Jacob of Ramsay

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Jacobus Ramsay in the Theatrum Europaeum
Conquest of Hanau by hand on February 12, 1638, copper engraving from the 17th century.

Baron Jakob von Ramsay (also James Ramsay ; * 1589 in Scotland , † June 29, 1639 in Dillenburg ) was a military, initially in English , later in Swedish service.

King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden awarded him the rank of major general in 1632 and gave him goods in Mecklenburg . Duke Bernhard von Weimar appointed him commander of the Hanau Fortress on September 10, 1634 . On October 2nd, 1634 he took command there and controlled the surrounding area from there. The last representative of the family of the Counts of Hanau , Jakob Johann , also left Hanau after he found out that Ramsay had brought everything under his control and excluded him from any influence.

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen processed the Swedish occupation of Hanau in his picaresque novel The adventurous Simplicissimus . Ramsay appears as James Ramsay as governor of the Hanau Fortress in 1634, the novel by Grimmelshausen essentially follows the events of the war around Hanau.

From 1635 to 1636 Hanau was besieged unsuccessfully by imperial troops under General Guillaume de Lamboy . The modern fortification system that had only been erected a few years earlier proved its worth during the siege. Thousands had fled from the surrounding villages into the city, the conditions were terrible. After nine months of siege, a relief army under Landgrave Wilhelm V of Hesse-Kassel (1627–1637) moved in June 1636 and liberated the city. Wilhelm V of Hessen-Kassel was married to Amalie Elisabeth , a sister of the ruling Count of Hanau-Munzenberg, Philipp Moritz . Since Hanau was liberated from the siege, thanksgiving services have been held annually, from which the Lamboyfest, one of the oldest folk festivals in Germany, developed from 1800.

Ramsay stayed in the fortress Hanau even when Philipp Moritz succeeded in 1637 in reconciling himself with the emperor and switching back to his side. Ramsay arrested the count returning to his residence and detained him in his own castle. He evidently hoped to inherit the count as sovereign in Hanau-Munzenberg.

However, on February 12, 1638, the Swedish occupation was expelled from Hanau fortress by a military coup carried out by counts from the Wetterau Empire Counts College, who were friends with Philipp Moritz and carried out by Major Johann Winter von Güldenborn , and Philipp Moritz was reinstated in the government. Ramsay was shot in front of his quarters, the "White Lion", at the corner of Fahrstrasse / Freiheitsplatz , then arrested and imprisoned in Dillenburg . There he died as a result of the wound he had suffered on June 29, 1639.

Ramsaystrasse in downtown Hanau was named after Jacob von Ramsay .

family

Ramsay was married to Isabella Spens in Scotland. He had a son with her named David.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Simone Grünewald: Grimmelshausen and his Simplicissimus in the Kinzig valley. The path of a world-famous fictional character through our homeland. In: Hanauer Geschichtsverein 1844 (Ed.): The Thirty Years War in Hanau and the surrounding area. Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 45, 2011, p. 144.
  2. ↑ Dietrich, Im Handstreich
  3. ↑ Street names on www.hanau.de
  4. ^ EF Keller: The tribulations of the Nassau people and the neighboring countries in the times of the Thirty Years' War (1854), p. 368, digitized
personal data
SURNAME Ramsay, Jakob von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ramsay, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH 1589
PLACE OF BIRTH Scotland
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 1639
Place of death Dillenburg