Elisabeth of Hesse-Marburg

Biography

Elisabeth was born in Marburg in May 1466 as the eldest daughter of Landgrave Henry III the Rich of Hesse-Marburg and Countess Anne of Katzenelnbogen.

Count Philip the Elder of Katzenelnbogen, Elisabeth's maternal grandfather, had two sons. The eldest son, Count Philip the Younger, was married to Countess Ottilie of Nassau-Siegen, but died already in 1453. The second son, Count Eberhard, died three years later. After becoming a widower in 1471, Philip the Elder remarried in 1474, at the age of 72, to the 32 years old Countess Anne of Nassau-Siegen, a first cousin of his daughter-in-law. The marriage of Philip the Elder and Anne of Nassau-Siegen remained childless, so that upon his death in 1479 the County of Katzenelnbogen was inherited by his daughter Anne and her husband Henry III the Rich of Hesse-Marburg, Elisabeth's parents.

Elisabeth married in Marburg on 11 February 1482 to Count John V of Nassau-Siegen (Breda, 9 November 1455 – Dillenburg or Siegen, 30 July 1516), the youngest brother of her step-grandmother.

Elisabeth's father died in 1483; he was succeeded by his son William III the Younger. The latter stipulated that his sisters Elisabeth and Matilda should be compensated with 50,000 florins. John protested against this on behalf of his wife in 1488. At the time of the marriage John had renounced all claims to Elisabeth's inheritance, but with the exception of her mother's inheritance. William III the Younger died in 1500 without legitimate children. His Landgraviate of Hesse-Marburg was inherited by Landgrave William II the Middle of Hesse-Kassel. Matilda renounced her inheritance, so that her elder sister Elisabeth remained the sole heir to Katzenelnbogen. Indeed, Elisabeth laid claim to all her brother's possessions and John immediately assumed the title Count of Katzenelnbogen. But when the negotiations with William II the Middle of Hesse-Kassel began, he resigned that title. For both Hesse and Nassau, the County of Katzenelnbogen was a desirable inheritance, not only because of its wealth, but also because of its geographical location. The county was situated between the Taunus and the Lahn and was very rich due to the possession of a large number of Rhine tolls between Mainz and the border of the Netherlands. The county consisted of Rheinfels, Sankt Goar, Braubach, Hohenstein, Darmstadt, Zwingenberg, Rüsselsheim and Umstadt, as well as Eppstein, the district of Driedorf and parts of Diez, Hadamar, Ems, Löhnberg, Camberg, Altweilnau and Wehrheim. The last seven possessions were jointly owned with the Counts of Nassau.

Because Elisabeth's brother-in-law Engelbert II of Nassau had no legitimate children, he brought Elisabeth's eldest son Henry to his court in Breda and Brussels in 1499, provided for his further education and appointed him his heir. After the death of his uncle in 1504, Henry succeeded him in all his possessions.

On 24 May 1501, Emperor Maximilian I forbade William II the Middle to violate the County of Katzenelnbogen or to take violent steps against the House of Nassau. John also received some fiefs of Katzenelnbogen from the Duke of Jülich and the Abbey of Prüm. Tensions between Hesse and Nassau increased when William II the Middle took possession of Katzenelnbogen, disregarding the rights of Elisabeth. All of John's attempts to gain his wife's rights were in vain, despite several amicable negotiations. To settle the matter by force against the powerful House of Hesse did not occur to him. Therefore John filed a complaint with the Reichskammergericht. In 1507 the court ruled that half the county should be awarded to Elisabeth. But William II the Middle refused to accept this judgment.

After the death of Elisabeth's husband John in 1516, their sons Henry and William continued Elisabeth's case with increasing vigour. Henry's high position and close personal relationship with Roman King Charles V as an educator, general and advisor gave the Nassaus powerful support in this protracted legal battle. On the other side stood their energetic opponent, the young Landgrave Philip I the Magnanimous of Hesse. He had an advantage because Hesse had gained control of the entire disputed territory, which gave him a strong position over the small County of Nassau-Siegen; in addition, powerful imperial princes, such as Elector Frederick III the Wise of Saxony, were on his side as allies.

