Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Bentinck

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Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Bentinck

Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Reichsgraf (von) Bentinck ( Dutch Willem Gustaaf Frederik rijksgraaf Bentinck ) (* July 21, 1762 in The Hague ; † October 22, 1835 in Varel ) was heir and sovereign of the Kniphausen rule , noble lord of Varel and lord to Doorwerth , Rhoon and Pendrecht. As a member of the Aldenburg-Bentinck branch line, he was a descendant of the Dutch - English noble family Bentinck.

Life

Origin and early years

Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Bentinck was the eldest son of Count Christian Friedrich Anton Bentinck (1734–1768) and Marie Catharine nee. Baroness of Tuyll, a Dutch noblewoman. His grandfather Wilhelm Bentinck came into possession of the previously Aldenburg possessions of Kniphausen and Varel through marriage. After the early death of his father, Bentinck came into the rulership of these large estates, which were administered by his widowed mother and the barons Diedrich von Tuyll and Rudolf von Bentinck until he came of age in 1787. His upbringing, which was led by Thomann, who would later be the Swiss Legation Councilor, was completed by studying for several years at the universities of Leiden , Lausanne and Göttingen as well as by traveling to Germany, France and England.

In the Netherlands

His political career was not without gloss and began in the Netherlands. Already at a young age, he was in Holland as one of the nobles of the Dutch knighthood member of the Admiralty and Schout and bailiff of the city of The Hague. He was also in charge of the police. When in 1786 Wilhelm V was deposed as captain-general and inheritor by the French-supported political movement of the Patriots , he continued to support their party of the Orangists as a supporter of the House of Orange . Order was restored by the Prussian invasion of Holland in 1787, which was initiated by the wife of Wilhelm V, the Prussian Princess Wilhelmine , sister of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II . This was beneficial for Bentinck's career and so in 1788 he was commissioned to reinstate the old governments in the cities of the province of Holland. In the French war against Holland , he then commanded a flotilla that was to serve to relieve the Willemstad fortress , and in January 1795 brokered the escape of Wilhelm V from Holland with his family to England, shortly before General Jean-Charles Pichegru with the French Northern Army Holland occupied. Bentick himself stayed in Holland to continue supporting the Orange here. However, he was captured by the French war party and held at Woerden Fortress for almost four years until he was freed in late 1798.

In the coalition wars

In 1799 he returned to Varel, but only stayed there for a few months and then went to Berlin to make agreements with the Dutch Hereditary Prince Wilhelm Friedrich, who had fled there . Together with Wilhelm I, he then went to England to take part in the British-Russian invasion of Holland in the course of the Second War of the Coalition . Although the Dutch fleet fell into British hands due to an uprising by the Orangist sailors, the expedition failed its purpose and the Duke of York, as Allied Commander in Chief, had to sign an armistice in the Alkmaar Convention and vacate the country by November 19. Bentinck then went back to Varel and made trips to the friendly courts of Saxony-Coburg and Saxony-Meiningen , where he also met the Donop family , presumably descendants of an illegitimate son of Bentinck's great-grandmother Charlotte Sophie . Bentinck negotiated with them unsuccessfully about the handover of Bentick family papers in their possession.

In 1806 he made a trip to St. Petersburg to raise complaints against a settlement that had been made with Anhalt-Zerbst to the detriment of the entails . The Jeverland fell to the next heiress, the Russian Tsarina Katharina II , a sister of the last Zerbst prince, in 1797 due to its status as a kunkellehen at the Zerbst division . However, Bentinck only received a lifelong annual payment of 5000 rubles banko and received the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Anne .

From 1804 to 1807 Kniphausen was classified as neutral, which, under French and English tolerance, allowed large-scale trade and smuggling for a short time, from which Bentinck also profited greatly.

On November 1, 1806, Varel and Kniphausen were taken over for Louis Bonaparte , King of Holland , but were given back with full sovereignty at the beginning of 1807. Bentinck was awarded the Union Order, in the place of which Napoléon I later placed the French Reunion Order donated for the countries united with France.

As a result of Napoleon's claim to power, Kniphausen was finally mediated in the Treaty of Fontainebleau on November 11, 1807 and again subjected to the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Holland on January 30, 1808 . Through the organic Senate consultation of July 10, 1810, Kniphausen came under the sovereignty of the French Empire and was united with the rule of Jever to form an arrondissement . It belonged to the Ems-Oriental department . Bentinck only retained his ownership rights.

