Jan Rudolf Trčka from Lípa

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Jan Rudolf Trčka von Lípa (also Johann Rudolf Trčka von Leipa ; Johann Rudolf Trtschka von Leipa ; Czech: Jan Rudolf Trčka z Lípy ; * 1557 - † September 29, 1634 in Deutschbrod ) was a Bohemian nobleman, imperial councilor and district judge as well as governor of the Kingdom of Bohemia . He became one of the largest landowners in Bohemia, partly through inheritance, partly through cheap acquisition of confiscated property from Protestant emigrants, and belonged to the family circle of Wallenstein . After Trčka was murdered and Trčka died soon afterwards, his entire property was confiscated after a high treason trial.

family

Jan Rudolf Trčka von Lípa came from the noble family Trčka von Lípa . His parents were Burjan III. Trčka from Lípa to Kumburg , Swietla and Reichenau an der Knieschna († 1591) and Katharina von Guttenstein ( Kateřina z Gutštejna ).

On January 8, 1588, Jan Rudolf married Maria Magdalena, daughter of Ladislav the Elder. Ä. von Lobkowitz . The sons came from the marriage:

  • Adam Erdmann Trčka von Lípa , married Maximiliane Countess von Harrach (1608–1662) in 1627 , the sister of Wallenstein's wife Isabella. Adam Erdmann conspired with the Swedes, wanted to pull Wallenstein on their side and was murdered with him in Eger in 1634.
  • Wilhelm ( Vilém ) Trčka of Lípa († 1634)

as well as the daughters

  • NN, † before January 22, 1606; got engaged to Heinrich Matthias von Thurn , who later became the military leader of the Bohemian Protestant exiles , but died before the wedding.
  • Elisabeth / Alžběta / Eliška married Wilhelm Kinsky , one of the leaders of the Protestant Bohemian emigrants in Dresden, who, thanks to his father-in-law, was allowed to keep and even expand his extensive possessions in Bohemia. Kinsky was murdered in Eger in 1634, together with Wallenstein and his brother-in-law Adam Erdmann Trčka. After his death, Elisabeth emigrated to the Netherlands, where she married the Bohemian émigré Zdeňek von Hodice (Zdeňek Hodický z Hodic a Olramovic; † 1641) in 1637. She died in Hamburg in 1638.
  • Johanna († 1651), married Johann Wilhelm von Schwanberg ( Jan Vilém ze Švamberka ) in 1627 ; before the wedding, converted to the Catholic faith against the will of her parents and had no offspring.

Life

In 1593 Jan Rudolf was accepted into the Bohemian gentry . In 1594, in a letter issued in Regensburg, Emperor Rudolf II gave him the promise that he could freely dispose of all his assets and inherit them freely. At the same time, the emperor confirmed that Jan Rudolf's will has the same validity as an entry in the Bohemian country table . In 1594 he bought the Lipnitz estate from Heinrich Matthias von Thurn . In 1597, after the death of his brother Maximilian, he inherited the rule of Světlá . In 1598 Jan Rudolf was promoted to councilor and in 1608 to chamberlain for Emperor Rudolf II.

After the death of his cousin Christoph ( Kryštof ) Jaroslav Trčka of Lípa in 1601, Jan Rudolf inherited his rule Opočno . At the same time he was from 1601 the only adult in the male line of Trčka von Lípa. In 1602 he held the office of governor of Königgrätz . Probably because of a serious illness, he made his first will on January 30, 1617. This year he owned, among other things: the lordship with chateau Opočno , Světlá nad Sázavou , Lipnice nad Sázavou , Nový Želiv , Ledeč nad Sázavou and the town and dominion Deutschbrod .

Since Jan Rudolf Trčka could not be proven to be directly involved in the Bohemian class uprising of 1618, he only lost a small part of his property after the battle of the White Mountain . And although he and his wife continued to adhere to the evangelical faith, after the battle of the White Mountain in 1623/1624 they were able to acquire numerous properties confiscated by the emperor at low prices, including Adersbach and Schatzlar . Jan Rudolf's wife Maria Magdalena von Lobkowitz acquired the Nachod and Neustadt reigns , which she sold to her son Adam Erdmann in 1628/1629. The historian Golo Mann describes the couple as follows: “The Trčka of Lípa belonged to the richest families in Bohemia; their goods ... in their totality amounted to about half of the Duchy of Friedland . This property was inherited to a lesser extent; the bigger booty from the confiscation estate from 1621, which was bought cheaply and exchanged ... The old Trčka, Rudolf, seems to have been an insignificant person. His wife was of a stronger character ..., an always active business woman, avaricious to astonishment ... Mrs. Magdalena treated her peasants even more cruelly than the Bohemian nobility on average ... In the spring of 1628 the Trčka estates were closed came a revolt of the tormented subjects, Wallenstein himself, at that time in Bohemia, had to put him down; not without disgust, by the way, because he found fighting against Bauernpack unworthy of him. The noses of the ringleaders who were caught were cut off in Prague and their backs were branded; so, to everyone's warning, they were sent home. "

It was not until 1628 that Jan Rudolf converted to the Catholic faith, as his son Adam Erdmann had done the previous year, on the occasion of his marriage to the sister of the Prague Cardinal Archbishop Ernst Adalbert von Harrach , which also made him Wallenstein's brother-in-law. Without having to leave the country, his wife Maria Magdalena von Lobkowitz was allowed to profess the Protestant faith until the end of her life. The stubborn old woman always carried a gold medallion with a portrait of the Swedish King Gustav Adolf in her pouch , sent by her daughter Elisabeth Kinsky . Mother and daughter wrote their conspiratorial letters with lemon juice so that they could only be read in front of a flame.

