It was Princes of Schwarzenberg who had a Turk's head on their coat of arms in South Bohemia. This family, which split into two lineages in 1802, has been living continuously in our region until today, except for a short break (from 1948 to 1989). The first reference to the family dates back to 1155. The first known ancestors came from the Seinsheim stronghold in Lower Franconia in contemporary Germany. A quarter field of the seal that is divided seven times into four silver and four blue lengthwise stripes commemorates this time. The present name has belonged to the family since 1405, when the ancestor Erkinger bought the Schwarzenberg castle and dominion. After his death in 1437, the family split into the Stefansberg branch and the Hohenlandsberg or Frank branch.
Their coat of arms was further extended in 1566 when John Younger of Schwarzenberg (of the Frank branch) was ennobled and a silver tower was added to the middle of the shield. John gained vast possessions by marrying old Anne Neumann, the owner of the Murau dominion in Austria. His two young sons died, however, and the property passed on to the Hohenlandsberg lineage, namely to John Adolf I (1615 to 1683), who had settled in Bohemia in 1660. At that time, the coat of arms was already adorned with a decapitated Turk's head with a raven pecking its left eye. This coat of arms had been given to Adolf of Schwarzenberg, the grandfather of John Adolf I, in 1598, as a reward for conquering the Raab fortress in Hungary. The symbol of a Turk is clear and the raven represents the name of the fortress because it is called Raabe in German.
John Adolf, who reunited the family into one lineage, did not intend to build a military career as his grandfather had done, rather he chose a career as an official and diplomat. In 1645, he entered the services of the Archduke Leopold William Habsburg. As his first property in Bohemia, he received (so far only as a guarantee) Křivoklát, Nižburk, and Krušovice in 1654, along with the privilege of settling down permanently in the kingdom. Schwarzenberg's services to the archduke included the usual loans, which the Habsburg was unable to repay. For this reason, he turned over his Třeboň dominion to John Adolf I in 1660. It is not true that the Schwarzenbergs gained their property through the confiscations after the Battle of White Mountain, as is sometimes mistakenly maintained. One year later, John Adolf I bought the dominions Hluboká (1661), Mšec (1662), and other houses and lands.
Ferdinand, his very capable son (1652 to 1703), gained other new figures for his coat of arms. Apart from the all the property he got from his father-in-law, he also inherited a county in Sulz, represented on the shield by three red spikes in a silver field, and a landgraviate in Klegau, represented by three gold sheaves in a blue field, which is in the middle of the shield today. In his testament of 1703, Prince Ferdinand established two family fiefs, thereby laying the foundations for a future division of the property into two separate and independent parts. This became an important document for the future of the family.
This division actually occurred in 1802, when brothers Joseph (1769 to 1833) and Charles I Philip (1771 to 1820) founded two family lineages. Primogeniture or the Hluboká-Třeboň-Krumlov branch, as it is sometimes called, lasted until 1950 when JUDr. Adolf of Schwarzenberg (1890 to 1950), the penultimate member of the lineage, died. He had become the head of the family in the difficult time before World War II. Before he could assume his heritage, the Nazis took over Bohemia and Moravia on 15th March 1939 and the prince had to flee abroad. The Gestapo seized all his property in 1940. When the war ended on 8th May 1945, pressure by the Social Democratic Party and the Czechoslovak Communist Party caused the property to be put under national management. The parliament authorised Law No. 143 of the Digest on 10th July 1947, which ordered that all of the property of the Schwarzenberg primogeniture in Czechoslovak territory should be transferred to the government of Bohemia. Jurisdictions were established and the property was divided among the respective government ministries.
At present, Charles VII of Schwarzenberg (1937-) is the representative of the House of Schwarzenberg; both family lineages have joined again in his person. In 1962, he was adopted by JUDr. Henry of Schwarzenberg (1903 to 1965), the brother of Adolf, and thus became his successor and heir.