the Dutch province of Limburg , and in 1732 he gained the imperial status with a seat and vote in the college of the Westphalian imperial counts .

Plettenberg did not turn out to be a mere tool in the hands of the Munich court, as had been hoped, but pursued an entirely independent policy. At times he stood against the Habsburgs with Bavaria, France and England, but secretly established connections with Vienna. Clemens August's transition to the imperial camp is due to his influence. The court in Munich and French ambassadors tried in vain to separate Clemens August from Plettenberg.

In 1733 Plettenberg fell victim to a court intrigue . When his relative Friedrich Christian von Beverförde zu Werries killed the elector's favorite Johann Baptist von Roll zu Bernau in a duel in 1733 , the deeply struck Clemens August suspected a planned act and dismissed Plettenberg dishonorably. He fled to Vienna . In place of a predictable policy, the influence of various confidants on Clemens August took place and, particularly in foreign policy, there were repeated changes of course. Clemens August no longer wanted to entrust power to one person alone and instead created a council conference. But since no one in it possessed the skills of Plettenberg, the council only played a subordinate role; Subsequent ministers sooner or later also fell out of favor. The elector, supported by his brother, the Bavarian elector and later Emperor Karl Albrecht , briefly pursued close ties with France . In the war of the Polish succession , the empire stood against France; Plettenberg became imperial commissioner for the Lower Rhine. There he organized the billeting of soldiers in the Electorate of Cologne and thus worked against his former master. However, this soon broke ties with France in order to move closer to the pragmatic sanction with Maria Theresa as heir to the throne, for which Plettenberg campaigned. He died in Vienna in 1737 and was buried in the local Minorite monastery.

A mezzotint by Johann Stenglin, around 1734/35

A mezzotint by Johann Stenglin , made around 1734/1735 in Augsburg after a painting by the Dutch artist Martin van Meytens, shows Plettenberg with an allonge wig in the regalia of a knight from the Golden Fleece , into which he was accepted in 1732, and describes him as "Illustrissimus et excellentissimus Dominus ... Ferdinandus SRI Comes de Plettenberg et Wittem ... Electoratus Coloniensis Camerarius Haereditarius, Principatus Monasteriensis Haereditarius Mareschallus ... "

Family, marriage and offspring

Picture with family 1727, oil painting by Robert Tournières

Ferdinand's father was Johann Adolph von Plettenberg (1655–1696), brother of the Prince-Bishop . His mother was Franziska Theresia von Wolff-Metternich zur Gracht . His siblings were:

On December 27, 1712 he married Bernhardine Felizitas von Westerholt-Lembeck in Münster. She was the daughter of Dietrich Conrad Adolph Freiherr von Westerholt zu Lembeck (1658–1702) and his wife Maria Anna Theodora Waldbott von Bassenheim zu Gudenau (1665–1742). He had three children with her:

Ferdinand inherited the entire family fortune from his older brother Werner Anton after his death in 1711, which he had previously received from his uncle, Prince-Bishop Friedrich Christian . Among them was Nordkirchen Castle , for which he raised enormous sums of money. In this way he found it hard to pay the bills. When he died, he left his wife and children a heavily indebted property, which his son Franz Joseph inherited.

literature

  • Max Braubach: Ferdinand von Plettenberg . In: Aloys Bömer, Otto Leunenschloß: Westfälische Lebensbilder . Volume 9. Münster 1962, pp. 34-51.
  • Elfriede Kinsky: The foreign policy of the Electorate of Cologne Minister Ferdinand von Plettenberg in the years 1723-1733 . Diss., University of Bonn 1956.
  • Marcus Leifeld: Power and impotence of the Cologne electors around 1700. Four electoral Cologne “First Ministers” as political figures . In: Frank Günter Zehnder (Ed.): In the interplay of forces. Political developments of the 17th and 18th centuries in Kurköln (= The crack in the sky. Clemens August and his epoch . Volume 2). Cologne 1999, pp. 62-95.
  • Marcus Leifeld:  Wilhelm Ferdinand Graf zu Plettenberg and Wittem. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 536 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Josef Niesen : Bonn Personal Lexicon . 3. Edition. Bouvier, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-416-03352-7 , p. 367 f.
  • Sven Solterbeck: Blue blood and red numbers. Westphalian nobility in bankruptcy 1700–1815. Waxmann, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-8309-3869-9 .

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand von Plettenberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive material: LWL archive office. Holdings: Nordkirchen, documents. Dossier: 2,981th elevation to the imperial counts of 8 September 1724 .
  2. ^ Johann Jacob Moser: State law of the imperial count houses von der Leyen, von Plettenberg and von Virmont. Vollrath, Leipzig 1744, p. 12
  3. ↑ André Krischer: A necessary piece of the ambassades. On the political rationality of the diplomatic ceremony in Elector Clemens August . In: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine (AHVN) . Band 205. Rheinland-Verlag, Pulheim 2002, pp 161-200 ( Digitalisat  ( page no longer available , searching web archives )  Info: The link is automatically marked as defective Please review the link under. Instructions and then remove this notice. ) .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.uni-muenster.de  
  4. ↑ Gerd Dethlefs: Masterpiece of the Baroque. On the eventful history of Nordkirchen Castle and its residents . In: Yearbook Westphalia 2015. Westphalian home calendar . New episode Volume 69. Aschedorff, Münster 2014, ISSN  0724-0643 , p. 143.
  5. ↑ Gerd Dethlefs (ed.): Nordkirchen Castle . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-422-02304-8 , p. 60.
personal data
SURNAME Plettenberg, Ferdinand von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Plettenberg, Ferdinand Wilhelm Adolf Franz von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elector of Cologne Prime Minister, Chamberlain and Hereditary Marshal; Imperial Count
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1690
PLACE OF BIRTH Paderborn
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1737
Place of death Vienna