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Duchy of Guelders | |||||||||
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| 1339–1795 | |||||||||
 Coat of arms | |||||||||
.svg) Duchy of Guelders and the County of Zutphen, about 1350 | |||||||||
| Status | Duchy | ||||||||
| Capital | Geldern | ||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||
| Government | Feudal monarchy | ||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages, Renaissance | ||||||||
| 1339 | |||||||||
• County created | 1096 | ||||||||
• Held byJülich | 1393–1423 | ||||||||
• Acquired byBurgundy | 1473 | ||||||||
| 1543 | |||||||||
| 1581 | |||||||||
• Batavian Republic created | 1795 | ||||||||
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TheDuchy of Guelders (Dutch:Gelre;French:Gueldre;German:Geldern) is a historicalduchy, previouslycounty, of theHoly Roman Empire, located in theLow Countries.
The duchy was named after the town ofGeldern (Gelder) in present-dayGermany. Though the present province ofGelderland (English alsoGuelders) in theNetherlands occupies most of the area, the former duchy also comprised parts of the present Dutch province ofLimburg as well as those territories in the present-day Germanstate ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia that were acquired byPrussia in 1713, which included the duchy's capitalGeldern.
Four parts of the duchy had their own centres, as rivers separated them:
spatially separated from the Lower Quarters (Gelderland):
The county emerged about 1096 when the first documented reference toGerard III ofWassenberg as "Count of Guelders" occurred. It was then located on the territory ofLower Lorraine, in the area ofGeldern andRoermond, with its main stronghold atMontfort (built 1260). Count Gerard's sonGerard II in 1127 acquired the County ofZutphen in northernHamaland by marriage. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Guelders quickly expanded downstream along the sides of theMaas,Rhine, andIJssel rivers and even claimed the succession in theDuchy of Limburg, until it lost the 1288Battle of Worringen againstBerg andBrabant.
Guelders was often at war with its neighbours, not only with Brabant but also with theCounty of Holland and theBishopric of Utrecht. However, its territory grew not only because of its success in warfare but also because it thrived in times of peace. For example, the larger part of the Veluwe and the city of Nijmegen were given ascollateral to Guelders by their cash-strapped rulers. On separate occasions, in return for loans from the treasury of Guelders, the bishop of Utrecht granted the taxation and administration of the Veluwe, andWilliam II – Count of both Holland andZeeland, and who was electedanti-king of the Holy Roman Empire (1248–1256) – similarly granted the same rights over Nijmegen; as neither ruler proved able to repay their debts, these lands became integral parts of Guelders.[citation needed]
In 1339, theEmperorLouis IV of Wittelsbach elevated CountReginald II of Guelders (also styled Rainald), of the House of Wassenberg, to the rank ofDuke. After the Wassenberg line became extinct in 1371 following the deaths of Reginald II's childless sonsEdward II (on 24 August, from wounds suffered in theBattle of Baesweiler) andReginald III (on 4 December), the ensuingGuelders War of Succession (1371 to 1379) sawWilliam I of Jülich emerge victorious. William was confirmed in the inheritance of Guelders in 1379, and from 1393 onwards held both duchies inpersonal union (in Guelders as William I, and Jülich as William III).
In 1423, Guelders passed to theHouse of Egmond, which gained recognition of its title from EmperorSigismund of Luxembourg but was unable to escape the political strife and internecine conflict that had so plagued the preceding House of Jülich-Hengebach, and more especially, the pressure brought to bear by the expansionist rulers of theDuchy of Burgundy. The first Egmond Duke,Arnold, suffered the rebellion of his sonAdolf and was imprisoned by the latter in 1465. Adolf, who had enjoyed the support of BurgundianDuke Philip III ("the Good") and of the four major cities of Guelders during his rebellion, was unwilling to strike a compromise with his father when this was demanded by Philip's successor, DukeCharles the Bold. Charles had Duke Adolf captured and imprisoned in 1471 and reinstated Arnold on the throne of the Duchy of Guelders. Charles then bought the reversion (i.e., the right of succession to the throne) from Duke Arnold, who, against the will of the towns and the law of the land, pledged his duchy to Charles for 300,000 Rhenish florins. The bargain was completed in 1472–73. Upon Arnold's death in 1473, Duke Charles added Guelders to the "Low Countries" portion of hisValoisDuchy of Burgundy.
