Nassau-Dietz

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Nassau-Dietz coat of arms

Nassau-Dietz was a county which included those parts of the former County of Diez that had fallen to the House of Nassau in 1386 . It was ruled by the Counts of Nassau-Dillenburg until 1606 .

Subsequently, a separate line called Nassau-Dietz was formed through the division of inheritance. This line served the Elder House Nassau- Oranien , also descended from Nassau-Dillenburg , who had provided the heir to the Netherlands since 1581 , as governors in Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. When the Elder Orange Line died out in 1702, the Dietz Line, together with the King of Prussia, inherited their lands and, as the Younger House of Orange, provided the inheritance holders of the Netherlands from 1747 and the kings of the Netherlands from 1814/15 .

The county was occupied by France in 1795 and came to the Nassau-Weilburg line in 1815 , which had ruled the Duchy of Nassau since 1806 . With this she went on in 1868 in the Prussian province of Hessen-Nassau .

history

Sub-rule of Nassau-Dillenburg

Diez Castle , residence of the County of Diez since around 1060 , later of the County of Nassau-Dietz

In 1386 the last Count von Dietz, Gerhard VII, died. The County of Diez fell through his daughter Jutta to his son-in-law, Count Adolf von Nassau-Dillenburg ( House Nassau-Dillenburg , Ottonian Line ). Adolf von Nassau-Dillenburg also died without male descendants. Half of his Dietz inheritance fell to his brother Engelbert von Nassau-Dillenburg , the other half to the Eppstein family . The Lords of Eppstein pledged half of their property to the County of Katzenelnbogen , which fell to the Landgraviate of Hesse in 1479 . In 1530, the Counts of Nassau-Dillenburg acquired a further share of this, and in 1564 they were able to take full possession of Dietz Castle.

Nassau-Dietz line

Wilhelm the Rich was the ruling Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, Siegen, Vianden and Dietz from 1516 to 1559. He had his eldest son Wilhelm “the silent one” , who was originally a Lutheran , raised a Roman Catholic from the age of 11 , for which the Habsburg Emperor Charles V assured in return that he would inherit the large estates of the Nassau-Dillenburg family in the Netherlands was allowed to (which Engelbert I had acquired through marriage in 1403 ), as well as the Principality of Orange in southern France, which a childless cousin of the "Schweigers", Renatus , had inherited in 1530. Renatus died in 1544, so that Wilhelm the Silent became the sovereign Prince of Orange and was sent to the Netherlands for further training. There he founded the Older House of Orange-Nassau. He became governor of the Habsburgs, led the Geusen secession from 1568 and in 1581 became governor of the northern republic of the Seven United Netherlands, which fell from the Habsburgs .

Wilhelm the Rich's successor as Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, Siegen, Vianden and Dietz was his second oldest son, Johann . When he died in 1606, his numerous sons divided the counties. The county of Nassau-Dietz fell to the fifth son, Ernst Casimir , who also served as governor of Friesland , Groningen and Drenthe . In 1631 he also inherited the county of Spiegelberg on the Weser.

Oranienstein Castle in Diez

The counties of Nassau-Dietz and Spiegelberg and the Frisian governorship were then successively taken over by his sons Heinrich Casimir I (1612–1640) and Wilhelm Friedrich . The latter married Princess Albertine Agnes of Orange-Nassau in 1652 from the line of the "Schweigers". As a widow, she had Oranienstein Castle built near Diez in 1672 and left the Diez Castle to the government authorities.

After the death of the Dutch governor and English king Wilhelm III. of Orange in 1702 the line of Wilhelm I, the "Schweigers", expired and the governorship of the Netherlands was suspended. The king had appointed his cousin Johann Wilhelm Friso von Nassau-Dietz († 1711) as the sole heir. In addition to the reign in his small counties Dietz and Spiegelberg, he officiated, like his ancestors, from 1707 as captain general of Friesland and from 1708 as governor of Groningen. However, the King of Prussia , Friedrich I , also claimed the title of Prince of Orange as well as the inheritance of the extensive property in the Netherlands, as a closer male relative of Wilhelm I of Orange, because both Friedrich's mother, Luise Henriette of Oranien , as well as Friedrich's paternal grandmother, Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz , were granddaughters of Wilhelm I. The Peace of Utrecht in 1713 brought the principality of Orange to France and the upper quarters of the Duchy of Geldern to Prussia, and most of the Orange's private fortunes fell to the Prussian king. In 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm I , the soldier king, ceded the castles Huis ten Bosch and Het Loo to Friso's son Wilhelm IV von Nassau-Dietz , who nominally also assumed the title of Prince of Orange , although the principality was now part of France. In 1711 he had inherited Nassau-Hadamar and in 1734 the Principality of Nassau-Siegen , which he united with his "Principality" (Orange) Nassau-Dietz, in 1739 he also inherited Nassau-Dillenburg . From 1747 to 1751 he was then inheritance holder of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. He thus reunited all imperial German and Dutch possessions of the house and was the first to bear the title of Prince of Orange and Nassau . The princes administered the ancestral lands through a German cabinet. Since 1742 there was a central administration in Dillenburg .

All possessions on the left bank of the Rhine were lost to France between 1795 and 1801. The house received as compensation in the course of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, among other things, the Hochstift Fulda , Dortmund , Corvey and other areas as the " Principality of Orange ". In 1806 these areas on the right bank of the Rhine were also lost through the formation of the Rhine Confederation . The County of Nassau-Dietz fell to the Duchy of Nassau and the Grand Duchy of Berg .

In the course of the Wars of Liberation , Prince Wilhelm of Orange got his possessions back in 1813, but in 1815, now as King of the Netherlands, he transferred his German possessions to Prussia and in return received the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , which he ruled in personal union.

In 1813 and finally in the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the principalities of the Orange line, Nassau-Dietz, Nassau-Hadamar and Nassau-Dillenburg , came to the Nassau-Weilburg line , which meant that for the first time since 1255 all German Nassau countries were reunited in one hand, the current one Duchy of Nassau , with the exception of Nassau-Siegen , which came to Prussia. William of Orange now became King William I of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and thus founded today's Dutch royal family . The Nassau-Dietzer line in the Netherlands but died out in the male line with King Wilhelm III. in 1890 and the throne was passed on through the female line. Despite several other female heirs to the throne, the Dutch royal family still carries the name Orange-Nassau today.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg fell after the death of Wilhelm III. 1890 to the Weilburg line, as a house contract provided for the succession of the other line in the event of the male line becoming extinct. The Weilburgers had already lost their Duchy of Nassau to Prussia when it was annexed after the German War in 1866. This last line of the House of Nassau also expired in 1912 with William IV of Luxembourg , whereupon the female succession came there as well.

The archives of the Nassau-Dietz house are now available for use in the Hessian main state archive in Wiesbaden.

family members

literature

  • Alfred Bruns: Nassau. In: Gerhard Taddey (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-80002-0 , p. 861.
  • Gerhard Köbler : Nassau . In: Historical Lexicon of the German States. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 4th edition Munich, 1992 ISBN 3-406-35865-9 p. 401ff.
  • Gerhard Köbler: Nassau-Dillenburg . In: Historical Lexicon of the German States. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 4th edition Munich, 1992 ISBN 3-406-35865-9 pp. 404f.
  • Nassau-Diez and the Netherlands. Dynasty and Orange city of Diez in modern times. Edited by Friedhelm Jürgensmeier in conjunction with Simon Groenveld. Historical commission for Nassau  : Wiesbaden 2012. ISBN 978-3-930221-27-1 .

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