Alexander Leopold Anthon von Ranzow,
a person of princely blood in the house of correction at Koudekerk.
What appears below was originally a
lecture (in Dutch) by C. C. van Valkenberg of the
Koninklijk Nederlandsch Genootschap voor Geslacht- en Wapenkunde,
translated into English by Otto Schutte, editor of De
Nederlandsche Leeuw, and sent to the undersigned in early 1984
by Henry Bainbridge Hoff. The undersigned has scanned the document
into machine-readable form, and has tried very hard to preserve the
charms of Mr. Schutte's English.
Currently (or at least recently) living descendants of
Alexander von Ranzow can be traced by using, for example,
Danmarks Adels Aarbog 1930:148-158;
Nederland's Adelsboek 90:436-452; and
Pedigrees of some of the Emperor Charlemagne's descendants,
vol. III [1978], pp. 268-270.
William Addams Reitwiesner
wargs@wargs.com
Alexander Leopold Anthon von Ranzow,
a person of princely blood in the house of correction at Koudekerk.
by C. C. van Valkenberg
From 1665 to 1678 resided in the protestant noble abbey of Gandersheim
in Brunswick as princess-abbess with the rank of princess of the Holy
Roman Empire: Dorothea Hedwig princess of
Sleswick-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, one of the daughters of the duke
Frederick - himself a grandson of king Christian III of
Denmark - and of Eleonora princess of Anhalt-Zerbst.
The sister of Dorothea Hedwig was there in 1656 married to
Anton Ulrich, later reigning duke of Brunswick.
In the year 1678 princess Dorothea Hedwig was asked by
Christoph count of the Holy Roman Empire von Ranzow to
marry him; he was lord of Schmool, Hohenfels etc. and belonged to
the old nobility of Holstein and is painted to us as an earnest and
sparing man. He had studied in 1645-1647 at Leyde and Utrecht
mathematics, hebrew and theology and visited frequently Amsterdam,
where he came into close contact with the broker Bernardus Henricus
Staets, whom we shall meet more than once during the course of this
history.
Staets was his advisor for the administration of the Ranzow's
fortune, which was very considerable, as far as that was invested in
the Dutch Republic; this was specially invested in shares of the
East and West India Companies and in obligations on a number of towns
in Holland. During his stay in Amsterdam the Lutherian Christoph von
Ranzow joined the 'Rijnsburger Collegianten', who believed in a
general Christian church and did not want to belong to any special
communion, while they practised a practical form of Christianity. From
this it is clear that the Republic in the middle of the 17th century
was not only the centre of money-trade but also attracted foreigners
for the spiritual life.
In the summer of 1646 Ranzow stays some weeks in Purmerend at
the local doctor, who belonged also to the 'Rijnsburger Collegianten'.
Shortly after the treaty of Munster Christoph von Ranzow
converted to be a Roman Catholic, as I read in Pastor's standard work
Geschichte der Päpste. In a rather unknown booklet about the
Catholic hiding church 'de Krijtberg' in Amsterdam, I found that his
conversion took place in Rome in 1650 after he had before - in
Amsterdam - made friendship with the well known Jesuit father Petrus
Laurentius, who also could count under his convert the famous poet
Joost van den Vondel.
It is noteworthy that many illustrious persons, especially Germans,
were converted at that time to Catholicism, as the landgrave of
Hessen, John Frederick duke of Brunswick-Luneburg,
the duke Ulrich of Wurtemberg and the landgrave of Hessen-
Rheinfels. The authors explain this by the fact that after the
Thirty Years War it became fashionable in Germany but also in the
Republic to travel to Rome, where the travellers got a very good
impression of the Roman Catholic Church. I wonder if this explanation
is true, especialy if one is acquainted with the life in Rome in those
days, also in ecclesiastical circles, and if this explanation is not a
bit too simplistic. I rather see it as an expression of Irenism, the
movement in the middle of the 17th century, which endeavoured to bring
Protestants and Catholics again in one Church. Hugo de Groot
and his German confrater Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz were
adherents and the movement found also much approval at the Protestant
university of Helmstedt, where Christoph von Ranzow, as a Danish
book about the Ranzow family told me, studied after his Dutch years.
Also Dorothea Hedwig was converted to Catholicism
inbetween; she resigned as an abbess and married 7 June l678 in
Hildesheim Christoph von Ranzow. Pope Innocentius XI sent
a personal congratulation on occasion of their wedding; he had
already helped her financially after her conversion, as had done the
grand duke of Tuscany.
Contrarely to Christoph his wive was a person, who enjoyed
life, although she was some older and a bit mis-shapen. A contemporary
writes about her: Weil sie aber ein einfaches Leben zu führen gar
keine Beliebung getragen, sondern lieber bei lustigen Begebenheiten
sich altemal gern finden lassen, hat sie dort (i. e. in the abbey of
Gandersheim) kein gutes Andenken hinterlassen; sie hat vielmals
Komödie gespielt und Pall gehalten und war wenig im Stift.
After some years difficulties arrose between husband and wife and
Dorothea Hedwig gets his consent for a journey to Vienna, where
she pays her respect to Emperor Leopold; her husband had
dwelled earlier in Vienna, where he got his title of count of the Holy
Roman Empire in 1650 and where he became Imperial Counciller of the
Court and chamberlain.
