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| Anna of Saxony Princess of Orange |
(1544-1577)
Daughter of: Moritz von Sachsen, Elector of Saxony & Agnes von Hessen.
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Anna of Saxony Princess of Orange |
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| William of Orange @Wikipedia |
Wife of: William the Silent, Prince of Orange, mar 1561, ann 1571.
" . . . When Orange made his appearance at Dresden's Residenz in November 1560, he now only allayed fears, but encouraged and sparked a romantic flame. Twenty-seven-year-old, blue-eyed William was a man unlike any other male Anna had ever met and within days she considered him the most charming, sophisticated, and kind-hearted person of her admittedly limited acquaintance. Her ardor was fueled by his near perfect looks. A contemporary description of William in his mid-twenties termed him 'well developed, his figure distinguished. He is strong and manly, skilled in military science, a great favorite of all the people whose affection he gains by openhanded generosity. He is a prince of the greatest promise.' He quickly made it clear that he paid little mind to Anne's plainness, and unlike Eric of Sweden, was not engaging in simultaneous courtships. In fact, William intended to marry her as soon as the legalities had been put in order." (Anna of Saxony: The Scarlet Lady of Orange)
" . . . As to his appearance, there is no doubt that William was one of the most handsome noblemen of his time. A portrait by Anthonis Mor van Dashorst (1516-1575) completed in 1555, shows the prince accoutered in a stunning black suit of armor with elaborate copper colored trim. Even by twenty-first century standards, he would be considered an extremely fine-looking man with his even features, wavy auburn hair, and fashionable goatee. His mien contains a trace of melancholy, coupled with determination and purpose." (Anna of Saxony: The Scarlet Lady of Orange)
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| Anna of Saxony Princess of Orange @ Wikipedia |
Lover in 1568-1571?
Husband of: Maria Pypelinks, mar 1561, a merchant's daughter.
Natural Offspring:
Christina von Dietz.
" . . . An irreverent and adventurous man, who liked money, gambling and women, he had far too lively a taste for liberty to remain in this happy-go-lucky city once the rumblings of revolt were heard. He would have all the time in the world, in exile, to think over what he had lost; but would he dream how great a gift he would one day make to his native country?" ((Rubens: 16)
Jan Rubens " . . . was educated to a learned profession. Johann Rubens was born in 1530, studied law at Louvain and Padua, and took the degree of Doctor of Civil and Ecclesiastical Law with honours in Rome. Returning to his native country, on the 29th November 1561 he married a merchant's daughter named Maria Pypelinks. . . ." (Rubens: 5)
Jan's personal & family background.
"Courtly, well-educated and refined, Jan Rubens deserves the name of humanist. He belonged to a family which had established itself in the Flemish capital in the fourteenth century; his father was an apothecary of that city; and he had, in his youth, studied at the universities of Louvain, Rome and Padua, returning from them with the spirit of enquiry and cultivated mind that made it possible for him to obtain his Doctorate in utroque jure and take his place, as advocate, among the most prominent citizens of Antwerp. In 1561, at the age of thirty-two, the year of his marriage, he was appointed magistrate; but a few years later it began to be rumoured that he supported the Calvinists. Disturbed by these rumours he asked to be allowed by the municipal council to testify to his standing as a good Catholic. As events began to move rapidly, however, he and his family left Antwerp for Cologne and the estates of the Prince of Orange." (Rubens: 11)
"Young, handsome and enterprising, Jan Rubens became Anne's lover---she was far from shy, and her husband often left her for long periods in order to engage in warfare. The liaison had probably continued for two or three years when William the Silent discovered it. He at once ordered his brother John of Nassau to imprison this person who had come close to qualifying for the death penalty." (Rubens: 18)
"Anna of Saxony, being of an aristocratic family infused with much wealth, had lands and holdings and interests to negotiate. Like rich people throughout the ages she needed a lawyer. She hired Jan Rubens as her legal advisor. It is not clear, exactly, what a legal advisor to an important royal personage during the late sixteenth century would have been doing all day long. He was helping Anna of Saxony manage her affairs. But whatever else he was doing, he managed to pitch his woo as well. We don't know. It is hard to imagine that Jan Rubens was being ambitious or clever in this circumstance. William I of Orange, later to be known to history as William the Silent, the husband of Anne of Saxony, was not, surely, going to be pleased about the situation. And having the displeasure of William I of Orange was not a good thing, as we have already made clear, and as it did not turn out to be for Jan Rubens, who was to spend a number of years in prison awaiting execution for his troubles.
