Born in Paris, the son of Count Werner von der Schulenburg (1679-1755) and Cathrine Margrethe Brockdorff (1698-1775).
In 1742 he arrived in Denmark, and in 1752 was given the title of Kammerjunker. He received his education at Sorø and Leipzig, and in 1763 was appointed Chamberlain and Danish envoy to the Court of Saxony, a position which he held until 1768. In 1776 he became a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog. In 1783 he came into possession of a number of properties in the Duchy of Schleswig and moved to Hamburg.
He married (1781) Johanne Marie de Malleville (d. 1817), the divorced wife of the Danish General Governor in the West Indies, Thomas de Malleville (1739-1798).1
- 1 Main source for this biography is Dansk Biografisk Lexikon (1887-1905), vol. XV, p. 32. Note that
Boswell accompanied Emerich de Vattel to a small party at Schulenburg's in Dresden on October 9, 1764. They played whist and chatted, and Boswell found Schulenburg “a mighty agreeable man”.
Boswell noted that “The Envoy begged pardon for not giving us a formal supper”, but then proceeded to have his servants serve the small company 6-7 excellent dishes.