After that she continues her journey and after a sojourn of four weeks
in Venice because of ill health, she arrives in Rome.
In Rome she moves in the circles of her far away cousin the ex-queen
Christina of Sweden, the last of the Wasa's, who had been
also converted to Catholicism, and lived in Rome permanently on a big
scale. I tried in the memoirs of this princess, which are very well
readable, to find something about her contact with Dorothea
Hedwig, but she is not mentioned.
Shortly after her arrival Dorothea Hedwig communicates her
husband and by the way of a certain father Winandus the Pope
that she is pregnant. 17 November 1681 she gets a son, who recieves the
names Alexander Leopold Anthon; sponsors are queen
Christina A l e x a n d r a of
Sweden, the German Emperor L e o p o l
d and A n t o
n Ulrich duke of Brunswick.
Count Christoph has recieved the communication of his wive's
accouchement with mixed feelings. This late motherhood on the age of
45 years seemed strange to him. Inbetween his brother-in-law Anton
Ulrich of Brunswick has arrived in Rome and knows to calm down the
feelings.
After having regained health Dorothea Hedwig travels back in the
beginning of 1682. When count Christoph, who sojourns inbetween
in Paris, hears this, he hurries back to Holstein and they meet at his
castle of Oevelgun. Nevertheless not all suspect has disappeared and he
makes her swear against two fathers, before going to Communion, that
everything with the birth is regular.
When I got knowledge of all this, my suspicion had not yet
vanished totally. I wrote to Rome but I learned that the baptesimal
record of the German-Dutch church Santa Maria dell'Anima, the only
one in consideration, could not be consulted, so that I cannot
communicate if the baptism has been registered in Rome.
Count Christoph was a fanatic, who made it his point to
prosecute witches. In the second tome of Soldan's Hexenprozesse I found
noticed that he - after some incidental cases - in 1686 no less than
eighteen old women belonging to the people of his good Schmool near
Lütjenburg had burned on the Baltic beach. This however was
thought going too far by the government. He was called before the
'Landesgericht' to justify himself and sentenced, not because he had
burned eighteen women alive, but because he had executed the
verdict so quickly. He was sentenced to a fine of 20.000
'Reichsthaler' and he escapes to Cologne, where he settles down at the
Jesuits.
At the other hand he liberated his serfs on his goods in Holstein,
with which fact he was much in advance of his time.
His wife Dorothea Hedwig stays at Schmool with her son
Alexander and dies in Hamburg in September 1692. Count
Christoph sells his Holstein possessions to the counts Von
Dernath.
Count Christoph has his son come over to Cologne and appoints as
his governor Giovanni Arragoni, later merchant in Amsterdam and
consul of Venice. Already soon Alexander becomes a boarder at
the gymnasium in the Jesuit monastery Tuum Coronarum. He is treated
with distinction and placed at the upper part of the table with two
princes "with singular distinction of state and rank of other nobles
and other disciples of condition".
However it seems that from that moment the hell came upon earth. At
night Alexander lets himself down from a window, breaks out
more than once and the terrified fathers see him marching as a
tambour with a group of soldiers. Hardly fourteen years old he pays
promise of marriage - as stands in the papers - to a low woman and
then, when his father remonstrates with him on this last
misbehaviour; he remarks: If you leave me here in this Jesuit
prison, you cannot be my father. The old suspicion from his year of
birth and the dark allusions of the contemporaries rise anew in his
fathers mind and then Alexander says: I know everything;
mother has confessed everything on her death-bed.
From that moment his father pulls his hands from him and rejects him.
Alexander then comes as an apprentice in the house of a surgeon
in Nijmegen. Again he leads a licentious life and as a vagabond he
travels with a group of sailors through France to Spain, where he
settles down in Cadiz trying to find shipping-opportunity
to the East.
Inbetween his father had in 1693 appointed as a guardian of his son
the Catholic merchant Bernardus Henricus Staets in Amsterdam in
case of his death before his son's coming of age in an act for notary
Johan van Kerckhoven. After the repudiation he makes 20 April 1695
(notary Poelenburg in Amsterdam) a will in which he cancels the
appointment of a guardian, declares to be childless and Staets
to be the heir of his Dutch possessions. Only a rent of f. 500 a year
he bequeathes to Alexander. The institution of Staets as
an heir can be judged as camouflage, because all the revenues were ment
to go to the Catholic poors; during the 17th century it was still
judged to be too dangerous to institute as an heir a Roman Catholic
institution and one prefered to put a natural person as an intermediary
in between.
In Amsterdam I found neither the appointment of a guardian from 1693
nor the will from 1695. This is not amazing while the protocols of
both the notaries are incomplete and have much suffered by damage of
fire and water, but I found that count Christoph was in contact
with the notary Van Kerckhoven, because in 1693 he bought for that
notary an obligation.
The news about Alexander becomes more and more worse. In a new will,
passed in Cologne, the rent is decreased to f. 200 a year and many
German possessions are bequeathed to the Jesuits in Cologne. Shortly
after that the old count dies in that town on 16 January 1696.
Joh. Arragoni, who had settled down inbetween in Amsterdam, has
nevertheless not forgotten his pupil from Cologne. With much trouble
he knows to find him in Cadiz and have him come over to Amsterdam.
