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| Johann Georg III of Saxony the Saxon Mars |
(1647-1691)
Elector of Saxony
1680-1691
Husband of: Anna Sophie of Denmark.
Her lovers were.
1) Margherita Salicola (1682-1706)
Lover in 1685.
Italian opera singer.
Natural offspring:
1. Johann Georg Maximilian von Furstenhoff (1686-1753) married 1. Margarete Dorothea Kuhler (d.1738) & 2. Emilia Carlota.
"The performance of Margarita Salicola in the title role was still remembered thirty years later, partly on account of the events which followed. The elector of Saxony was so captivated by her singing that he forthwith took her into his service 'with a title of honor and a huge stipend.' Her travel was staged as a 'kidnapping' because she anticipated disapproval. She left Venice clandestinely, via Murano (with the help of the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Molin), by boat to Piazzola, where festivities on 11 March celebrated her future position with a performance. From there she traveled by coach to Dresden in the company of the Mantuan agent Carlo Maria Vialardi (I-MOas A)." (Selfridge-Field, 2007, p. 168)
Italian opera singer.
Natural offspring:
1. Johann Georg Maximilian von Furstenhoff (1686-1753) married 1. Margarete Dorothea Kuhler (d.1738) & 2. Emilia Carlota.
"The performance of Margarita Salicola in the title role was still remembered thirty years later, partly on account of the events which followed. The elector of Saxony was so captivated by her singing that he forthwith took her into his service 'with a title of honor and a huge stipend.' Her travel was staged as a 'kidnapping' because she anticipated disapproval. She left Venice clandestinely, via Murano (with the help of the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Molin), by boat to Piazzola, where festivities on 11 March celebrated her future position with a performance. From there she traveled by coach to Dresden in the company of the Mantuan agent Carlo Maria Vialardi (I-MOas A)." (Selfridge-Field, 2007, p. 168)
2) Susanne von Zinzendorff.
3. Ursula Margarethe von Haugwitz (1651-?)
Wife of: Rudolf von Neitschutz.
"Ursula married Rudolf von Neitschutz, another Lusatian noble. We do not know when, nor how older her husband was. He first surfaces as a major in the Saxon army in 1668. Having participated in several campaigns against the French, he was with John George III at the relief of Vienna in 1683. There is little reason to think that he was other than a dutiful soldier and weak-willed man, who was no match for the wiles of his pushy and depraved wife. After Rudolf's promotion to lieutenant-genera; in 1693, Ursula was referred to as 'die Generalin'; but she was in command of events long before that. Their marriage produced eight children, four of each sex. How many of them Rudolf fathered is an open question. Only three of the offspring are identified by name, and our concern is with the most notorious: the oldest daughter, Magdalena Sibylle or 'Billa', later Countess of Rochlitz. It was Billa who became the mistress and nemesis of John George IV. She was also the young Elector's morganatic wife, probably the mother of his daughter and quite possibly his half-sister. Billa was also a covert Catholic, who sought both to become Electress of Saxony and to return to John GEorge and his realm to Rome. This heady brew of sex, politics and religion bubbled away throughout the brief reign of Augustus's elder brother." (Pleasure and Ambition: the Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong: 17)
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| Johann Georg IV von Sachsen, 1690s |
Johann Georg IV von Sachsen (1668-1694)
Elector of Saxony 1691-1694.
Son of: Johann Georg III von Sachsen & Anna Sophie af Danmark.
Husband of: Eleonore Erdmuthe von Sachsen-Eisenach mar 1692.
Physical appearance & personal qualities.
"Some two months later, as the wedding day approached, Stepney penned portraits of those involved in this match made in hell. John George he described as 'of middle stature, round shouldered, of a sullen look, which I believe does not belie his humour'. He was 'of a saturnine temper, seems to think, talks little, offers no jest himself, and is not pleased when others do it'. However bad his decisions, 'when he has once taken them, he is obstinate and hears no persuasion'. (Pleasure and Ambition: 22)
Husband of: Eleonore Erdmuthe von Sachsen-Eisenach mar 1692.
Physical appearance & personal qualities.
