Duchy of Saarland
The Duchy of Saarland was a territory created in 1665 on the upper reaches of the Saar . It included the rule Finstingen , the Principality of Lixheim , the rule of Bitche , the county Saarwerden that rule Saaralben that rule Saareck , the Lorraine part of Mark Maursmünster , the rule of Hambach , the rule of free Altdorf and the county Falkenstein . The establishment of the Duchy of Saarland is related to the conflict between France and the Holy Roman Empire as well as the conflict between the succession to the throne in the Duchy of Lorraine . In 1670 the Duchy of Saarland and the Duchy of Lorraine were occupied by the Kingdom of France under King Louis XIV . Thus, it did not come to collect the territory to a pre emperor and empire reichslehnbaren Duchy . In 1699 the area of the Duchy of Saarland fell to the Duchy of Lorraine. The area of the Duchy of Saarland had little in common with the territory of what is now the federal state of Saarland , it extended mainly south of it in what is now the French departments of Moselle and Bas-Rhin . To the northeast it overlapped slightly with parts of the Rhineland-Palatinate south-west Palatinate , as well as a few Saarland communities in the Saarpfalz district that belonged to Bitsch at that time.
Conflict over the ducal throne of Lorraine
Charles IV , who was Duke of Lorraine and Bar from 1625 to 1675, but actually only from 1625 to 1634, 1641 and 1659 to 1670 , was born as the son of the later Duke of Lorraine , Franz II and his wife Christine von Salm . He spent his childhood at the French royal court and grew up with Ludwig XIII, who was a good two years older than him . on. After his return to Lorraine, he announced that he considered himself the heir of Lorraine, in accordance with the will of Duke René II / Renatus II (reign 1473 to 1508), after which only male inheritance was possible. The resulting conflict with his uncle Heinrich II , who wanted to leave the duchy to his daughter Nicole , made Karl leave the country again. He entered the military service of the emperor, for which he fought in the Battle of White Mountain (November 8, 1620).
After long negotiations, Karl finally married his cousin Nicole in 1621 , albeit with the stipulation that he would only receive his ducal power over the Duchy of Lorraine through the connection with his wife. Duke Heinrich II died on July 31, 1624. Karl, however, was not satisfied with his position as Prince Consort. In November 1625, Charles's father Franz claimed the duchy for himself with reference to René's will. The Estates-General of Lorraine accepted his claim, so that on November 21, 1625 Francis became Duke of Lorraine as Francis II .
Five days later he resigned in favor of his son, who as Charles IV ascended the throne of Lorraine and thus ousted his wife Nicole from the government. The marriage between Karl and Nicole remained childless. In 1635, Karl finally separated from Nicole on the grounds that he had no free choice at the wedding and that the sacrament of marriage was therefore invalid. However, the Catholic Church under Pope Urban VIII refused to annul Karl and Nicole's marriage.
Nevertheless, Charles married on April 9, 1637 Béatrix de Cusance (* 1614, † 1663), from whom he separated again after he had been excommunicated from the church . After Nicole's death in Paris on February 2, 1657, Karl married Béatrix per procura (he was imprisoned in Spain at the time) in order to legitimize his children with her, but the couple did not live together afterwards. The children from this second marriage were:
- Joseph (* 1637; † 1638)
- Anne (* 1639; † 1720), ⚭ 1660 with François Marie de Lorraine (* 1624; † 1694)
- Charles Henri / Karl Heinrich of Lorraine (* 1649; † 1723)
After the death of his second wife, Karl entered into a third marriage in 1665, which remained without descendants. Thus, Karl Heinrich von Lorraine was his only, albeit illegitimate, successor. He was therefore out of the question for the succession to the throne in Lorraine.
Conflicts with France
The processes of the change on the Lorraine throne deteriorated the relations between France and Lorraine, since King Louis XIII. was unwilling to accept Karl’s approach. In addition, Karl secretly supported Cardinal Richelieu's opponents . And finally, French policy was geared towards pushing the kingdom's eastern border to the Rhine, which required the acquisition of Lorraine alongside that of Franche-Comté and Alsace . Charles IV was now looking for allies, broke - after he was disappointed in the support of the Electorate of Bavaria and Emperor Ferdinand II (HRR) - with the ultra-Catholic politics of his predecessors, and found his allies in the French Huguenots , England and Savoy . In September 1629, Jean-Baptiste Gaston de Bourbon, duc d'Orléans , the brother of the French king, fled to Lorraine, and married there - without the consent of Louis XIII. - Margarete, Karl's sister.