Also his well ment attempts shipwrecked, as appears from a sentence of
the Court of Holland of 20 May 1698: "As Johannes Arragoni,
living in Amsterdam, has made known to the Court of Holland by request,
that he suppliant to his regret has found, that Alexander Leopold
Anthon count von Ranzow shortly before had fallen into such
a loose and unbound behaviour and debauches, that he, suppliant, was
afraid that all good provisions, which the suppliant was willing to
apply upon him, were made illusive, and the said minor would rush into
his own destruction and would be ruined totally, if there were not
going to be taken any provisions by the Court, because the said young
man, who was still under the age of eighteen years, had not only
involved himself with light women, with one of whose he had stayed in
an humble inn saying they were husband and wife, stating to others
that he would never leave this woman, what so ever might occur, but
also a few days ago by running wild and vagabonding had recieved a cut
in his cheek, and enlisting himself, as he pretended, as a simple
sailor to sail from these countries to Moscovia in the service of His
Majesty the Czar, to which extravagancies not heard of in a young man
of so few years the suppliant feared for heavier sequences and an
inevitable total ruin of the said minor, the suppliant found himself
obliged to represent it to this Court, humbly begging that the Court
might authorise the bailiff or one of his first officers to apprehend
the said Alexander Leopold Anthon, where ever he might be
found, and to bring and confine him in a house of correction in this
Province."
The sentence goes on for a while in the same way and the Court accorded
Aragoni's request to confine Alexander in the house of
correction of Koudekerk.
I made some research in the criminal archives of Amsterdam if there
could be found anything about this street fight, but this was not the
case.
Total ruin seemed to be near: having lost the inheritance of the very
rich father, regarded as a bastard by his own sayings, enclosed in a
house of correction in Koudekerk near Leyde, this boy, over whom the
Emperor of Germany, Queen Christina of Sweden and the duke of
Brunswick had been sponsors, who from his mothers side was a
cousin of the kings of Sweden, Denmark and England and of many German
princes, seemed to be lost without return.
The house of correction, where he was confined, was - as I mentioned
already - situated near Leyde. I tried very much to find peculiarities
about this house and looked up first, what Hellema, a specialist in
this field, might have written about it. He only mentiones it
incidentally. The archives of the Court of Holland contain records of
inspection of houses of correction only from 1729 onwards. In an
edition of the Society Haerlem, titled In een beterhuis van 1682 tot
1692 by Dr. A. H. Garrer, we can find nevertheless the story of
somehody who was confined in a house of correction in Koudekerk, some
years before Alexander. These houses of correction were
private institutions, where lunatics, feeble minded, epileptics,
débauchés of both sexes and all ages could be taken for
unlimlited time after authorisation given by the government. In
Delft in the 17th century there were thirteen and in Breda in the 18th
more than twenty of these houses. For genealogists the archives of
these institutions are not without importance, because one finds there
material about many people, whose course of life for understandable
reasons are left open in contemporary family books and manuscript
genealogies.
While Alexander was in his lowest state, in Brunswick - far
away from Koudekerk - a mendicant friar requested to the duke Anton
Ulrich, asking for a favour. In his request he states to have been
secretary to the count von Ranzow. Anton Ulrich asked
him, in a private interview, what had happened with his
brother-in-law, with whom he was at variance, and his son. The monk
told that Christoph was dead and that his son was somewhere in
Holland. The duke orders him to find this son, the monk finds him
after long peregrinations in the house of correction in Koudekerk and
reports this to Brunswick.
Inbetween the duke Anton Ulrich tries also to get information by
diplomatic channels and brings in therefore Leibnitz; to
him Alexander is described as: C'est un jeune seigneur qui ne
manque pas d'esprit ni de vivacité; mais la vie du couvent
et celle qu'il a mené ensuite parmi les matelots ne lui a pas
encore donné l'air du monde et de sa qualité.
The dukes Rudolph August and Anton Ulrich of Brunswick
then address a letter dd. 11 February 1699 to the States General and to
the States of Holland, asking to dismiss Alexander from the
house of correction and to deliver him to their councillor and resident
Siegel in The Hague to receive further education in Brunswick.
11 March this letter is send over by the States of Holland to the Court
of Holland, which has the supervision over the houses of correction.
Immediately a complication arises, because in the mean time already
three parties were at law at the Court of Holland about the
inheritance of count Christoph, as far as being under the
jurisdiction of that Court. This was claimed by: 1) B. H. Staets
as heir installed by will (the Roman Catholic-poors), 2) the only
sister of the late count, Lucia Oligard countess von
Ranzow, baroness dowager von Burkersrode, who stated that
Alexander was not the son of her brother and that the will in favour
of Staets was void, because this was passed without witnesses,
3) Joh. Arragoni in the name of Alexander, stating that he as
being the only child was universal heir.
Arragoni considered the boy as somebody who could be improved in the
future and thought therefore disinheritance by the father
unreasonable. He is convinced that Alexander in his
thoughtlessness out of malignancy has invented the so-called
confession of his mother on her death-bed to hurt his father and to
escape from the severe education planned by him. Arragoni was
already on the 16th of April 1698, when the fight for the inheritance
started, appointed by the Court of Holland as a 'curator ad lites'
(i.e. extraordinary tutor) over Alexander being under age.
Shortly afterwards he had have him confined in the house of
correction, as we saw, but he continued to work in his interest.
