Maria Aurora von Spiegel



Maria Aurora von Spiegel, born Fatima (born before 1686 – fl 1733), also referred to as Fatime, Fatima Kariman or Fatima von Kariman, was the Ottoman Turkish mistress of Augustus II the Strong of Poland. 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.

Early life
Maria Aurora was captured by the Imperial army, that took the slaves and property belonging to the Turks after the successful Imperial reconquest of Buda from the Ottoman Empire after the Siege of Buda (1686) during the Great Turkish war. A Swede in Austrian service, baron Alexander Erskin, was given four female slaves as a part of his loot: Raziye (Roosia); Asiye (Eisia); Emine; and Fatma (Fatima). Fatima stated, that she was of Christian heritage but have been enslaved by Ottoman since her childhood and that she had been "married" to "Muhammedan Priest" (referring to a mullah, a Muslim clergyman). This was possibly a euphemism for her having been the concubine of a Mullah.

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 lady's companion to Aurora von Königsmarck. If not before she would have been automatically free upon arrival within Swedish borders, since Sweden had abolished slavery in 1335.

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 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.

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.