Anna Constantia von Brockdorff

Anna Constantia von Brockdorff (17 October 1680 – 31 March 1765), later the Countess of Cosel, was a German lady-in-waiting and noblewoman, and mistress of Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, in 1706–1713.

Anna Constantia was born in Gut Depenau, today part of Stolpe, Holstein, the daughter of the Knight (Ritter) Joachim von Brockdorff (1643–1719) and his wife, Anna Margarethe Marselis (1648-1736), daughter of the rich Hamburg citizen Leonhard Marselis, owner of Gut Depenauborn.

By 1699, Anna Constantia was living openly in Castle Burgscheidungen with the director of the Saxonian Generalakzis Kollegiums, Adolph Magnus, Baron of Hoym, whom she met in Wolfenbüttel.

In 1704, the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony Augustus the Strong met the vivacious Baroness von Hoym and fell in love with her.

Augustus' pious wife, Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, refused to reign alongside her husband at the Catholic, scandalous Polish court, and had effectively exiled herself to the Schloss Pretzsch (Elbe).

The Protestant Electorate of Saxony was determined to turn the King's attention away from Catholic Poland, which he had lost after the defeat at the hands of Sweden's Charles XII in the Great Northern War.

Anna Constantia came to be considered increasingly dangerous to the Polish political interests, especially when it was rumoured that Augustus had written his mistress a secret promise to marry her.

However, the Countess failed to retrieve this important document and was arrested on 22 November 1716 in Halle an der Saale and exchanged for Prussian deserters in Saxony.