After
law studies in
Padua,
Siena and
Perugia from 1601 to 1603, Trauttmansdorff shortly became
Rittmeister in the
Imperial Army. He started his political career as member of the
Aulic Council under
Rudolf II in 1609. In 1614, he became Obersthofmeister of Empress
Anna of Tyrol. Since the overthrow of the leading imperial counsellor
Melchior Khlesl in 1618 and the coming into power of
Ferdinand II, Trauttmansdorff was
privy councillor and one of the most important diplomats of the new emperor. In 1619, he arranged the alliance between Ferdinand II and
Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria. With Prince
Gabriel Bethlen of
Transylvania, he concluded the
Peace of Nikolsburg in 1621. The emperor made him
Reichsgraf in 1623 and elevated him into the Bohemian nobility in 1628. From 1633 on, Trauttmansdorff was Obersthofmeister and closest advisor to the emperor's son,
Ferdinand III. In 1635, he arranged the
Peace of Prague with the
Electorate of Saxony. With Ferdinand's coronation to emperor in 1637, Maximilian, now the Imperial
Obersthofmeister, became the most powerful person of the imperial court behind the emperor. He was the head of the delegation of the Holy Roman Empire for the
Peace of Westphalia between 1645 and 1647 but was replaced by
Johann Ludwig von Nassau-Hadamar in 1647 when his health deteriorated. In September 1648, he convinced Ferdinand to agree to the peace treaty without involvement of or military support for Spain, thus removing the last barrier on the way to peace. ==Marriage and issue==