Giovanni Arragoni appears frequently in the litterature about
the commerce of Holland and Venice in the 17th century. He was a good
friend of the grand pensionary Anthony Heinsius; so I
looked up if the archives of Heinsius contained anything about
him, but this was not the case.
In the incidental requisition for the delivery of Alexander,
the baroness von Burkersrode is party. Staets, as a good
merchant, refers to the judgement of the Court. Madam von
Burkersrode, the aunt of Alexander, fears apparently that
her
nephew will obtain the paternal inheritance with the help of the dukes
of Brunswick.
Then a remarkable fight explodes about the legitimacy of
Alexander. From the process dossiers and the notary acts, which
I found in Amsterdam, appears that parties had procured themselves
already in an earlier state of testamoniums, fixed by notaries, but
the request from Brunswick forces them to disclose all there proofs at
one time. Nothing is spared to us.
Arragoni is armed with testifications under oath from Anna
Maria Sieuwers, then wife of Johann Georg Klappenschild,
writer of the county of Steurwald in the Bishopric of Hildesheim, who
as a lady's maid of the countess von Ranzow had been to Rome, of
Johannes Müller, at the time secretary of von
Ranzow, and of Hendrik Steffens, at the time writer of
von Ranzow, of the baron von Mansbergen, of Eva
Bruyne, old unmarried maid in The Hague, at whose house count
Christoph had lived, of Willem Ignatius van Wichem, born
in Nijmegen, law student at Leyde, who had been in the Jesuit
monastery in Cologne with Alexander, and of Dr. Henricus
Cuperus, rector of the Jesuit gymnasium in Cologne. What they
attested is for the main part worked up in what precedes here.
The testimoniums confirm that von Ranzow has always judged
Alexander to be his son and has treated him like that till the
time of the explosion at Cologne, except for a short period of doubt
shortly after the birth.
The lady's maid gives detailed information about the pregnancy and the
birth, for instance that Madame Landini, lady in waiting of
queen Christina of Sweden, has helped the "princess" (i.e. the
countess von Ranzow) to go to bed, that Madam von Ranzow
has ordered pater Winandus to inform the pope and queen
Christina of her approaching delivery; that this
Dominican pater Winandus, Maria van Hamburg, married to
Dominicutio, servant of queen Christina, the midwife and
she herself were present at the delivery.
At certain points, on which I will refer hereafter, the lady's maid
gives more information.
The baroness von Burkersrode now also is forced to give full
testimony. Her position seems not to be favorable and it must have
produced astonishment at the Court, when the only thing she let her
procurator say, was: The Court must first look at Alexander and
have him uncover his right foot; after that we will go on. The
Court goes in chamber, grants the request and appoints 13 March 1699 a
commission, consisting of the councillors François
Keetlaer, Frederick Rosenboom and the secretary Anthony
van Kinschot to have a look at Alexander in Koudekerk.
Already the next day the commission travels by water to Koudekerk. I
don't want to withhold the report:
"On the 14th of March 1699 have we, François Keetlaer and
Frederick Rosenboom, councillors in the Court, as
commissionaries, having as adjunct Anthonij van Kinschot,
secretary, early in the morning with a yacht left The Hague and before
we arrived at Koudekerk, Abraham Selkart van Wouw, as
procurator of the baroness von Burkersrode, asked us,
commissionaries, that we should have the foresaid Alexander pull
off the shoe and stocking of his right foot, and that - the foot being
naked - we commissionaries should inspect the foot from the under side,
saying he expected that we commissionaries would see there the clear
sign of a dubbel cross, about this figure
being black or brown of colour or - if this had been moved away
artificially - at least the scar and maybe the vestigia of it, and if
this should be true, that he would explain afterwards, and we,
commissionaries, have arrived at Koudekerk at about eleven o'clock,
where we made the officer Van der Salm knock at the door of the
said house of correction and make known the master of the house of our
arrival, after which the wife of the master has opened the door at the
Rhine side and brought us through the garden into a room of the house,
after which the master, having joined us, was asked if not stayed in
his house a certain Alexander von Ranzow whom we wished to see
and speak with and having confirmed this, he has gone out of the room
to call for the said person and has taken him to us. Then having
arrived and being asked if he was named Alexander von Ranzow
which he confirmed, we noticed him to be rather short of stature,
having short dark brown curled hair, nearly black, dark brown eyes,
the white nearly yellow, with an approximate age of twenty years or
thereabout, and further being asked, how he liked it to be there and if
he wouldn't prefer to be in liberty, he answered that he was rather well
there and that the nourishment was rather well, that it was better to
be at the singing of birds, but that he didn't mind very much.
Continuing our conversation, we asked him if he had a scar on his right
leg and if he might pull off his shoe and stocking to show it, upon
which he immediately answered that his right leg had no scar, which we
noticed after thorough inspection after he had pulled off his stocking
but having said he had a scar on his left foot, where we, after he had
done this, noticed that upon the upper middle part of his left foot a
scar appeared in this way
which scar he said to have had from his youth on and longer than his
memory and, as he was told, from being a child of about two or three
months, adding that he was now cold, but that in case he was warm, the
said scar appeared more clearly. After which demonstration we,
commissionaries, left and arrived at The Hague at night time."
After having treated this report of the 14th in the session of the
17th March, the Court orders the appearance of Alexander in
person. The first officer of the Court is ordered to pick him up in
Koudekerk and bring him over to The Hague in good custody.
