In the eighteenth century, it became the norm for the Archduke of Austria, who was lord of the Netherlands by inheritance, to appoint a diplomat with the rank of minister plenipotentiary to represent his interests at the court of the governor-general of the Netherlands in Brussels. The minister plenipotentiary served as an intermediary between the courts of Vienna and Brussels and as a check on the development of any independent policy in the latter. The post of governor was gradually reduced to a primarily ceremonial function—especially during the tenure of the first Cobenzl—and the minister plenipotentiary became the de facto supreme authority in the Netherlands.
1716 Lothar Joseph Dominik Graf von Königsegg-Rothenfels 1716–1724 Hercule-Louis Turinetti 1725 Wirich Philipp von Daun (ad interim) 1726–1732 Giulio Visconti Borromeo Arese 1732–1741 Friedrich August von Harrach-Rohrau 1743–1744 Karl Ferdinand von Königsegg-Erps 1744–1746 Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg 1748–1749 Károly Batthyány 1749–1753 Antoniotto Botta Adorno 1753–1770 Johann Karl Philipp von Cobenzl 1770–1783 Georg Adam von Starhemberg 1783–1787 Ludovico di Belgiojoso 1787 Joseph Jacob Murray (ad interim) 1787–1789 Ferdinand von Trauttmansdorff 1789–1790 Philipp von Cobenzl 1790–1791 Florimond de Mercy-Argenteau 1791–1794 Franz Georg Karl von Metternich
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