Luise Charlotte Henriette von Kraut

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Luise Charlotte Henriette von Kraut (born January 24, 1762 , † September 13, 1819 ) was the heiress of the Löwenberg region . Her story went down in literature when Theodor Fontane made her biography as the herb's daughter widely known in his book Five Castles . Her parents were the Oberhofmarschall Carl Friedrich von Kraut (1703-1767) and Ilse Sophie von Platen (1731-1795).

prehistory

Hoppenrade Castle

Johann Heinrich von Bredow was the last of his family who, after several inheritance divisions, united his family's estates in the Land of Löwenberg in his hand, including Castle Löwenberg and Castle Hoppenrade . But his two sons were insane. The widowed wife was therefore compelled to draw up a will dated March 8, 1745, in anticipation of her own imminent death. She appointed her brother Karl Friedrich von Kraut (t), court marshal of Prince Heinrich of Prussia in Rheinsberg, as the sole heir to her mentally handicapped sons. However, he could never assume this inheritance, as he died in 1767, 21 years before the death of the last von Bredow, with whom the male Löwenberg line died out. As a universal heir, the prince's court marshal von Kraut (t) was replaced by his daughter Luise Charlotte Henriette von Kraut (t) (1726–1819), who due to her extravagant, sometimes scandalous way of life, amorous adventures and innumerable male acquaintances as well as their three marriages caused a sensation during his lifetime and afterwards and was on everyone's lips.

Life

When Charlotte was 15 years old, her mother began looking for a husband for her. Fontane assumes that the mother intends to marry off the heiress of Hoppenrade Castle as far away as possible. The English ambassador Hugh Elliot (1752-1830) in Berlin fell in love with Prussian beauty. Although his family and friends advised against marriage, Elliot decided to marry Charlotte. The two married at first secretly, without the permission of the Prussian king. After Charlotte became pregnant, Frederick II granted permission to marry on October 30, 1780. The wedding took place on November 5, 1780 in Berlin in the house of the bride's mother.

On April 2, 1781, the daughter Louise Isabella was born. The marriage soon got into trouble because the impulsive Hugh Elliot was very jealous. Allegedly he assumed that his wife had a love affair with the Dutch ambassador. On February 11, 1782, Charlotte gave birth to a boy who died unbaptized the following day. Elliot was transferred to Copenhagen in September 1782 . His wife refused to accompany him, pointing out the dangers that the trip meant for their young daughter.

After Hugh Elliot's departure in the winter of 1782, Charlotte's love affair developed with Prince Heinrich's chamberlain, Georg Anton Wilhelm zu Innhausen and Knyphausen . The King's Scottish personal physician, William Baylies, who spied on behalf of the English ambassador in Copenhagen, provided information about the extent of the relationship with Elliot. He hastily traveled to Berlin and came to the city using a false name. There he broke into his wife's desk and stole both Knyphausen's letters and his own. Then he put his little daughter in a carriage with a nanny and took Louise Isabella out of town on her way to Copenhagen.

Charlotte, deeply desperate about the robbery of her child and the letters, was accompanied by her mother, Countess Verelst, away from Berlin to Hoppenrade, which was troubled by the scandal. Charlotte was shaken with crying fits and was in shock. Elliot challenged Knyphausen to a duel. Although the Prussian court sent a general tax office to prevent this duel, it took place in Baruth . None of the bullets fired hit, but Elliot filed for divorce. Knyphausen was arrested but was able to flee and the duel was downgraded to a minor rencontre .

Divorce was declared for Mrs. Elliot on June 30, 1783 (the reason for the divorce was illegal correspondence ). On October 1st, she married Knyphausen in Rosenthal in Saxony, but this time only on probation . The official wedding took place on April 25, 1784. In September 1784, the couple made their inaugural trip with the groom's family in East Frisia . The atmosphere was probably rather frosty, as Fontane reports that everyone was happy again when she and her husband returned to Rheinsberg. The couple commuted between Berlin and Hoppenrade for three years until Georg fell seriously ill in 1787. A cure and doctors did not want to stop the course, he was given opium because of the pain. He died on December 25, 1789 and was buried in Kraut's hereditary funeral in the Nikolaikirche . Luise became a widow at the age of 28.

