Moritz of the Palatinate

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Prince Moritz of the Palatinate, painting by Gerrit van Honthorst

Moritz von der Pfalz (born January 6, 1621 in Küstrin ; † probably at sea between September 13 and 16, 1652) was a Palatinate prince from the Pfalz-Simmern line .

Life

Moritz was the fifth child and fourth son of Elector Friedrich V of the Palatinate (1596–1632) from his marriage to Elisabeth Stuart (1596–1662), daughter of King James I of England .

During the English Civil War , his brother Ruprecht , whom he faithfully accompanied on all his campaigns on land and sea, gave him command of the troops. He was in English, then Swedish, and finally English sea services again.

Moritz fought in the battles of Edgehill (October 23, 1642) and Marston Moor (July 2, 1644). In the former he was wounded, in the latter he got away unharmed with his brother Ruprecht. After the execution of his uncle King Charles I , he and his brother took over a small fleet as vice admiral, which was supposed to disrupt England's trade with the continent. The fleet was destroyed in 1651 by Admiral Blake . After that, the brothers switched to open piracy .

In late autumn 1652 Moritz 'ship sank in a storm night near the West Indies . The prince was missing. According to legend, he is said to have been traveling towards a French port with huge treasures from Peru and Mexico, but shortly before he fell into the hands of pirates, kidnapped to Algiers and disappeared in the interior of Africa.

literature

  • Sonja Steiner-Welz: Mannheim. A thousand questions and answers . Reinhard Welz Vermittler Verlag, Mannheim 2001, ISBN 3-936041-56-3 , p. 29 ff.
  • Johann Samuelersch , Johann Gottfried Gruber (Ed.): General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts, Vol. 49 . Verlag JF Gleditsch, Leipzig 1849, p. 410 f. ( Digitized version )
  • Wilhelm Nöldeke: Sophie, Electress of Hanover . Hahn, Hannover 1864, p. 7 (special print from the program of the Stadttöchterschule , 1864).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Moritz von der Pfalz on thepeerage.com , accessed on October 4, 2015.
  2. ↑ Peter Wolf (Ed.): The Winter King, Friedrich von der Pfalz. Bavaria and Europe in the age of the Thirty Years War . Theiss, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8062-1810-2 , p. 211 (also catalog of the state exhibition of the same name in the House of Bavarian History 2003).
personal data
SURNAME Moritz of the Palatinate
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince of the Palatinate
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1621
PLACE OF BIRTH Küstrin
DATE OF DEATH September 1652
Place of death at sea