Maximilien II de Hénin, 5th Count of Boussu

Contents

Maximilien II de Hénin-Liétard (1580–1625), 5th Count of Boussu, was a holder of high office and military command in the Spanish Netherlands whose tomb is a protected monument.

Life

Maximilien was the son of Jacques de Hénin, Marquess of Veere, and Marie of Hanaert, Baroness of Liedekercke. He inherited the countship of Boussu from his childless cousin Pierre (heir to his paternal uncle, Maximilien de Hénin, 3rd Count of Bossu). Through the marriages of his sisters, he became brother-in-law to Duke Otto Henry of Brunswick-Harburg, Íñigo de Borja, Luis de Velasco y Velasco, 2nd Count of Salazar, and Daniel de Hertaing.[1] The family had a castle in what is now Belgium.[2][3]

Maximilien held office at the court of Archduke Albert, and was also governor of the town and castle of Béthune in the County of Artois (1607–1625),[4] colonel of a Walloon infantry regiment, and captain of a Bande d'ordonnance.[5] Although named a knight of the Golden Fleece, he died before being invested with the collar.[6] He died in Liedekerke Castle on 8 December 1625 and was buried in the family chapel in Boussu. He was survived by his wife, who would die in 1650.[5]

Tomb

On his funerary monument, a sculpted effigy of Hénin in armour and surcoat, wearing the collar of the Golden Fleece, kneels to one side of the Virgin Mary, his wife on the side opposite.[5] Together with the other monuments in the crypt of the seigneurial chapel at Boussu, it is on the list of major heritage of Wallonia.[7]

Titles

  • Count of Boussu
  • Marquess of Veere
  • Baron of Liedekercke and Denderleuwe
  • Viscount of Lombeecque
  • Knight of the Golden Fleece

Descendants

Maximilien de Hénin-Liétard and Alexandrine de Gavre had five children:[1]

  • Eugène
  • Albert-Maximilien, who died without issue at the Siege of Arras (1640)
  • Charles-Florent, who was colonel of an infantry regiment
  • Anne-Marguerite, who in 1632 married the Irish soldier Hugh O'Donnell, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell.[8][2][9]
  • Philippe-Antoine

References

  1. 1.[1.2]François Alexandre Aubert de la Chenaye Desbois, Dictionnaire de la noblesse ... de France 3rd edition, vol. 1 (Paris, 1863), pp. 386-387.
  2. 2.[2.2]O'Donnell 2006, p. 44. fn. 46. "Hugh Albert (1606-1642), married Princess Anne Marguerite of Henin-Lietard (1608-1634). Her family had a beautiful chateau in what is now Belgium... Hugh Albert died on 1st July, 1642 in Barcelona, Spain. He had no issue."
  3. 3.Burke 1866, p. 410. "... m. the dau. of a knight of the Golden Fleece (of a now extinct house in the Low Countries, hardly second at that time to any subject family on the continent), Anna-Margaret, dau. of Maximilian de Henin, Count de Bossut, and a near kinswoman of the last eccentric Duke of Guise."
  4. 4.A. de Loisne, "Les baillis, gouverneurs et grands-baillis de Béthune (1210-1789)", Mémoires de la Commission départementale des monuments historiques du Pas-de-Calais, 2/2 (1900), p. 192.
  5. 5.[5.2][5.3]Lucien Fourez; Pierre Dubuisson (1955). "Deux chapelles uniques en Hainaut: Les chapelles funéraires de Howardries et Boussu". Revue belge d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art. 24: 165–217.
  6. 6.Jean-Baptiste Christyn, Le mausolée de la toison d'or (Amsterdam and Brussels, 1689), p. 361. On Google Books
  7. 7."Mausolée de Maximilien II de Hennin-Liétard et d'Alexandrine-Françoise de Gavre". Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage.
  8. 8.Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society 1866, p. 461. "...towards the year 1635, 'Hugh Albert O'Neill, Count of Tyrone, married, in the Low Countries, Anne de Hennin, eldest daughter of Maximilian de Hennin, Baron of Liederkerke, Viscount of Brussels, Count of Bossut, &c., Knight of the Golden Fleece, who died on the 8th December, 1625, and of Alexandrine Françoise de Gavre, his wife.'"
  9. 9.Brendan Jennings (1941). "The Career of Hugh, Son of Rory O Donnell, Earl of Tirconnel, in the Low Countries, 1607-1642". Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. 30 (118): 219–234. ISSN 0039-3495. JSTOR 30097953.