Upon Charles' defeat and death at theBattle of Nancy in January 1477, Duke Adolf was released from prison by theFlemish. Still, he died the same year at the head of a Flemish army besiegingTournai after the States of Guelders had recognized him once more as Duke. Subsequently, Guelders was ruled byHabsburg Holy Roman EmperorMaximilian I, husband of Charles the Bold's daughter and heir,Mary.
The last independent Duke of Guelders was Adolf's sonCharles of Egmond (1467–1538, r. 1492–1538), who was raised at the Burgundian court of Charles the Bold and fought for the House of Habsburg in battles against the armies ofCharles VIII of France until being captured in the Battle of Béthune (1487) during theWar of the Public Weal (also known as theMad War). In 1492, the citizens of Guelders, who had become disenchanted with the rule of Maximilian, ransomed Charles and recognized him as their Duke. Charles, now backed byFrance, fought Maximilian's grandsonCharles of Habsburg (who became Holy Roman Emperor, as Charles V, in 1519) in theGuelders Wars and expanded his realm further north, to incorporate what is now the Province ofOverijssel. He was not simply a man of war but also a skilled diplomat and was, therefore, able to keep his independence. He bequeathed the duchy to DukeWilliam the Rich ofJülich-Cleves-Berg (also known as Wilhelm of Cleves). Following in the footsteps of Charles of Egmond, Duke William formed an alliance with France, an alliance dubiously cemented via hispolitical marriage to French KingFrancis I's nieceJeanne d'Albret (who reportedly had to be whipped into submission to the marriage,[1] and later bodily carried to the altar by theConstable of France,Anne de Montmorency).[2][3] This alliance emboldened William to challenge Emperor Charles V's claim to Guelders, but the French, mightily engaged on multiple fronts as they were in the long struggle to against theHabsburg "encirclement" of France, proved less reliable than the Duke's ambitions required, and he was unable to hold on to the duchy; in 1543, by the terms of theTreaty of Venlo, Duke William conceded the Duchy of Guelders to the Emperor.
Emperor Charles V united Guelders with theSeventeen Provinces of theHabsburg Netherlands by thePragmatic Sanction of 1549, and Guelders thus lost its independence.
Charles abdicated in 1556 and decreed that the territories of theBurgundian Circle should be held by theSpanish Crown. When the Netherlands revolted against KingPhilip II of Spain in theDutch Revolt, the three northern quarters ofGelderland joined theUnion of Utrecht and became part of theUnited Provinces upon the 1581Act of Abjuration, while only the Upper Quarter remained a part of theSpanish Netherlands.
At theTreaty of Utrecht, ending theWar of the Spanish Succession in 1713, theSpanish Upper Quarter was again divided betweenPrussian Guelders (Geldern,Viersen,Horst,Venray), the United Provinces (Venlo,Montfort,Echt),Austria (this part continued as the duchy:Roermond,Niederkrüchten,Weert), and theDuchy of Jülich (Erkelenz). In 1795, Guelders was finally conquered and incorporated by theFrench First Republic and partitioned between the départements ofRoer andMeuse-Inférieure.
The coat of arms of the region changed over time.
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William Thatcher, the lead character in the 2001 filmA Knight's Tale played byHeath Ledger, claimed to be SirUlrich von Liechtenstein fromGelderland to appear to be of noble birth and thus qualify to participate in jousting.
Set in the late 1460s, the main character inRafael Sabatini's 1929 novelThe Romantic Prince is Count Anthony of Guelders, elder son of Duke Arnold and brother to Adolf "since then happily vanished". Sabatini weaves the historical characters and events of the period through the story.
The folk/metalbandHeidevolk, based in Gelderland, composed and performs a range of songs about Gelre/Guelders, among them a contemporary anthem "Het Gelders Volklied".
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1 from 1648 2 until 1648 3 without seat inImperial Diet ? status uncertain Circles est. 1500:Bavarian,Swabian,Upper Rhenish,Lower Rhenish–Westphalian,Franconian,(Lower) Saxon
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