Franz Karl of Saxe-Lauenburg

Franz Karl of Saxe-Lauenburg

Franz Karl von Sachsen-Lauenburg (* May 2, 1594 ; † November 30, 1660 in Neuhaus ) was a prince of Sachsen-Lauenburg and general in the Thirty Years War .

Life

Franz Karl was a son of Duke Franz II of Saxony-Lauenburg (1547–1619) from his second marriage to Maria (1566–1626), daughter of Duke Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .

Franz Karl entered military service after he and his brothers confirmed his older brother August 1619 in an inheritance contract as Duke of Saxony-Lauenburg. After serving in various armies, he finally switched to the Protestant army of Count Peter Ernst II von Mansfeld , where he fought against the emperor in Bohemia. In the imperial army, three of Franz Karl's brothers served on the opposite side.

In 1623, Franz Karl's older brother Julius Heinrich reached a reconciliation with Emperor Ferdinand II. At the Princely Assembly in Lauenburg in 1625, it was decided that Lower Saxony should be protected by the Danish King Christian IV . against the Emperor and the Catholic League . Franz Karl recruited a regiment for the Danish king and camped in the neutral Saxony-Lauenburg of his brother August, where he and his troops were hostile. After Christian's defeat, Franz Karl sought reconciliation with the emperor again, using Wallenstein .

On September 19, 1628, Franz Karl married Agnes von Brandenburg , widow of Duke Philipp Julius of Pomerania . Again with the help of Wallenstein, Franz Julius managed to get his wife to keep her treasure Barth . After King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden landed in Pomerania in 1630, Franz Karl immediately placed himself in his service as colonel. In the residence of his brother August in Ratzeburg , Franz Karl was imprisoned by the imperial general Pappenheim , but was soon back in service as a Swedish colonel and, after Gustav Adolf's death, switched to the service of the Electorate of Saxony, where he again came closer to the imperial camp.

Under the company name Der Schönste he was accepted as a member of the Literary Fruitful Society .

In 1637 Franz Karl converted to Catholicism and entered the imperial service as sergeant-general . With imperial mediation, Franz Karl married Katharina von Brandenburg , the rich widow of the Transylvanian prince Gábor Bethlen, after the death of his first wife on August 27, 1639 in Ödenburg . His wife sold all of the Hungarian possessions and moved to live with her husband in Germany, where she died in 1644. Franz Karl married again in 1651 Countess Christine Elisabeth von Meggau, widow of Baron Christoph Adolf von Teuff. After retiring from military service, he traveled to Italy. He died in Neuhaus and, despite his three marriages, only left behind children born out of wedlock.

literature

• Johann Samuelesch: General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts in alphabetical order. Volume 48, J. f. Gleditsch, 1848, p. 94 ff. ( Digitized version )