In 1790 she came back to the court in Rheinsberg and met a Rittmeister von Arnstedt there . He was an excellent-looking entertainer and on December 16, 1790, the Baroness von Knyphausen became Rittmeister von Arnstedt. The following year the Bredow family sued for the inheritance of Löwenberg and Hoppenrade, but the process dragged on. Prince Heinrich died in 1802 and Arnstedt had changed too. An amiable companion has become a drinker and gambler (Fontane). Mental disorders also appear later, so the marriage was dissolved in the autumn of 1809. On March 9, 1808, there was also a major fire that killed two thirds of Löwenberg 's victims, including the family's documents. The trial with the Bredow family was also ended in their favor in 1809. Her divorced husband was retired from his family with the pastor in the village of Hakenberg near Fehrbellin . He died there in 1847. The wars of the time also ruined the country. It so happened that when Charlotte von Arnstedt died on September 3, 1819, she left a large amount of personal debt. The inheritance was to be distributed among their living children, but there wasn't much left to distribute. Therefore, the heirs agreed to give the goods under the board of trustees of the chamber director von Rabe.

A more recent study of the life of Charlotte von Arnstedt is devoted, among other things, to the bathing temple of the "herb daughter" in the still existing town of Mon-Caprice , which Theodor Fontane mentions in his book "Fünf Schlösser".

The difficult relationship between Charlotte von Kraut and her mother Sophie von Platen (first married to Herr von Kraut and then to Count Verelst) and to her husband Hugh Elliot was resolved in 2018 by processing the long-standing correspondence between her mother, Countess Sophie Verelst, and the English Ambassadors subjected to analysis.

family

She was married three times. From her first marriage to the British envoy Hugh Elliott (April 6, 1752 - December 10, 1830) she had the daughter:

  • Louise Isabella Elliott (April 2, 1781, † 1826 in Richmond) ⚭ February 27, 1800 in Dresden John Payne of Sulby

From her second marriage to Georg Anton Wilhelm zu Innhausen and Knyphausen (* March 19, 1744, † December 25, 1789) she had the following children:

  • Karl Wilhelm Tido (June 1784 - 1788)
  • Sophie Friederike Oriane Constanze (* October 6, 1785 - † March 6, 1856)
⚭ October 6, 1803 (divorced after 1810) Ludwig von Schwerin (* December 18, 1769; † February 25, 1822) Prussian major and district administrator (founded the younger Stolper line of Schwerin, son of Carl Magnus von Schwerin )
⚭ Friedrich von Kettler (from the Jeesch-Kittel house) (⚔ February 25, 1831), Russian major, killed after being captured in the Battle of Grochów

From her marriage to the Rittmeister Friedrich Rudolph Karl von Arnstedt (* October 28, 1766; † May 30, 1847) she had the following children:

  • Henriette Sophie Rosalie (1791–1861) ⚭ 1824 Hans Heinrich Otto von Wülknitz († 1866) member of the chamber judge
  • Mathilde Julie Friederike (* November 30, 1801: † July 2, 1879) ⚭ October 12, 1825 Hans Otto Georg Adolf Philipp von Oertzen from the Ankershagen house (* January 10, 1799 - March 26, 1879), chamberlain in Neu- Strelitz
  • Heinrich Adolf Friedrich (1796–1850) Royal Prussian major a. D.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About Hoppenrade Castle
  2. ↑ The mysterious Mon Caprice, in: Robert Rauh : Fontanes Frauen, be.bra verlag, Berlin 2018, pp. 230–242
  3. ↑ Sabina Freifrau v. Thuemmler: The herb mother. The life of Sophie von Platen , BoD, 2018, p. 249ff
personal data
SURNAME Kraut, Luise Charlotte Henriette von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Arnstedt, Luise von; Knyphausen, Charlotte von; Herb daughter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Heiress of the Land of Löwenberg
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1762
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1819