"Some two months later, as the wedding day approached, Stepney penned portraits of those involved in this match made in hell. John George he described as 'of middle stature, round shouldered, of a sullen look, which I believe does not belie his humour'. He was 'of a saturnine temper, seems to think, talks little, offers no jest himself, and is not pleased when others do it'. However bad his decisions, 'when he has once taken them, he is obstinate and hears no persuasion'. (Pleasure and Ambition: 22)
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| Johann Georg IV von Sachsen |
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Magdalena Sibylla von Neitschutz
Countess of Rochlitz
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Magdalena Sibylla von Neitschutz (1675-1694)
Putative daughter of: Colonel Rudolf von Neidschutz & Ursula Margarethe von Haugwitz, once the mistress of Elector Johann Georg III of Saxony. [Bio2]
Natural offspring:
First ever Official Mistress (Favoritin) of an Elector of Saxony.
In Leipzig on 17 April 1692, John George married Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach, Dowager Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach. The young Elector was forced to marry by his mother, the Dowager Electress Anna Sophie, supposedly to produce legitimate heirs to the Electorate. The real reason for the marriage was to end the liaison between John George and Magdalena Sibylla of Neidschutz. George III, the late Elector had tried to separate the lovers, perhaps because he was aware of a close blood relationship between them — for Magdalena Sibylla may have been his own illegitimate daughter by Ursula Margarethe of Haugwitz, and therefore John George IV's half-sister. By order of the Elector, Ursula had married Colonel Rudolf of Neidschutz, who officially appears as the father of her daughter. John George may never have known of his possible blood relationship to Magdalena Sibylla or regarded the claim as a rumor spread by ill-wishers. Immediately after he assumed the Electorate, he openly lived with her, and she became the first ever Official Mistress (Favoritin) of an Elector of Saxony." (Wikipedia)
"Madeleine Sibylla, born in 1675, and educated at Dresden, appeared at the age of thirteen at court, where her beauty gained her numerous adorers. The portraits still existing of her show us a handsome forehead, a peculiar expression of sensuality in the eyes and round the lips, but neither nobility nor goodness in the features. They bear, on the contrary, the stamp of a lubricity developed at an early age by all the excesses of voluptuousness. Far from reminding us of the ladies who, through their grace and wit, and the eminently romantic charm spread over their whole person, seduced Louis XIV, we are tempted to take the portrait for that of one of Catherine de Medici's coarse maids of honour, ordered to fascinate the man who, the queen intended to rid herself of on the fearful Saint-Bartholomew's night. Perhaps, we may find a face resembling hers in England at the time of the restoration of the Stuarts." (Remarkable Adventurers and Unrevealed Mysteries, Vol 2: 91)
"Magdalena Sibylle was born on 8 February 1675. The then Kurprinz, later John George III, may have sired her. Her mother Ursula had many affairs when young, with John George identified as one of her lovers. Ursula, as a von Haugwitz, was presumably to be found in the ranks of the 'Frauenzimmer' and John George III may have drawn from this well more than once for his extra-marital liaisons. So it is quite possible that Billa was the fruit of a fling between Ursula and the Kurprinz, while Rudolf von Neitschütz was away with his regiment. However, the only real 'evidence' of such paternity is a lampoon (Pasquile) circulating in Dresden after the deaths of Billa and John George IV in April 1694; by which time Ursula was to be charged with witchcraft and murder (C7). In this, die Generalin is denounced as a woman who led 'a lewd and whorish existence throughout her life', who openly prostituted herself with John George III, illegitimately spawned the Countess of Rochlitz (Billa) from this liaison and thereafter procured Billa for her half-brother John George IV, binding him to incest through witchcraft." (Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong: 17)
"Madeleine Sibylla, born in 1675, and educated at Dresden, appeared at the age of thirteen at court, where her beauty gained her numerous adorers. The portraits still existing of her show us a handsome forehead, a peculiar expression of sensuality in the eyes and round the lips, but neither nobility nor goodness in the features. They bear, on the contrary, the stamp of a lubricity developed at an early age by all the excesses of voluptuousness. Far from reminding us of the ladies who, through their grace and wit, and the eminently romantic charm spread over their whole person, seduced Louis XIV, we are tempted to take the portrait for that of one of Catherine de Medici's coarse maids of honour, ordered to fascinate the man who, the queen intended to rid herself of on the fearful Saint-Bartholomew's night. Perhaps, we may find a face resembling hers in England at the time of the restoration of the Stuarts." (Remarkable Adventurers and Unrevealed Mysteries, Vol 2: 91)
"Magdalena Sibylle was born on 8 February 1675. The then Kurprinz, later John George III, may have sired her. Her mother Ursula had many affairs when young, with John George identified as one of her lovers. Ursula, as a von Haugwitz, was presumably to be found in the ranks of the 'Frauenzimmer' and John George III may have drawn from this well more than once for his extra-marital liaisons. So it is quite possible that Billa was the fruit of a fling between Ursula and the Kurprinz, while Rudolf von Neitschütz was away with his regiment. However, the only real 'evidence' of such paternity is a lampoon (Pasquile) circulating in Dresden after the deaths of Billa and John George IV in April 1694; by which time Ursula was to be charged with witchcraft and murder (C7). In this, die Generalin is denounced as a woman who led 'a lewd and whorish existence throughout her life', who openly prostituted herself with John George III, illegitimately spawned the Countess of Rochlitz (Billa) from this liaison and thereafter procured Billa for her half-brother John George IV, binding him to incest through witchcraft." (Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong: 17)
" . . . Before he had succeeded to the electorate of Saxony he had conceived a violent passion for Magdalen Sybil von Rochlitz, the daughter of a colonel of the Saxon guard, a brunette of surpassing beauty, but so ignorant that her mother had to write her love letters for her. Magdalen gained complete sway over the young elector, and she, in turn, was the tool of her ambitious and intriguing mother. . . ." (Wilkins, Vol. I: 10)
Mistress as "legitimate wife".
