Maria Aurora von Spiegel

Maria Aurora von Spiegel, born Fatima[1] (1681 – fl 1733), also referred to as Fatime,[2] Fatima Kariman or Fatima von Kariman,[3] was the Ottoman Turkish mistress of Augustus II the Strong. Fatima was one of the many Turkish captives during the Battle of Buda. She was brought to the royal courts of Europe, including Sweden, Poland, and Saxony, and trained as a lady-in-waiting.

Fatima Kariman

Life

Early life

During the Imperial reconquest of Buda from the Ottoman Empire in 1686, soldiers of the Imperial army took the slaves and property belonging to the Turks. The Swedish baron Alexander Erskin, then in Austrian service, took four women: Raziye (Roosia); Asiye (Eisia); Emine; and Fatma (Fatima). Fatima claimed to have been the wife of a mullah (a Muslim clergyman).

Baron Erskin returned to Sweden with Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, and gave Fatima to Philip's sister, Countess Maria Aurora von Königsmarck. The four women were baptised in Stockholm on 7 November 1686 in the presence of the royal court. Crown Prince Charles and Aurora von Königsmarck stood as Fatima's godparents, and she was christened Maria Aurora after Maria Aurora von Königsmarck. She was taught etiquette and French and became a companion to Aurora von Königsmarck.

Royal mistress

In 1691 she followed her mistress to Saxony and Poland, where Aurora von Königsmarck became the royal mistress of King Augustus. She was often present at the King's visits to Aurora von Königsmarck, and in 1701 she replaced Aurora as the royal mistress. Augustus married her in 1706 to Johann George Spiegel [4] who died in 1715 shortly before arrest at the Festung Sonnenstein.

Augustus acknowledged his children with her, which he did not do with all of his mistresses, and seemed to have been in love with her. He often returned to her between his other relationships. She was the mother by King Augustus of Count Frederick Augustus Rutowsky and Countess Katharina Rutowska (born in 1706), who married Major-General Count Claudius Maria von Bellegarde (born in Piedmont, died in France in 1755), an ambassador to the court of Turin.[5]

Later life

She remained a central character within the royal court after her relationship with Augustus ended, and was good friends with the influential Przebendowska, a relation of the favourite Count Fleming. At the king's death in 1733, she was given an allowance of 8000 thaler in his will.

References
  1. Wilson, Peter (2002), German Armies: War and German Society, 1648-1806, Routledge, p. 86, ISBN 1135370532
  2. Sharp, Tony (2004), Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong, I.B.Tauris, p. 247, ISBN 0857715712
  3. Knöfel, Anne-Simone (2004), Dynastie und Prestige: die Heiratspolitik der Wettiner, Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, p. 420, ISBN 3412203262
  4. Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, 11254 Gouvernement Dresden, Nr. Loc. 14516/30
  5. Nöthige Supplemente zu dem Großen Vollständigen UNIVERSAL LEXICON Aller Wissenschaften und Künste, Welche bishero durch menschlichen Verstand und Witz erfunden und verbessert worden. Dritter Band, Barc-Bod, Leipzig, 1752
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