Duchy of Münsterberg
Count Johann Weikhard of Auersperg (1615–1677) served as head of the Aulic Council ("Reichshofrat"), as envoy of Emperor Ferdinand III in the negotiations preparing the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, and as a tutor to young King Ferdinand IV. Emperor Ferdinand III elevated him to a hereditary Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1653 and enfeoffed him with the Silesian Duchy of Münsterberg in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown the next year. In 1663 Johann Weikhard received in pawn the lands of the extinct Counts of Tengen ("Thengen"), a Habsburg possession in Further Austria since 1522, and reached Imperial immediacy as "Gefürsteter Graf" with a seat in the Imperial Diet the next year.