In the spring of 1631 the King of Sweden , Gustav Adolf , landed with his troops in Germany, whereupon Karl sent an army to support Emperor Ferdinand II . In June 1632, Ludwig XIII. then occupy Lorraine, so that Karl was forced to sign a contract, which he then failed to keep. In September 1633, the French troops invaded Lorraine again, which led Charles IV to abdicate on January 19, 1634 in favor of his brother Nikolaus Franz . Karl joined the imperial troops and fought successfully against the Swedes (victory at the Battle of Nördlingen ) and later against the French.
In 1635 he tried in vain to recapture his duchy, but between 1638 and 1640, despite the lax attitude of his Bavarian and Austrian allies, he won some victories - which led him to re-enter into negotiations with France, which gave him the treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returned his duchy as a French protectorate on April 2, 1641, on condition that he refrain from alliances with Austria. But when he continued to work against Richelieu and covered the Louis' de Bourbon-Condé conspiracy, he should also be arrested after the cardinal had captured the conspirators. In July 1641 he managed to escape by fleeing. He entered the military again and took part, among other things, in the Battle of Tuttlingen in November 1643, in which he defeated the French together with Franz von Mercy and Johann von Werth .
The Peace of Westphalia made the three Lorraine bishoprics (Toul, Metz, Verdun → Trois-Évêchés ) officially subject to the French crown. Charles IV, who was not involved here, and whose negotiations with Cardinal Mazarin failed, resumed the acts of war and even threatened Paris in 1652. However, he gambled away the advantages gained and also his credibility when he then conducted talks with Mazarin and the Fronde des Princes at the same time . Spain accused him of being the cause of the failure of the uprising and had him arrested on January 25, 1654 in Brussels and taken to the Alcázar of Toledo . The intervention and successes of his brother Nikolaus Franz brought him freedom on October 15, 1659 and, in the Treaty of Vincennes of February 28, 1661, even his duchy back.
Foundation of the duchy
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In 1665, Charles IV, with the consent of his brother Nikolaus Franz von Lothringen, who was entitled to succeed , confiscated the areas on the upper reaches of the Saar as well as the county of Saarbrücken as supply territory for his son Karl Heinrich von Lothringen-Vaudémont , who was legally illegitimate and who after his birth was given the title of "Monsieur le Comte de Vaudémont ”. The requisitioned areas included the rule of Finstingen, the principality of Lixheim, the rule of Bitsch, the county of Saar Werden, the rule of Saaralben, the rule of Saareck, the Lorraine part of the Mark Maursmünster, the rule of Hambach, the rule of Feialtdorf and the county of Falkenstein. The new Duchy of Saarland was to be formed under the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire .
French occupation
However, the Kingdom of France occupied the Duchy of Lorraine as early as 1670 and remained there until 1697, as Duke Charles IV refused in 1669 to obey King Louis XIV's request to disband his army. Charles IV had to flee one more time, but again took up the fight against the French in the service of Emperor Leopold I. On August 11, 1675, he fought together with Georg Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Lüneburg against Marshal François de Créquy in the battle of the Konzer Bridge on the Saar . A little later he fell seriously ill and died on September 18 in Allenbach .
Rise in the Duchy of Lorraine
As a result of this political and military turmoil, the Duchy of Saarland did not acquire the status of an imperial duchy before the emperor and the empire. Duke Nikolaus Franz von Lothringen, the brother of Duke Charles IV and thus uncle of Karl Heinrich von Lothringen-Vaudémont, who had meanwhile come to the government of Lorraine, then tried to incorporate the areas of the former Duchy of Saarland into the Duchy of Lorraine. In the Vienna Treaty of April 11, 1699, Karl Heinrich von Lothringen-Vaudémont agreed to the annexation of the areas of the Duchy of Saarland to Lorraine. He was finally resigned in 1707 with the former Saarbrücken lordship Commercy on the Maas .
literature
- Wolfgang Behringer, Gabriele Clemens: History of the Saarland, Munich 2009, p. 46.
- Kurt Hoppstädter, Hans-Walter Herrmann (Hrsg.): Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes, hrsg. from the historical association for the Saar region, Volume 2: From the Frankish conquest to the outbreak of the French Revolution, Saarbrücken 1977, pp. 534-536.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Behringer, Gabriele Clemens: History of the Saarland. Munich 2009, p. 46.
- ↑ Kurt Hoppstädter, Hans-Walter Herrmann (ed.): Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes. Edited by the historical association for the Saar region. Volume 2: From the Frankish conquest to the outbreak of the French Revolution, Saarbrücken 1977, pp. 534–536.