In chamber his description is taken down anew; he is measured
after his wig has been taken off and he appears to be tall five feet
and three inches; all what was noted already in Koudekerk is
ascertained anew, now by the Amsterdam surgeon Nicolaes Streeuw
and two collegues of him from The Hague, asked for that reason by the
baroness von Burkersrode.
The next day the parties in the process get the opportunity to speak:
Arragoni has said that the surgeons are partial, because they
were not appointed by the Court but by Mrs. von Burkersrode and
he states that Alexander has shown his left foot of his own
accord, after it has appeared that on the right foot, as indicated by
the procurator of Mrs. von Burkersrode, nothing was to be
found.
The baroness von Burkersrode protests against the title of
count, which is given to Alexander by Arragoni.
Still the same day the Court of Holland resolves that against the
demand of the dukes of Brunswick to dismiss Alexander
from the house of correction there are no objections and reports this
to the States of Holland.
Then Alexander is handed over to the duke of Brunswick,
who for that reason has travelled to The Hague, and his resident
Siegel to be educated in Brunswick.
With these events the second part of the drama has taken its end.
Inbetween the process about the inheritance of count Christoph
is continued for more than twenty years and only during this it becomes
clear why the scar in the form of a cross had to be noted with so much
emphasize. The baroness von Burkersrode states with so many
words that Alexander is a substituted child, originating from
the well known foundling hospital Santo Spirito in Rome. All children
admitted in that foundation, she states, get the cross of the Holy
Ghost tattooed on one of their feet. Alexander had this mark,
and moreover he had black hair, his eye white was nearly yellow and he
was very mature for a North-European as his adventures proved.
Therefore he is an Italian and a substutited child from the hospital
Santo Spirito.
For my part I thought it necessary to find out if indeed all the
foundlings from Santo Spirito got this tattoo. Because I couldn't find
any litterature about this subject at home, I wrote to Rome. One was so
benevolent to inform me that indeed the foundlings were marked in this
way and to send me a copy from the book II pio istituto di Santo
Spirito by Dr. Alessandro Canezza and Prof. Dr. Mario Casalini. This
part treats the admission of foundlings in this foundation, who by a
untransparent tourniquet were turned inside, as it happened in Cuba
still in this century. The passage reads as follows: The tourniquet of
the Holy Ghost is at the side of the main entrance. Through the opening
of the iron gate the child is brought in and by the turning of the
wheel a bell starts ringing, at which sign the doorman called if the
child was baptised. The infant was wrapped in a blue cloth, the
symbolic colour of the Holy Ghost and after that passed over to the
tourniquet of the sisters to be handed over to the prioress; she
examined thoroughly the marks, which might be added, and gave it over
to a sister to have it washed with warm wine etc., before it was put
into its craddle. In this period the foster-mothers, who lived
permanently in the foundling house, were about twenty fife in number,
the externs about two thousand. The tattoo on the foot in the form of
the cross of the Holy Ghost served as a mark of recognition.
It is still too little known which enormous extend the care of
foundlings used to take place in Latin countries. The number varied
very much with the economical situation. When I looked up litterature
about foundlings I found noticed in the Recherches statistiques de la
ville de Paris, that for instance in that city in 1820 on 223.910
births 55.250 babys, i.e., nearly 23 % were foundlings.
In the beginning of this article I said that the parties in the process
gave themselves much trouble to collect all sorts of testimonies from
the moment the process started. The process papers of the Court of
Holland are far from complete. Some testimonies of servants of the
von Ranzow's in Germany has been translated in the presence of
notary Pieter Schabaelje in Amsterdam, as follows from the
papers in the General State Archives in The Hague. This gave a motive
to study the protocols of this notary in Amsterdam, happily not without
result. The first thing I found was the procuration of Lucia
Olegaard countess von Ranzow, widow of Johan Frederik
baron von Burkersrode, lord of Sornzig, on the 1st of October
1697, in which she authorizes Abraham Selckart van Wouw to be
her procurator at the Court of Holland in her process against
Bernardus Henricus Staets.
These Burkersrode's are, as I found in the Adelslexikon of
Kneschke, originating from Saxony and still survive in the male line in
the family von Zeck-Burkersrode. Kneschke mentions Johan
Frederik and says that he "sich vermählt hatte mit einer als
gelehrte Dame zu ihrer Zeit bekannte Gräfin von Ranzow".
How clever Alexander's aunt was, will appear from the
information from the testimonies, she was able to procure.
The beginning of the process lies thus in 1697, which is understandable
because count Christopf had died in 1696. The aunt von
Burkersrode appears frequently in the protocols of the notary
Schabaelje in connection with bills of exchange drawn on Saxony,
of which she always has confirmed by a notary the delivery on
post; from this we get the impression that during the first years
of the process she must have lived in Amsterdam.
Originally I looked at Alexander as a boy, who by the intrigues of
outsiders, especially the merchant Staets and his aunt Mrs.
von Burkersrode, was disputed his lawful inheritance. The
question of the stigma made arise doubt in me, but the noble person of
the mother, the former princess-abbess of Gandersheim, née a
princess of Sleeswick-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, a friend and
a relative of nearly all princely families of Europe, stayed.
The big blow however came, when I found at notary Schabaelje's
protocol a document concerning this highborn lady (Munic. arch.
