Aurora of Königsmarck, if you please...

Maria Aurora von Königsmarck was born in Stade on 28 April 1662. She was born into an aristocratic German-Swedish family that had gained European renown and enormous wealth through her grandfather Hans Christoph von Königsmarck’s success in the war for the Swedish crown during the Thirty Years’ War. She herself was highly educated, self-confident and a radiant beauty.

Raised in Agathenburg Manor and Stade, she spent her youth in Hamburg and Stockholm, where she enjoyed an excellent education. Her early literary works established her reputation as an important Baroque poet. At the Dresden court she became the first state mistress of the Elector of Saxony Friedrich August – August the Strong. In 1696, she gave birth in Goslar to their son Moritz, who was later to become France’s most important general in the 18th century. She herself became provostess of the free secular convent of Quedlinburg. In her honour, the Landesfrauenrat Niedersachsen e.V. (State Women’s Council of Lower Saxony) has honoured Agathenburg Manor as a “frauenORT Niedersachen” – a project that marks places in Lower Saxony with a rich history of distinguished women.