"On the 12th September, 1691, the Elector John George III died, and was succeeded in the Electorate by his son John George IV, whose love of the pleasures of the world fully equaled that of his brother Augustus, though his more delicate constitution would not allow him to indulge in them to the same extent. He had for his mistress, or, as he himself represents her in a very extraordinary document, in which he describes the nature of their connexion, 'his legitimate wife,' a young lady, Sibylla von Neidschutz, whom he created Countess von Rochlitz, and of whose influence over him Augustus was so jealous, that he withdrew entirely from the Court of Dresden, passing his time alternately at Vienna and Berlin. . . On his return to Dresden after his nuptials, he renewed his endeavours to deliver his brother from the chains of the lovely Countess, but with no better success than formerly. So great was his attachment to her, that she accompanied him when he took the field in 1693, and gave birth to a daughter at Frankfort on the Maine. On her return, however, from this journey, she was seized with virulent small-pox, and died on the 4th April, 1694, in the twentieth year of her age. Her royal lover was inconsolable for her loss, ordained a most sumptuous funeral, and buried her in the vault of the Electoral family, near the altar of the Sophia church; and himself soon followed the bracelet of his own hair, which he caused to be laid with her in the tomb. He died on the 27th of the same month, before he had quite completed his twenty-sixth year." (The Foreign Monthly Review and Continental Literary Journal: 40)
Love Potion & Kiss of Death.
"In the year 1694, a Dresden love story in which magic played a central role resulted in a witchcraft trial. Sybilla Neitschutz, the mistress of the elector of Saxony, Johann Georg, had died from smallpox. The elected infected himself when he kissed the deceased, and he died three weeks later. Sybilla's mother was blamed for initiating this relationship and hence for causing the elector's death: she was accused of having used love magic to snare the elector for her daughter. The new elector, August (the Strong), Johann Georg's brother, put her on trial, and the proceedings ended several years later with the 'banishment' of the older Neitschitz to a small village. . . . " (Wunder: 143)
Affair's benefits to the mistress.
"John George IV had no sooner succeeded his father than he publicly declared the Neitschutz his mistress, and she at once obtained all the privileges and advantages which ordinarily surround that title at a court: splendid annuities, a large household, a magnificent palace at Dresden, extensive and productive estates, the daily and eager homage of courtiers, rich presents not only from the elector, but from everybody desirous of obtaining a favour through her influence, incessant festivities, and amusements of every description, absolutely as if she had been a queen. . . ." (Remarkable Adventurers and Unrevealed Mysteries, Vol 2: 316)
"The park around the castle was founded in 1539 by building the castle church. In 1693 Elector John George IV of Saxony acquired the palace as a present to his mistress Magdalena Sibylla of Neidschutz. Both died in the following years and in 1706 John George's brother Augustus II the Strong passed the facilities as a gift to Anna Constantia of Brockdorff, one of his numerous women, only to retract it after Anna Constantia had fled to Berlin in 1715." (tinyint, 2010)
" . . . The Elector endowed his favourite with great wealth, gave her a palace and lands, surrounded her with a little court, and honoured her as though she were his consort. . . ." (Wilkins, Vol. I: 10)
Other beneficiaries of the romantic relationship.
