In the eighteenth century, it became the norm for the Archduke of Austria, who was lord of the Netherlands by inheritance, to appoint a diplomat with the rank of minister plenipotentiary to represent his interests at the court of the governor-general of the Netherlands in Brussels. The minister plenipotentiary served as an intermediary between the courts of Vienna and Brussels and as a check on the development of any independent policy in the latter. The post of governor was gradually reduced to a primarily ceremonial function—especially during the tenure of the first Cobenzl—and the minister plenipotentiary became the de facto supreme authority in the Netherlands.^[1]

• 1716 Lothar Joseph Dominik Graf von Königsegg-Rothenfels
• 1716–1724 Hercule-Louis Turinetti
• 1725 Wirich Philipp von Daun (ad interim)
• 1726–1732 Giulio Visconti Borromeo Arese
• 1732–1741 Friedrich August von Harrach-Rohrau^{[lower-alpha 1]}
• 1743–1744 Karl Ferdinand von Königsegg-Erps
• 1744–1746 Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg
• 1748–1749 Károly Batthyány
• 1749–1753 Antoniotto Botta Adorno
• 1753–1770 Johann Karl Philipp von Cobenzl
• 1770–1783 Georg Adam von Starhemberg
• 1783–1787 Ludovico di Belgiojoso
• 1787 Joseph Jacob Murray (ad interim)
• 1787–1789 Ferdinand von Trauttmansdorff
• 1789–1790 Philipp von Cobenzl
• 1790–1791 Florimond de Mercy-Argenteau
• 1791–1794 Franz Georg Karl von Metternich^{[lower-alpha 2]}