Presumably as a reward for Jan Rudolf's conversion , Emperor Ferdinand II elevated him to the rank of imperial count on July 9, 1629, together with his son, and a year later to the bohemian count. Also in 1630 he was appointed chamberlain, in 1633 district judge and governor of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In the same year his wife Maria Magdalena died and she was buried in the church in Světlá.

Jan Rudolf Trčka, together with his son Adam Erdmann, dreamed of a defection of Bohemia from the House of Habsburg and an election of Wallenstein as Bohemian King, which he made no secret of confidants. Golo Mann: “As long as they didn't ask, the Trčkas could keep the secret they dear to their hearts. Wallenstein didn't spoil it for them because no one gave him a cause. He may have suspected it, and as a hunch, a distant game that others played with his name, he might have liked it. Seriously impossible. He knew the kind of meager shadow kingdom which the Bohemian lords had created in 1619 and from which, in their angry pride, they would not give up now; he had watched the fate of the Count Palatine with contempt. Such marionette dignity to himself? If the emigrants returned as victorious kingmakers, what would become of his nothing less than shadowy wealth, Friedland made up of rebel goods? To swap his beloved duchy, the most solid work of his life, for a shadowy crown? It is implausible, the way it is twisted and turned is wrong. The Trčkas, of course, were in the same position on a more modest scale. By tagging with the emigrants ... they cut ... the branch they were sitting on, in the vague hope of jumping onto a higher one if that one fell to the ground. "

On March 29, 1634, the elder son Adam Erdmann and the son-in-law Wilhelm Kinsky were murdered in Eger , together with Wallenstein, whom the two brothers-in-law had tried for years to incite to apostasy from the emperor, but which the generalissimo ultimately only decided to do after his disempowerment - by necessity and too late - decided. In the same month Jan Rudolf's second son Wilhelm, who was not married, also died.

For the time being, however, only the memory of the dead son was in suspense, not the living father. The separation of property between the two was, of course, a bit blurred. Nachod had definitely belonged to the murdered man, but Octavio Piccolomini , who had instigated Wallenstein's fall and death by denunciation in Vienna , was paid for it . Jan Rudolf Trčka denied this with bitterness from his inherited Opočno; and went so far as to prevent the commissioners from entering the castle with a guards ready to fire. In order to save the fortune for his descendants, Jan Rudolf first ordered the waiver of all penalties that he had imposed on his subjects in the dominions of Opočno, Nachod and New Town. The subjects had been punished for their peasant unrest after protesting against the forced recatholization in 1628 . On June 2, 1634, Jan Rudolf wrote a new will, with which the daughters Elisabeth and Johanna and the daughter of Adam Erdmann, Maria Isabella Trčka von Lípa, should each receive a third of the dominions Opočno, Smiřice , Adersbach and Schatzlar. The rule Černíkovice , to which seven villages from the rule Opočno had been added, was to receive Jan Rudolf's daughter-in-law Maximiliana von Harrach. He assigned further possessions to Jindřich Jezberovský from Olivá Hora, Adam von Waldstein , Peter Vok Švihovský from Ryzmberk , Ladislav Burian from Waldstein and Matthias Ferdinand Berka from Dubá .

Jan Rudolf Trčka von Lípa died on September 29, 1634 in Deutschbrod. Presumably, as stipulated in his will, he was buried next to his deceased wife in the church of Světlá. Only one year after his death were court proceedings ordered against him and his deceased wife carried out during his lifetime, as a result of which the emperor's entire property was confiscated. On May 19, 1636 Jan Rudolf Trčka von Lípa and his wife Maria Magdalena von Lobkowitz were condemned and the entire property was transferred to the Bohemian Chamber , the value was four million guilders. The will of 1634 was deleted from the land table and declared invalid. All claims from the will of 1634 were rejected. As a result, the important Bohemian family of Trčka von Lípa, which only existed in a secondary line after Jan Rudolf's death, sank to insignificance. The rule of Opočno was given to Field Marshal Rudolf von Colloredo , who was loyal to the emperor and whose family still owns it - with an interruption from 1945 to 1990.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pedigree Trčka z Lípy
  2. ↑ Golo Mann : Wallenstein. His Life , Frankfurt am Main 2016 (first 1971), p. 732 ff.
  3. ↑ Golo Mann, Wallenstein , p. 735.
  4. ↑ Golo Mann, Wallenstein , p. 735 f.
  5. ↑ Golo Mann, Wallenstein , p. 1118
personal data
SURNAME Trčka from Lípa, Jan Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Trčka by Lípa, Johann Rudolf; Trčka from Leipa, Johann Rudolf; Trtschka from Leipa, Rudolf; Jan Rudolf Trčka z Lípy (Czech)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION bohemian nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH 1557
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1634
Place of death Havlíčkův Brod