Joseph Hormayr, Baron zu Hortenburg

Who was Joseph Hormayr, Baron zu Hortenburg?

Joseph Hormayr, Baron zu Hortenburg was an Austrian and German statesman and historian.

He was born at Innsbruck. After studying law in his native town, and attaining the rank of captain in the Tirolese Landwehr, the young man, who had the advantage of being the grandson of Joseph von Hormayr, chancellor of Tirol, obtained a post in the foreign office at Vienna, from which he rose in 1803 to be court secretary and, being a near friend of the Archduke Johann of Austria, director of the secret archives of the state and court for thirteen months. In 1803 he married Therese Anderler von Hohenwald.

During the insurrection of 1809, by which the Tirolese sought to throw off the Bavarian supremacy confirmed by the treaty of Pressburg, Hormayr was the mainstay of the Austrian party, and assumed the administration of everything; but, returning home without the prestige of success, he fell, in spite of the help of the Archduke John, into disfavour both with the emperor Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor and with Prince Metternich, and at length, when in 1813 he tried to stir up a new insurrection in Tirol, he was arrested and imprisoned at Mukachevo.