Maximilian Ulrich of Kaunitz

Count Maximilian Ulrich von Kaunitz-Rietberg (; 27 March 1679 – 10 September 1746) was an Austrian diplomat and politician who served as governor of Moravia from 1720 until his death. He was the father of the powerful state chancellor of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress and Queen Regnant of Bohemia and Hungary, Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg. Early life Maximilian Ulrich was born in Vienna to a wealthy Moravian noble family as the third son of Count (1655–1705), Baron of Šlapanice and Countess Maria Eleonora von (died 2 December 1706), daughter of Count Adolph of Sternberg, the Supreme Burgrave of Bohemia. He was appointed an imperial chamberlain at a young age, and in 1706, he was made an imperial councillor. Career At least from the summer of 1716, Maximilian Ulrich was active as imperial envoy to various German princely courts. On 21 September 1720, he was named geheimrat, imperial secret councillor. In 1721, he served as imperial ambassador to Rome, witnessing the papal conclave that elected Benedict XIII after the death of Innocent XIII. In the same year he returned to the place of origin of his family, Moravia, becoming its governor. He laid claim to the ancestral lands of his wife, the County of Rietberg, fighting a long and costly legal battle against the princely family of Liechtenstein and the king of Prussia. After he had won the suit in 1718, he changed the name of his family to 'Kaunitz-Rietberg' and was admitted to the . As part of the Rietberg inheritance, he and his descendants also assumed the lordship of Esens, Stederdorf, and Wittmund in East Frisia, despite these lands being under Prussian occupation.