In 1808, when the Duke of Oldenburg joined the Confederation of the Rhine , Varel was again placed under its command, but on December 13, 1810, together with Oldenburg, also came under French rule . In order to be able to stay in Varel, Bentinck had himself appointed mayor there . Since the Aldenburg-Bentincksche Familienfideikommiss was abolished by the French laws planned Bentinck valid under French law of primogeniture to donate what would have succeeded if prolonged, the French rule.

When the supremacy of France began to falter in the spring of 1813, Bentinck wanted by a proclamation of March 20 not only to restore his old rule, but also to extend it to its previous borders. In addition, he wanted to endeavor to be conferred a ducal title by the emperor. The very insecure by various riots French occupation forces evaluated this as riot trial and arrested the suspect counts, as this in Bremen before Vandamme was justified. Bentinck was imprisoned in the fortress of Wesel , expelled from the country by a military court on May 3, 1813, and sentenced to confiscate all of his property. On July 14, 1813, a praetur decree ordered the seizure to be carried out. Apparently only the Reunions-Order saved him from death in this situation. Interned in a hospital near Paris, Bentinck was liberated by the Allies in March 1814.

Late years

The defeat of Napoleon had completely unexpected consequences for Varel and Kniphausen. Duke Peter I von Oldenburg considered the French verdict to be legally valid and therefore claimed the administration of the confiscated Bentinck property and the Varel office. The Kniphausen rule, which was previously connected to Jever, was taken over by the Russian general Ferdinand von Wintzingerode for the tsar, who in turn also handed it over to Peter I, his Oldenburg uncle, for temporary administration. After long and arduous negotiations, thanks to Prussian and Russian advocacy, Bentinck succeeded in regaining sovereignty over Kniphausen through the Berlin Agreement of June 8, 1825, albeit without full sovereignty. The former German emperor was replaced by the Duke of Oldenburg, and the Oldenburg Higher Appeal Court took the place of the Imperial Court . As a result of this agreement, Kniphausen was handed over again on July 31, 1826.

A corresponding agreement was not reached for Varel until 1830. Bentinck took over the administration and the lower jurisdiction there again. Even if he was in possession of his property again, he did not enjoy it - not only because of the high level of debt - and in 1817 the most beautiful part of the Varel Palace was destroyed by fire. As a result of the impoverishment of the house, not much was left of the brilliant court he had exercised at the beginning of his reign.

Apart from a few trips, including one to The Hague, where he was arrested for a loan made earlier and only freed by ruse, he spent the rest of the time in Varel, where he died of a lung attack on October 22, 1835. He was buried in the Aldenburgisch-Bentinck family crypt under the altar in the Varel Castle Church.

progeny

Bentinck was married twice. In 1791 he married Ottoline Friederike Luise von Reede, wife of Nederhemert (1773–1799), who gave birth to two daughters and a son, who died in March 1813.

With Bentinck's loss of power after Napoleonic rule, the count's household became "bourgeois". Bentinck married Margarethe born on September 8, 1816. Gerdes (1776–1856), the daughter of a landowner from Bockhorn , with whom he had probably lived in a conscience marriage since August 1800 . From this marriage there were three sons:

  • Wilhelm Friedrich Bentinck (1801–1876)
  • Gustav Adolf Bentinck (1809–1876) ∞ Klara Johanna Wilhelmine von Wedel (born April 29, 1835, † June 16, 1907), daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm von Wedel
  • Friedrich Anton Bentinck (1812–1886)

Both Bentinck's marriage and the succession plan for the sons from this marriage were considered inappropriate. This succession resulted in the Bentinck succession dispute , which caused a sensation in the legal world , the first threads of which stretched back to 1827, but which only broke out after Bentinck's death in 1835 and was finally settled in 1854, in which the Bentinck family in exchange for compensation renounced their rights.

Further activity

Bentinck is considered to be the founder of the seaside resort Dangast , as he decided around 1795 to create a seaside resort based on the English model.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b How the house got its name. In: Homepage of the Hotel Graf Bendinck (private commercial webpage). Retrieved November 7, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Gerhard Groskopff : The reasons for the decision of the Jena Faculty of Law on their findings in the Countess Bentinck's successions controversy in excerpts with comments , 1843
personal data
SURNAME Bentinck, Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bentinck, Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Reichsgraf von; Bentinck, Willem Gustaaf Frederik rijksgraaf (Dutch)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Heir and sovereign of Kniphausen, noble lord of Varel and lord of Doorwerth, Rhoon and Pendrecht
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH The hague
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1835
Place of death Varel