"That fact along makes it plausible that there was, actually, love between Jan Rubens and Anna of Saxony. It makes a scenario plausible in which, as the two worked together looking over the legal matters to which Anna had to attend, there was some kind of force, some kind of attraction that started to draw them together. Jan Rubens started to think about his time with Anna of Saxony more and more often. Anna of Saxony found herself waking up late at night with a strange heaviness in her breast, anticipating the continued labor over her legal matters, yearning for more time spent with him. One can imagine Jan Rubens engaged in laborious and not entirely persuasive conversations with his actual wife, the future mother of our painter Rubens, explaining to her that the legal matters pertaining to Anna of Saxony were becoming more and more pressing, requiring more and more of his time and attention." (The Drunken Silenus: On Gods, Goats, and the Cracks in Reality: 64)
"Jan Rubens may have appeared an inspired choice, but the hiring proved a disaster for all parties. In their long, intimate hours spent working together on her case, Jan and Anna, two exiles with seven children between them, found their passions inflamed. This was not an unusual state for Anna. Her reputation for debauchery was already the subject of local gossip, and had prompted a series of letters from her traveling husband pleading that she reform her behavior. Instead, she moved to Siegen, a small hilltop town encircled by a defensive wall a day's ride east of Cologne. Perhaps the goal was to remove herself from the rumor mill. For that there was good reason: she was pregnant, and by the spring of 1571 she was beginning to show. William, long absent, was not a candidate for paternity. The prospective father was Jan Rubens, and there was no covering up the fact. In early March, while he was traveling from his own family residence in Cologne to the hilltop aerie of his client and paramour, he was arrested and summarily tossed into the Dillenburg dungeon. The charge, levied under the authority of Johan of Nassau (William's brother), was adultery with Her Royal HIghness, a capital offense." (Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens: 54)
"Peter Paul (1577-1640) was in all probability born in Siegen, then in the county of Nassau, to a family of emigrants from Antwerp. His father, Jan Rubens, a lawyer and former magistrate, had in 1568, together with his wife, Maria Pijpelinckx, left Antwerp because of his Lutheran beliefs. He had settled in Cologne, where he worked as secretary to William of Orange's wife Anna of Saxony. A love affair with her led to Jan Rubens being exiled to Siegen, until in 1578 he received permission to return to Cologne. Until 1589 the young Peter Paul Rubens lived in this great commercial city on the Rhine; this period must always have seemed a happy time to him. Two years after the death of his father in 1587 he returned with his family to Antwerp." (Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585-1700: 22)
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| Anna of Saxony Duchess of Saxe-Coburg |
(1567-1613)
Daughter of: Elector August of Saxony & Anna of Denmark.
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| Johan Casimir of Saxe-Coburg |
Wife of: Johann Kasimir von Sachsen-Coburg mar 1586, div 1593.
Her lovers were:
1) Jeronimo Scotto.
"Jeronimo Scotto, a wily Italian, who called himself a count, and whom his contemporaries styled a conjuror, had quitted his native country to try his fortune in Germany. He was an adept in many arts and in sleight of hand; could tell people their thoughts, give entertainments without any preparation and as it were by the agency of obsequious spirits, cast nativities, and was conversant in astronomy and alchemy---qualifications which in those times conferred great reputation and consequence. . . Scotto, after a variety of adventures, became known to John Casimir, and in 1592 was settled at Coburg. The duke was a great lover of secret arts and sciences. . . ." (Shoberl: 127)
"The best remembered was probably Johann Casimir, who reigned in Coburg in the late sixteenth century. In 1592 he invited to his court an Italian magician and adventurer, Jeronimo Scotto, who had the reputation of being able to cure childless women of their infertility. The Duke intended him to use his magic on his young duchess, Anna, who after several years of marriage had failed to produce any offspring. Scotto promptly managed to ingratiate himself with the young Duchess, often neglected by her husband, who preferred to spend his days hunting. The wily Italian not only insinuated himself into her bed, but appropriated her jewellery and then disappeared without trace...." (Albert & Victoria: The Rise and fall of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: 22)
2) Ulrich von Lichtenstein.
" . . . Before doing so he (Scotto) had introduced the Duchess to another lover, a young courtier by the name of Ulrich von Lichtenstein. When this affair was discovered by the Duke, he divorced the Duchess and imprisoned her for the rest of her life, another twenty years, in a succession of fortresses, including the castle in Coburg. Lichtenstein remained separately incarcerated for nearly forty years. . . ." (Albert & Victoria: 22)
"The best remembered was probably Johann Casimir, who reigned in Coburg in the late sixteenth century. In 1592 he invited to his court an Italian magician and adventurer, Jeronimo Scotto, who had the reputation of being able to cure childless women of their infertility. The Duke intended him to use his magic on his young duchess, Anna, who after several years of marriage had failed to produce any offspring. Scotto promptly managed to ingratiate himself with the young Duchess, often neglected by her husband, who preferred to spend his days hunting. The wily Italian not only insinuated himself into her bed, but appropriated her jewellery and then disappeared without trace...." (Albert & Victoria: The Rise and fall of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: 22)
2) Ulrich von Lichtenstein.
" . . . Before doing so he (Scotto) had introduced the Duchess to another lover, a young courtier by the name of Ulrich von Lichtenstein. When this affair was discovered by the Duke, he divorced the Duchess and imprisoned her for the rest of her life, another twenty years, in a succession of fortresses, including the castle in Coburg. Lichtenstein remained separately incarcerated for nearly forty years. . . ." (Albert & Victoria: 22)
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| Maria Josepha of Saxony @Wikipedia |
(1867-1944)
Daughter of Georg von Sachsen & Maria Ana de Portugal.
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| Otto of Austria @Wikipedia |
Wife of Otto von Osterreich (1865-1906), mar 1886
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| Otto Tressler |
Her lover was:
Otto Tressler (1871-1965)
German-Austrian actor.
Also known born Otto Karl August Meyer.
References.
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