Karl Johann von Königsmarck

Carl Johann von Königsmarck
Portrait by Martin Mytens
Born	15 May 1659 Nyborg
Died	28 August 1686
Nationality	Sweden

Carl Johann von Königsmarck (1659 – 1686) was a Swedish count of Brandenburgian extraction and a soldier.

Königsmarck was born in Nyborg was born at Stade, as the second son of Count Conrad Christoph von Königsmarck and his wife Countess Maria Christina von Wrangel (1628-1691). He was the grandson of two Field Marshalls; Hermann von Wrangel and Hans Christoff von Königsmarck. His sister Maria Aurora von Königsmarck was later mistress to Augustus II the Strong of Poland, with whom she had the son Maurice de Saxe, the brilliant French military commander. His other sister Amalia Wilhelmina was a noted dilettante artist. His brother Philip Christoph von Königsmarck died under mysterious circumstances after starting an affair with Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the daughter of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover.^[1]

Karl Johann von Königsmarck is alleged to have hired three assassins to kill Thomas Thynne – husband of heiress Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset,^[2] whom Königsmarck had been wooing – on 12 February 1681. The assassins were hanged on 10 March 1682 though their alleged hirer was acquitted, but banished. After leaving England he joined the army of his uncle Otto Wilhelm von Königsmarck in Greece. He died of wounds contracted during the Morean War in Nauplion.

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