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- BIOGRAPHY
Otto Heinrich, Graf zu Schwarzenberg, was born on 15 November 1535, the son of Christoph, Herr zu Schwarzenberg zu Weyern, Traubling und Eggenhofen, and his second wife Scholastica Notthafft von Wernberg.
On 10 November 1555 in Munich, Otto Heinrich married Elisabeth von Buchberg, daughter of Jakob von Buchberg and Sibylle von Paulsdorf. They had four children of whom Wolfgang Jakob and Sybilla would have progeny.
In 1562 Otto Heinrich became the chief chamberlain (Landhofmeister) of the duchy of Bavaria and obtained the properties of Schwarzenberg and Winzer. In 1565 he bought at auction the estate and castle of Randeck in Bavaria, which his son sold to Alexius Fugger in 1594. On 21 May 1566 in Augsburg Otto Heinrich was elevated to the status of Count of The Holy Roman Empire.
Elisabeth died in 1570 and on 23 April 1571 Otto Heinrich married Katharina von Frundsberg, widow of Heinrich von Waldburg zu Zeil und Wolfegg, and daughter of Landsknecht leader Kaspar von Frundsberg, Herr zu Mindelheim, and Margareta von Firmian. Their daughter Maria would have progeny, marrying Christoph Fugger, Herr zu Glött, Mickhausen, Stettenfeld und Mattsies.
In 1571 Albrecht V, Herzog von Bayern, appointed Otto Heinrich to be the governor of Baden-Baden and the guardianship of Philipp II, the under age son of Albrecht's brother-in-law Philibert, Markgraf von Baden-Baden, killed in the Battle of Moncontour on 3 October 1569 between the Catholic forces of King Charles IX of France and the Huguenots during the 'Third War' (1568-1570) of the French Wars of Religion.
Emperor Maximilian II appointed him to take over the presidency of the imperial court council and made him lord high steward. As a friend of the arts and sciences, Otto Heinrich was congenial to Maximilian's son Rudolf II, and from 1576 to 1581 under Emperor Rudolf he was head of the imperial privy council _(Reichshofratspräsident)_ and imperial war minister _(Oberstmarshall)_ in Prague. In 1579 he was sent as imperial commissioner to the Peace Congress at Cologne, where the outcomes of the Union of Utrecht, regarding the relations between the Protestant and Catholic provinces of the Netherlands, were brought for further negotiations. However these proved fruitless.
Otto Heinrich's wife Katharina died in 1582, and that year he married Jacqueline de Neuchâtel, daughter of Claude II de Neuchâtel, baron de Gorgier, and Gräfin Ursula von Fürstenberg. Their marriage did not result in progeny.
His unsatisfying professional relations with the imperial court and the large outlays connected with his official position led Otto Heinrich to withdraw from imperial service to rejoin the Bavarian court, where he remained for the rest of his life as lord high steward to Wilhelm V, Herzog von Bayern, the son of Albrecht V.
Otto Heinrich was a cultured man, known to his contemporaries as 'inter viros sui temporis illustres illustrissimus'. A collector of coins, antiques and medallions, he was a friend of the famous Würzburg bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrun (1573-1617). In 1586 Otto Heinrich commissioned an altarpiece by Hans von Aachen, _Empress Helena Discovers and Tests the True Cross_, for his family's funerary chapel in the cemetery of the Franciscan church in Munich. Long believed lost, the painting was rediscovered recently.
In 1588 the Schwarzenburg estates in Franconia came to Otto Heinrich, following the death of Johann, Graf zu Schwarzenberg und Hohenlandsberg, the last member of the senior line of the house of Schwarzenberg. He also negotiated with his close relations the Seinsheims for a family agreement whereby the Schwarzenbergs would add the Seinsheim name to their own, and would acknowledge the families' joint origin, name and arms in all family charters (Erkinger I van Seinsheim (1362-1437) was the first Freiherr zu Schwarzenberg). After his death the negotiations were taken to completion by his son. Otto Heinrich also founded the Schwarzenberg archive for family documents, including those covering his negotiations with the Seinsheims.When he was absent from the archive he always carried its key with him.
Otto Heinrich died on 11 August 1590. His widow Jacqueline de Neuchâtel outlived him by 32 years.
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