Amsterdam, not. arch., inv. nr. 6181, fo. 137 dd. 21 Jan. 1699):
"To-day the 2lst of January anno 1699 appeared in front of me,
Pieter Schabaelje, notary publicq admitted by the Court of
Holland, residing at Amsterdam, Mr. licenciat Christiaen
Granardt, Royal Danish appointed inspector over the high
jurisdiction of the rivers at Oldenskloin Stormarn, old approximately
50 years, and has with true words in stead of and under presentation of
oath solemny at the request of lady Lucia Oligard baroness
von Burckersrode née countess von Rantzaw testified,
declared and attested that is true and that he knows very well that a
certain boy, named Alexander Leopold Anton, who was brought by
the wife of the late count Christoff von Rantzau in the year
1682 from Italy with her from Rome, not is the son van the said count
nor of the countess von Rantzau, but that he is a child out of
the hospital di Santo Spirito in Rome;
"giving he, deposant, for that fact as reasons of knowledge, to know:
that he, deposant, himself and also many other people apart from him, at
that time have seen often on the said child Alexander Leopold
Anton the burned token, that he had on his body, which token the
child had already at the time, when the countess took him from Rome
with her;
"also that the people of the said countess von Rantzaw, whom she
had with her at Rome and especially the nurse or foster-mother of the
child, even have confessed such a supposition to him witness and often
have shown the said burned token;
"also that the said countess von Rantzaw at that time to him
witness and to others has appeared much too old to be able to give
birth to children, because of which fact everybody, who looked at her
and the child, laughed at it because of her age, to which was added
that she had never been pregnant before of the count von Rantzaw
and also that she - according to her people and the common speaking -
had been so long in Italy and away from her husband, that it was
impossible that she honestly could have bearied the child a tempore
praesentiae mariti;
"also that at that time the rumour was spread among everybody that this
Alexander Leopold Anton was a foreign, substituted, Italian
child, taken from the hospital di Santo Spirito of Rome, which rumor
was so big that it even attainted to His Royal Majesty of Denmark and
the whole court, who laughed about it;
"that for that reason also it happened, that a certain nobleman from
Holstein, named captain Hans von Buchwald, in the presence of
him witness sitting at the table in a certain inn in Rensburg with the
said countess, when she, the countess, spoke very ignominious about the
Gospel and the Lutherians, answered her and spoke into her face and
asked what to think of the person, who was first abbess in a convent,
changed her religion and after being married left her husband and went
to Rome out of lust and who, as a woman too old to give birth to a
child, who took from there a tokened child from the hospital di Santo
Spirito to get hold falsely of the inheritance of her husband and
decieve the whole nobility of Holstein; after which the countess
von Rantzaw became so ashamed that she left the table and went
away, that however the said captain Buchwald was not ashamed at
all, but shortly afterwards went to the room of the countess von
Rantzow - without being announced -, taking with him for reasons of
curiosity the countess von Alefeld, wife of the grand
chancellor, and their daughter Dorothea with him as a witness to
show to him (as he said) the young ltalian, and when they had reached
the room in the presence of him witness and found the countess von
Rantzaw and the Italian child Alexander Leopold Anton
together, the countess von Rantzaw tried to hide the child, but
he said to the countess von Alefeld: "Merciful woman, here is
that papistic child, do you think that this Italian is a Holstein
nobleman; no, he is Italian" and has seized thereaftcr the child
at his black hair on his front and pulled him with that, saying: "You,
black Italian, could you be from Holstein; no, you are really an
Italian", which all the countess von Rantzaw has attended,
without speaking a word against it, but she wept about it and was
ashamed, while the present ladys could not abstain from laughing;
"Also that because of that reason the count von Rantzow himself
and all the other noblemen in the neigbourhood in Holstein supposed
this boy Alexander Leopold Anton to be a foreign, substituted
child;
"also that he witness afterwards had met the said countess von
Rantzaw at Olssburg in an inn, where she passed the night with her
servant and behaved poorely, saying she was the wife of a colonel and
having him witness say by her servant not to mention that she was the
countess von Rantzaw;
"that he witness also knows that the said countess von Rantzaw
has lived afterwards in Hamburg in a very suspect house of a public
souteneur called Paul Anthony Joncker alias Vitallio,
being a baptized Jew, and that there and in total Holstein the public
rumour was, that she once afterwards had pretended to be pregnant, but
that the count von Rantzaw had catched her that this was false
and that she only had bound up her body with a cushion;
"declaring moreover that he witness in as far is concerned the servant
of the said countess - being from Wolfenbuttel - who as was told to him
witness, had declared in Hildesheim that she had seen the child
Alexander being born in Rome from the hody of the countess von
Rantzaw, he witness very well knows that this is not true, apart
from the fact that this servant doesn't merit any credibility, because
at that time she was much too young, while at the time he witness had
seen her near the countess, which was in the year 1683, she -according
to the thoughts of him witness - was not older than 25 years and
secondly because this servant, while she was at Rensburg with the said
countess von Rantzaw, had suffered the said captain von
Buchwald (as he himself had confessed to him witness) to climb at
nighttime with a ladder to her room and have had stayed with her and
two other servants the whole night;
declaring he witness finally that he knows the lady requirante very
well and knows also that she is the full sister of the said late count
von Rantzaw;
thus passed in Amsterdam in the presence of Dirck Cruys and
Leendert Mensoo as witnesses and was signed etc."
