Manuel António of Portugal

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Manuel António of Portugal (born February 24, 1600 in Delft , † October 27, 1666 in Schagen ) was a Dutch nobleman.

youth

He was born the son of Manuel of Portugal (* 1568; † June 22, 1638) and Emilia of Orange-Nassau (* April 1569; † March 6, 1629). The latter was a daughter of Prince Wilhelm I of Orange-Nassau (* 1533; † 1584) and Princess Anna of Saxony (* 1544; † 1577). Manuel António's father, Manuel of Portugal, was the (illegitimate) son of the Portuguese pretender António of Crato (* 1531, † 1595).

Initially, Manuel António was brought up by his mother in the Reformed Confession, but in 1612 he and his brother Ludwig Wilhelm were sent by his father to his uncle Christoph in France , where he received a Roman Catholic education. As early as 1613 he was appointed captain by his uncle, the governor Moritz von Orange , which did not lead to the assumption of a military command, but because of the income associated with it. 1619–1623 he was governor of the Principality of Orange for his uncle Moritz. It obviously played a role that he attended the Roman Catholic service and the majority of the population in the Principality of Orange was Catholic. The official business was entrusted to the Deputy Governor Valckenburg. He lived a generous life there, spent more money than was available, and had to be called back early in 1623 by his uncle. Initially, he continued to draw the corresponding salary of 6,000 guilders . But the next governor, Friedrich Heinrich , who ruled from 1625 , put an end to that.

Church and Military

Without a source of income of his own, he had to go to Brussels in 1626 with his father in the Spanish Netherlands . There they were warmly welcomed. Manuel António began a military career there as a captain in the Spanish service and at the archducal court.

This was short-lived. On July 15, 1628 - in the presence of the governor Isabella Clara Eugenia and her entire court - he entered the Carmelite order, took the name Felix a Santa Isabella and entered the Carmelite monastery in Brussels. There he was ordained a priest . From 1628 to 1633 he was a clergyman. In 1633, however, he fled the monastery back to Holland and converted again on January 15, 1634 in Delft. Now he was reformed.

For 1638 it is reported that he accepted the title of Prince of Portugal and on June 12, 1638 he returned to the service of the States General as Rittmeister with the Cuirassiers .

Shortly afterwards he was imprisoned near Geldern by the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand of Austria and General Guillaume de Lamboy , brought to Brussels and, at his request, returned to "his" monastery. Obviously this only happened because of the compulsion resulting from his imprisonment, because he fled, returned to Holland and converted again to the Reformed Confession on April 4, 1643.

marriage

On December 14, 1646, he married Countess Johanna von Hanau-Münzenberg-Schwarzenfels (* 1610; † September 13, 1673 in Delft), widow of Wild- and Rhine Count Wolfgang Friedrich von Salm (* 1589; † December 24, 1638) . From this marriage emerged:

  • Wilhelmina Amalia (* 1647; † November 14, 1647)
  • Elisabeth Maria (born November 20, 1648 in Delft; † October 15, 1717 in Vianen ), married on April 11, 1678 to Lieutenant Colonel Baron Adriaan von Gent (born February 16, 1645 in The Hague ; † August 10, 1708)

It is emphasized in the literature that the Countess - she came from an impoverished side branch of her family that was badly shaken by the Thirty Years' War - brought hardly anything into the marriage. The debt continued to weigh on Manuel António. This also included the maintenance of 300 florins per year, to which he had been sentenced by a Dutch court and which he had to pay to his illegitimate son Wilhelm (* 1646), whose mother was a Dina Borremans.

Late career

In 1645 he took over a company of infantry in Dutch service as a captain and was soon promoted to colonel . In 1656 he became governor of Steenwijk and commander of Elburg .

He died in Schagen on October 27, 1666 and was buried in Delft.

literature

  • AWE Dek: Count Johann the Middle of Nassau-Siegen and his 25 children . Rijswijk 1962.
  • AWE Dek: De afstammelingen van Juliana van Stolberg tot aan het jaar van de Vrede van Munster . In: Spiegel der Historie 3, 7/8 (1968).
  • JLJ van Kamp: Nog een tak afstammelingen van Willem de Zwijger . In: De nederlandsche Leeuw . Book LXXIV, 9 (September 1957), columns 266-287; 306-316.
  • Detlev Schwennicke : European family tables: Family tables for the history of European states . Volume 3.3. Frankfurt 1958.
  • Reinhard Suchier : Genealogy of the Hanauer Grafenhaus in: Festschrift of the Hanauer Geschichtsverein for its 50th anniversary celebration on August 27, 1894 , Hanau 1894.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kamp, Col. 272.
  2. ↑ Kamp, Col. 272; Dek: De afstammelingen van Juliana, p. 243, no.198.
  3. ↑ Dek: De afstammelingen van Juliana, p. 243, no. 198; Kamp, Sp. 272.
  4. ↑ a b c Dek, Johann der Mittlere, p. 91.
  5. ↑ Schwennicke, plate 526.
  6. ↑ Kamp, Col. 273; Dek: De afstammelingen van Juliana, p. 243, no. 198 ; in Dek, Johann the Middle , the same author names Hartevelt as the place of capture .
  7. ↑ Kamp, Col. 273.
personal data
SURNAME Manuel António of Portugal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Emanuel of Portugal; Emanuel II of Portugal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch-Portuguese nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1600
PLACE OF BIRTH Delft
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1666
Place of death Beating