"Once John George IV returned from the army in early October, he openly installed Billa as 'favourite'. She was given the same apartments and private galleries as his father's mistress Susanne von Zinzendorff. Ursula too went on the payroll with a pension of RT 2000, but was able to increase her takings by control of her daughter's 'court', to which all serious petitioners and office-seekers now addressed themselves. The new Elector was bewitched enough to provide an authorizing signature upon the necessary documents. Nor was Billa's father forgotten. Rudolf was both reinstated into the Saxon army and promoted to lieutenant-general of cavalry. Her brother Christoph Adolf, an educated linguist of little moral character, advanced in his position as court chamberlain, while her brother-in-law, Wolf Dietrich von Beichling (1665-1725), prospered too. Married to Billa's younger sister Anna Katharina, who appears to have been only 13 or 14 at this time, Beichling now became an adviser (Geheimer Referendarius) to John George and an important 'fixer' for the Neitschutz family." (Pleasure and Ambition: 19)
Affair's end & aftermath.
"On this unexpected death of his brother, who left no son to succeed him, Augustus became Elector of Saxony; and one of his first acts of power, an act as inconsistent as it was pitiful, for he was himself surrounded by mistresses, was to institute proceedings against the family of the deceased countess. Her body was cast out of the church, and her mother, the widow of General Neidschutz, having been accused of employing charms and amulets, to gain for her daughter the love of the elector, was subjected to an inquisitorial process, and sentenced to death. Augustus, however, spared her life, but banished her from the country, first, be it observed, depriving her of all the gifts and jewels which his brother had bestowed upon her daughter." (The Foreign Monthly Review and Continental Literary Journal: 41)
Magdalene Sibylla's other lovers were.
" . . . We have not discovered even, to our own satisfaction, whether Madeleine really loved her princely adorer or remained faithful to him, and it seems as if interest alone forged the chain which linked her to her lover. What confirms our suspicions is the fact that Madeleine's earliest suitors never had any serious intentions about her, or desired a like connection with her. The mother and daughter were accused, and the former confessed it, of having had recourse to superstitious measures in order to catch in their nets a lover with with honourable intentions. We hear first of a Von Haxthausen, grand master of the court to Prince Frederick Christian, and then of a Herr von Vitzhum. According to the scandalous chronicle, a certain Colonel Klemm was Madeleine Sibylla's first favoured lover. Her mother declared, but the fact seems anything but proved, that Haxthausen was formally and publicly betrothed to her daughter, but that afterwards both recalled their troth; and it was not till then that Madeleine yielded to the passion of the elector. Did Haxthausen, Vitzthum, and tutti quanti retire on noticing the dangerous rivalry of their sovereign lord and master? But these ladies would have noticed it before them, and consequently aimed higher than they had hitherto done. Or else, did the lovers, on becoming better acquainted with the lady's character, withdraw when they saw that she was not fitted to be a wife and a respectable mother of a family? The scandalous chronicle asserts that Madeleine Sibylla, before becoming acquainted with the elector, had given birth to a child, which she destroyed and secretly buried at Taschenberg. It is added that the child was afterwards exhumed, and that the electoral prince, who was not yet entirely the slave of Fraulein Neitschutz, did not hesitate to attribute it to her. All this may be true; but there are also reasons for believing that they are inventions of ex post facto imagining." (Remarkable Adventurers and Unrevealed Mysteries, Vol 2: 94)
The Countess of Rochlitz & August the Strong.
"There were certainly other 'tasters' throughout the relationship. Inevitably Augustus is identified as one, with the two brothers allegedly crossing swords for the nymphet's favour. When the Elector learned of their daggers-drawn behaviour, both princes were banned from any other contact with her. So while Augustus and Haxthausen travelled to France that May, John George was watched. Despite this he met clandestinely with Billa. When their meetings were discovered, she and her mother were banished from court and they left for their estate in Lusatia." (Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong: 19)
The Countess of Rochlitz & Christian August von Haxthausen.
Grand Master of the Court to Prince Frederick Christian.
"In 1687, when Billa was 12, none other than Christian August von Haxthausen fell for her, with the intention of marrying her when she was a little older. We know that Haxthausen died in 1696, but none of the sources give his date of birth; it is hard, however, to think of him as less than 30, when he was appointed as Augustus's Hofmeister in 1685. Now, two years later, the courtier charged with overseeing our hero's educational and spiritual development was seeking the hand of a child, whom by his own account he at some time bedded. For in June 1694 Stepney decorously reprised Haxthausen's claim that John George did not have Billa 'to himself, but he had the favour of being his Highness's taster.'" (Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong: 19)
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