Kasper Doenhoff

Kaspar Dönhoff (* January 1, 1587; † July 4, 1645 in Warsaw) was Voivode of Dorpat and Sieradz, and Polish Marshal of the Court.

Family

Prince Kaspar Dönhoff came from the Dönhoff family and was a son of Gerhard von Dönhoff ( † after 1602) and of Margaret of Zweiffeln († 1622).

He was since 1615 married to Anna Aleksandra Koniecpolska († 1651). The marriage produced a daughter, Anna, the mother of the Polish King Stanislaus Leszczynski I. and thus grandmother of the French Queen Anna Leszczyńska, and three sons were born, including Zygmunt Ernest Denhoff († 1655).

Kaspar Dönhoff was the progenitor of the imperial princes Dönhoff (Polish Denhoff ), which flourished in Poland, but extinguished in the fourth member in 1745, again in the male line.

Life

Dönhoff was voivode of Dorpat 1627-1634 and (1634-1645) of Sieradz, royal captain, from 1639 Lord Chamberlain of the Queen and Starosta Wieluń, Lauenburg, Radomsko, Bolesław, Sokal, Mallschütz, Sobbowitz and Klonów.

He stood in the favor of King Sigismund III. Vasa, whose close advisor Dönhoff was. For King Władysław IV Vasa, he was to Cecilia Renata of Austria to advertise as an envoy to the emperor as his bride.

Kaspar Dönhoff was together with his brothers Magnus Ernst Dönhoff († 1642) and Gerhard Dönhoff († 1648) on January 11, 1633 in Vienna by Emperor Ferdinand II in the Imperial Count and on August 8, 1637, however, alone, in the course of his successful Brautwebung for his king, lifted into the imperial princes.

Dönhoff was a very wealthy man who also extensive construction projects followed it. First he had the castle rebuilt in its Starostei Bolesław and there create a Italian garden. By 1630 he had built a Baroque residence castle in Kruszyn. Here he had his principal residence. There followed in 1636 the new building in Ujazd what brought him closer to Warsaw. Although he possessed numerous castles, he often lived in a wooden aristocratic country house near the residence of the king in Warsaw. He was buried in the built in his behalf Grabeskappelle his family at the Polish National Shrine of Jasna Góra.