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- BIOGRAPHY
David was born in 1604, the son of Andreas Ungnad, Freiherr von Sonnegg, and Margarethe von Prag, Freiin von Windhag zu Engelstein.
In 1632 David married Maria Elisabeth Jörger zu Tollet, daughter of Helmhard VIII Jörger zu Tollet, a very wealthy, successful financier, landowner and art collector, and a leading member of the Protestant nobility of Upper Austria. Of the two sons of David and Elisabeth, Helmhard Christof would have progeny. Elisabeth's brother Karl, the last male member of his line of the family, died in 1623. In 1638 Maria Elisabeth brought the Jörger estate of Steyregg to the Ungnad family, as well as Erlach, Lustenfelden and a house in Linz. David further augmented his holdings with the purchases of Rioth (in 1650), the castle of Ennsegg (in 1656), and Spirelberg (in 1681).
After the Protestant defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 David's father had taken his family into exile in Emden, East Frisia, and his estates were confiscated. His father remained there but David returned from exile after the pardon of Protestants in 1634, and both he and his wife converted to Catholicism. After his reacquisition of Ennsegg in 1656, confiscated from his father for his role in the Protestant rebellion against the Habsburgs, David undertook extensive renovations to it.
David came to notice from 1640; on 1 March that year he became an imperial counsellor. On 31 December 1642 he became a chamberlain, and on 6 September 1645 Vice President of the Court Chamber. In 1646 he was raised to a Count of the Empire with the appellation 'von Weissenwolff', and in consequence he joined the College of Swabian Estates.
On 14 January 1648, in the last year of the Thirty Years War, David was appointed to the position of _Erblandhofmeister_ (steward of the hereditary land) of Upper Austria, in succession to Leonhard Helfried, Graf von Meggau. On 1 August that year, as President of the Imperial Court Chamber, he headed the Austrian taxation authority, inheriting the difficult legacy of a bankrupt state treasury which his predecessor in office, Ulrich Ignaz von Kolowrat (1637-1648), was unable to resolve in the debilitating circumstances of the war, and which David also found difficult to overcome. Though the slowness of the bureaucracy and the steep imbalance in state budgets made reforms essential, their time had not yet come.
On 7 July 1653 David was elevated into the Privy Council, and in 1656 he became governor of Upper Austria. In 1657, the year of the death of Emperor Ferdinand III, David resigned from the presidency of the Imperial Court Chamber and was succeeded by Ludwig Graf von Sinzendorf, whose conduct in the office all too soon gave rise to regret over David's resignation. From 1662 David was the ambassador of Emperor Leopold I to the Diet of Regensburg, and in 1668, on the death of Graf Gundobald von Thun, archbishop of Salzburg, David became _Principalcommissarius_, the head of the diplomatic corps of the imperial court. However in 1669 he took his leave and retired again, partly because of his health, but possibly prompted by the fall of Principal Minister Johann Weikhard I, Fürst von Auersperg, and the ascendancy to the leadership of the Cabinet by Václav Eusebius, Fürst von Lobkowicz. In 1671 Carlos II, king of Spain, rewarded him with the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
David died on 6 March 1672, aged 68.
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