When one has got knowledge of this document and has learned from the
process pieces that the count and countess von Ranzow lived for
years separated already, it is remarkable to find in a scientific
study of the Jesuit father Allard from 1887: After a very happy
marriage of nearly eighteen years she died in Hamburg, where husband
and wife had settled down and had edified and strengthened the small
but execeIlent group of Catholics in the faith of their fathers. Such
statements show once more how careful one must be in copying the
meaning of others and has to try to return to the sources themselves.
Contrarily to declarations as the before mentioned contrarily also to
the stigma and other exterior tolkens, which show rather a Roman than a
northern extraction, Arragoni and later Alexander
himself, when he became of age, repeat the testimoniums of servants of
his mother and of queen Christina, of father Winandus and
others, who all describe in detail what happened in the lying-in room.
Concerning the stigma the lady's maid declares that this has been
caused by hot porridge fallen upon him.
Staets, the third part in the process, is not very active;
at least we don't hear very much any more of his arguments.
At last, in 1706, Arragoni gains some success for his pupil: the
Court attributes provisionally the paternal inheritance in Holland to
Alexander, but many years of process had to follow. On the
calender of the Court the affair returns often. The baroness von
Burkersrode had already died in 1705; her heirs substituted
her. Also Staets died and his widow and sons step in his rights.
Finally, the 13th of October 1713, after more than twenty years, the
inheritance is definitively attributed to Alexander. The
considerations, which have led to this verdict, are unfortunately not
preserved. The other parties bring the affair however before the
Supreme Court and than the whole case starts anew.
Finally Alexander transports in 1722 his pretentions on the part
of his fathers inheritance in Holland for f. 180.000 to
Christoph baron von Wambold von Umstadt, who, as being
married to a granddaughter, acted for the heirs of the baroness von
Burkersrode. The fight about the inheritance of the old count
Christoph von Ranzow is than continued between the heirs of
Staets and the heirs of Mrs. von Burkersrode. I did not
find a final sentence of the Supreme Court.
The town archives of Amsterdam contain Staets papers and there I
found an inventory of the absent family archive from 1734, in which
first is mentioned: Anno 1734 stored in the cupboard all the papers
concerning Ranzow, settled with a receipt of the Supreme Court.
These Staets papers in the town archives of Amsterdam originate
from the archives of the bishopric of Haaarlem, but also there the
Ranzow process dossier is absent. If it would have been there, I
should have done much work for nothing, but the tension of the
investigation would have lacked also.
I mentioned already that the inheritance process was about the - for
the rest very important - goods in Holland of count Christoph.
Also in Cologne Alexander had to fight a same long process about
the goods in Germany, which were many more. There the affairs were more
difficult because, as I read in the memoirs of one of
Alexander's sons, he had to sell his rights on his fathers
German possessions far below the real estimation.
After all these expiations I have to return to Alexander, whom
we left in 1699, when he was brought by the resident Siegel from
the house of correction in Houdekerk to Brunswick to have his education
finished at the court of his uncle, the reigning duke. This disciple
from the Jesuit college, this surgeons apprentice in Nijmegen, this
vagabond with sailors in Cadiz, this idler in Amsterdam, formerly
confined in the house of correction in Koudelkerk, entered military
service there. He rises from an ensign to be chef of the 8th company of
the life battalion and finishes his eventful life on the 25th of
October 1747 as general in the service of Brunswick.
In the year 1702 he married Catharina Sophia baroness von
Hoym-Rhoden, who gave birth to several sons. The wild blood of the
father was inherited by these sons. His son Ferdinand Anthon,
hold at the font in Wolfenbuttel by the dukes of Bavaria and
Brunswick and by the prince of Schwarzburg-Arnstadt,
embarked as a corporal on the age of 22 under the name of Ferdinand
Anthon Scholtz to the East, makes his career in the Dutch East
India Company and asks in 1749 the general governor to be allowed to
use his proper name again, which has been allowed. He repatriates in
1751 with his first wife Josina Schokman, whom he had married in
Colombo, remarries after her death in 1759 a morganatic daughter of the
prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and dies himself, nearly 90
years of age, in 1802 in Brunswick, after having procreated with his
two wifes 25 children.
It is understandable that under these circumstances he was not able to
give enough attention to the education of his sons and it is not
amazing that in 1766 we find his son Julius Ferdinand in the
house of correction named Padua in Rotterdam. He is the father of
Georg Ludwig Carl Heinrich, lord of Meinerswijk near Arnhem, who
became a state paymaster in Arnhem and was there the founder of the
Ranzow bank.
From the two eldest sons from his marriage with Josina Schokman
descend both Dutch branches von Ranzow, of which the youngest
is extinct and of which the eldest was settled during some generations
in the Indies and has survived nowadays in the Netherlands. So far
Alexander's son Ferdinand Anthon and his descendants.
Also another son had inherited many of Alexander's qualities and
not the best. This was Georg Ludwig Albrecht von Ranzow, born 21
March 1714, over whom stood as sponsors the later king of
Hanovre, the reigning duke of Brunswick and the prince of
Oettingen. About his young years we are very well informed by his
autobiography, which he had appear in 1741 in Amsterdam, dedicated to
his cousins Charles and Anton Ulrich dukes of
Brunswick, older brothers of the in our national history well known
"fat duke" of Brunswick in the time of the stadholders
William IV and V.
