This section is from "The American Cyclopaedia", by George Ripley And Charles A. Dana. Also available from Amazon: The New American Cyclopædia. 16 volumes complete..
Veit Ludwig Von, a German scholar, born near Erlangen, Dec. 20, 1626, died in Halle, Dec. 18, 1692. In 1642 his father, Joachim Ludwig von Seckendorf, was executed for attempting to desert from the Swedish army, in which he was a colonel, and the son found a patron in Duke Ernest the Pious of Gotha. Shortly before his death the elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg (the future king Frederick I. of Prussia), to whom he had dedicated his often republished Für-stenstaat, appointed him chancellor of the new university of Halle. The most celebrated of his works, Commentarius Historicus et Apo-logeticus de Lutheranismo (3 vols., Leipsic, 1688-'92), was written in refutation of Maim-bourg's Histoire du Luthéranisme.
Frie-Drich Heinrich, count, a German soldier, nephew of the preceding, born at Königsberg, Fran-conia, July 5, 1673, died at Meuselwitz, near Altenburg, Nov. 23, 1763. In 1695 he entered the English and Dutch service, but afterward joined the imperial army and fought under Prince Eugene against the Turks and in the war of the Spanish succession. He subsequently became a major general in the army of Augustus II. of Poland and Saxony, and in 1713 was the Polish ambassador to the Hague in the conferences which led to the peace of Utrecht. After the fall of Stralsund in 1715 he reëntered the imperial service, in 1719 became count of the empire, and in 1721 Feld-zeugmeister and governor of Leipsic. Five years later he was sent as ambassador to Berlin by the emperor Charles VI., and in October, 1726, concluded the treaty of Wuster-hausen. Subsequently he negotiated the marriage of the future Frederick the Great with the princess Elizabeth, for which the former never forgave him. In the war of the Polish succession he defeated the French at Klausen, Oct. 20, 1735. On the death of Prince Eugene in 1736, he received the command of the army against the Turks. In the campaign of 1737 Seckendorf's intentions were all thwarted by orders from the court of Vienna, and he was recalled and imprisoned for three years in the castle of Gratz. After his release he commanded the troops of the elector Charles Albert of Bavaria (crowned in 1742 as Charles VII. of Germany), with varying success, against Austria, and finally in 1744 recovered Munich for Charles. In April, 1745, he appeared at Füssen in what Carlyle calls "the questionable capacity" of negotiator of a peace with Austria, which caused his reinstatement in his dignities at Vienna, but gave umbrage to Frederick the Great, who had him imprisoned at Magdeburg on some slight pretext, and released after six months on his paying 10,000 thalers.
 
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