They spent their life in the former princely states and independent cities of Germany, which ceased to have real independence after the Prussian led German national unification was imposed by Prince Bismarck, in the second half of the nineteenth century.
He first studied with private tutors and then was at University in Germany, afterwards inheriting a large part of the House of Bonn's European commercial fortune, as well as substantial property holdings in three countries.
He was often referred to as "Barouche", because in his earlier years, senior members of the House of Bonn, of his parents generation, and he himself, were habitually driven in a hooded landau or "barouche" (German-"barutsche"), bearing the Arms of The Royal House of Wittelsbach, from The Residenz in Munich, to the neo-classical Palace of Villa Bonn, while on official business from HM King Maximilian II.
He gave advice to HM King Maximilian II on the Austrian encroachments on Venice in the 19th Century, a City which in 1848 had attempted to break free from the grasp of the Habsburgs. With the military assistance of General Garibaldi, Venice was able to join the newly unified Italy in 1866, following the 3rd Independence War.
The House of Bonn's Royal connection, in the role of trusted Royal Advisor and Emissary, was continued in the person of his grandson, Magister Hon. Lieutenant Sir Maximilian Julian William Bonn, CBE, KBE, MA, RNVR, who following his achievement of a Distinction at the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitat, Munich, was sent by his adopted country of England, to Germany, over half a century later, on special commissions from His Majesty The King of England's Government, because of his acknowledged wisdom on the "German Question", being conveyed in a diplomatic Rolls-Royce, bearing the Royal Cypher, and displaying a pennant bearing the 'Lion of Venice' and the heraldic "Swan of Bonn".
Nothing had been seen like it since the Countly retinue of the legendary Konrad Graf (Count) von Bonn, centuries before, a distant collateral of the many branched House of Bonn/Bon/Priuli-Bon, that had first come to history's notice in Venice, where history has left us Palazzo Bon, whose foundations were originally laid, and subsequently half-completed, by Procurator Cavaliere Don Filippo Bon in 1652, but the Palazzo Bon was later purchased (1750) by the Papal dynasty of Rezzonico and renamed Ca' Rezzonico. The 82nd, 83rd, and 94th Doges of Venice were members of the House of Priuli, cousins of the Priuli-Bon dynasty (see Villa Priuli-Bon). From this city the family grew in size and influence, acquiring territories and interests in a steadily northwards and then westwards direction, having first established rival dynastys initially in northern Italy, and then in Austria, Germany, and finally in England 135 years ago; where, interestingly, there have usually only ever been two representatives bearing the name of Bonn, in each of the (at present) five British generations of the family.
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