I was so lucky to find a copy of this rare booklet "Mémoires du
Comte de Rantzow ou les heures de récréation à
l'usage de la Noblesse de l'Europe" at the Royal Library in The Hague.
About his infancy and his parents he says little, about the scandal
concerning his father's birth and the wild youth of him not a word.
About the inheritance process, his father had to carry out on his whole
life, he speaks however. Georg continues his memoirs with the
description of his own young years. It appears that he was treated on
the same foot with the princes, his playmates and was judged by the
duke totally as belonging to the princely family. When matriculating at
the university of Helmstedt, he protests that in the lecture-room no
arm-chair is placed as was done for two princes' sons, who followed the
lessons there, and the academic senate hurries to procure also such a
seat for the count von Ranzow.
Already at the age of thirteen he is appointed an officer and, when one
of the older officers of the small garrison Blankenburg mocks about
this, von Ranzow challenges him to a duel in which he carries
away the victory. A second duel took place when he, just sixteen years
old, enters university and also this time he is a victor.
In Helmstedt von Ranzow lives with his governor at an old
'Hofrat' and professor; his father Alexander had selected
this house with care for him: the young, smart and solid professor's
wife had to teach his son respect for her sex. The sixteen years old
boy loses however his heart to his hostess and the consequences don't
stay away.
Inbetween a new incident took place. When he returns home at night,
accompanied by his servants with torches, he hears in a passage crying
for help. He rushes and is just able to liberate a girl, who struggles
in a dark lane behind the houses with a man, not however before he has
laid down this man with his sword. She appears to be the daughter of
the rich local banker Lintner.
Shortly afterwards the governor perceives which relationship von
Ranzow has with his hostess. He takes his leave and von
Ranzow gets another boarding house: at the rector's, who takes the
precaution to send his daughter away, which fact von Ranzow
takes him very much amiss. He cannot forget the smart wife of the
professor and he corresponds with her by way of the laundry woman, to
whom he gives his letters. One time, when getting back his stockings,
he doesn't find in them a letter of the professor's wife but of the
smart banker's daughter miss Lintner and also with her he starts
a relationship.
In 1731, seventeen years old, he graduates on a thesis titled De jure
et praerogativa comitum Imperii. He returns to the court of Brunswick
where the duke likes to unlearn him his student-like behaviour by the
court-life. Quickly he knows how to adapt himself to his changed
circumstances and soon he looses his heart to the daughter of one of
the chamberlains. A marriage however is not possible, because she is
judged not to be a party for a count von Ranzow and shortly
afterwards she dies under tragic circumstances. He returns to
Helmstedt again, but his love for the professor's wife has vanished.
By a next duel he comes again to difficulties, from which he knows to
withdraw by flight, dressed in the livery of his servant. When shortly
afterwards he makes a trip to the small town of Harbek on the territory
of Brunswick, the gatekeeper asks his name. His return question is:
From which time does one ask foreigners for their name? The gate-keeper
answers: From the time the young count von Ranzow has vanished.
Take care then, sais von Ranzow, because the count is said to
come here today; the government has ordered me to find him. In
this way he knows to escape from this danger. Finally the affair is
concluded with a fine.
On the next trip he meets the daughter of a baron von Spiegel,
promises of marriage are exchanged, but shortly before the marriage she
dies suddenly. The duke then sends him away on a voyage along many
foreign courts, where he also has many strange adventures. Returned he
falls in the arms of the banker's daughter, whose life he has saved,
when she was waylaid. The father goes on resisting the marriage
and anew starts
the wandering. In Paris he obtains an appointment as captain in the
regiment Dauphin, where he could stand it for three months and at that
moment the diary ends. From other sources we know that finally he
marries a 'Fräulein' von Nerlich in Germany.
The remarkable thing is, that these memoirs, which are written very
captivatingly, descend into all the details, with which he describes
all his encounters with his friends and, because these were certainly
daring, that he dedicated them openly to two dukes of Brunswick.
From the dedication, partly in verses, appears that he had self-
knowledge, while he writes:
"D'un âge un peu plus mûr je médite mon sort:
J'aimais des passions le plus bruiant accord.
Dominé par l'Amour, j'aimais à me séduire,
Et malade en santé je mourais de délire:
Mais a la Réflexion dont les fruits viennent tard,
D'un jeune fou peut faire un très sage Vieillard.
Heureux quand, comme VOUS, on est né sans faiblesse,
Et dès son plus tendre âge on aime la Sagesse.
The second remarkable thing is, that from the memoirs of the son
appears, that at all the escapades the then being old Alexander
always tries to intervene as a dignified old man. 'Le vieux comte, mon
pêre', as the son calls him always, distributes wise lessons and
one sees - so to say - the dignified feature shake his head about his
licentious sons.
The question arises then if the sons had knowledge of the fact, that
this old general had been guilty in his youth of hooliganism in many
towns of Europe and that he had been confined in a house of correction.
Unfortunately we do not know. Nor do we know if they knew about the
mystery of his birth, a mystery that even nowadays has nor been solved,
but what we know is that the life of Alexander Leopold Anthon
count of the Holy Roman Empire von Ranzow has been a subject of
amazement for his contemporaries, a life which I have tried by the
language of the archives and papers left behind, to bring a bit nearer
to the public.
Sept. 1980
CCvV/os
William Addams Reitwiesner
wargs@wargs.com