In 1520 Charles V referred the dispute from the Reichskammergericht to the Reichshofrat. This seemed to be very favourable for Elisabeth, because Alexander Schweis from Herborn, who was Henryʼs secretary, served as a judge in the latter court. It was probably also due to Henryʼs great influence on Charles V that the case was also discussed at the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1521. But there was no final decision there either. A commission consisting of the Prince bishops Christoph of Augsburg, George of Bamberg and William III of Strasbourg was given the task of re-examining the case, which had been handled by the most important legal scholars of the time. The verdict, to which both parties had unconditionally submitted in advance, was handed down in Tübingen on 9 May 1523. It was favourable to Elisabeth and awarded her almost the entire inheritance.

Shortly before the verdict from Tübingen, Elisabeth died in Cologne on 17 January 1523. In Cologne the Counts of Nassau owned a house ("das achte Haus von der Goltgassenecken nach St. Cunibert hin"), which made the connection between their possessions in the Netherlands and their counties in Germany easier for them. Elisabeth was buried next to her husband in the crypt of St. John's Church in the Franciscan monastery in Siegen, which her husband had founded. In 1836, both were reburied in St. Mary's Church in Siegen.

As Philip of Hesse refused to hand over Katzenelnbogen to Elisabeth's son and heir William, the dispute was not settled until 1557.

Elisabeth and John V depicted on one of the Nassau tapestries?

Around 1531, the son of Elisabeth and John V, Henry III, had a series of eight tapestries with the genealogy of the House of Nassau woven. These tapestries were lost in the 18th century. The design drawings for the tapestries were made by Bernard van Orley. Seven of those drawings have been preserved, only the design drawing for the fifth tapestry, depicting Count John I of Nassau-Siegen and Countess Margaret of the Mark, is missing. The theme of the series was the descent of the House of Nassau, whereby the dynastic significance was paramount. This genealogy was given extra splendour by the fact that, in addition to the direct descent from Count Otto I of Nassau, Roman King Adolf was also included in the series. On each tapestry, a man and woman sitting on horseback are depicted facing each other. The rather unusual composition remains lively due to the alternation in clothing and poses and the position of the horses. The mostly hilly landscape in the background is sometimes interrupted by trees in the foreground. The coats of arms in the top corners and the cartouche with the inscription in between are connected by garlands that stand out sharply against the sky. It is also clear from the designs for the first and last tapestry that the main scenes were surrounded by wide carpet borders. The drawings also show the great care taken with the inscriptions in the cartouches, which are written in the same hand on all seven of the surviving drawings, and with the heraldic details of the coats of arms. With the coats of arms, indications have been written in French about inaccuracies, especially about the mirror-image representation of the male arms. It is known that Henry III paid special attention to this aspect and corresponded with his brother William I about it. The design for the last tapestry in the series differs from the other designs in that it depicts three women instead of one. As the inscription does not mention the identity of the two women in the background, this has given rise to much speculation.

L.J. van der Klooster, curator of the topography department of the Netherlands Institute for Art History, argued that the design drawing for the last tapestry contains a clear mistake. The text in the cartouche indicates that depicted are John V and Elisabeth of Hesse-Marburg, the parents of the commissioner of the tapestries, Henry III. However, the horseman depicted in the drawing wears the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece around his neck. The coat of arms in the corner of the drawing is also decorated with this collar. Now it is remarkable that John V was never a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. So there is a contradiction between text and image. Since the discovery of the drawing in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich in 1904, it has been argued that the text in the inscription is incorrect and that the commissioner himself, Henry III of Nassau and his three wives are depicted in this drawing. The obvious collar of the Golden Fleece, the three female figures, being his wife Mencía de Mendoza and his two predeceased wives, as well as the strong resemblance of both Henry himself and Mencía to other portraits of that couple, indicated that.

Issue

From the marriage of Elisabeth and John the following children were born:

Count Henry III (Siegen, 12 January 1483 – Breda Castle, 14 September 1538), succeeded his uncle Engelbert II in 1504. Married:

on 3 August 1503 to Countess Françoise Louise of Savoy-Vaud (1485 – 17 September 1511);

in La-Fère-sur-Oise on 24 April 1515 to Claudia of Chalon (1498 – Diest, 31 May 1521);

in Burgos on 30 June 1524 to Mencía de Mendoza y Fonseca (Jadraque (?), 1 December 1508 – 4 January 1554), 2nd Marchioness of Cenete since 3 June 1523.

John (Tringenstein Castle, 3 November 1484 – 15 August 1504?).

Ernest (Dillenburg, 9 April 1486 – 12 October 1486).

Count William I the Rich (Dillenburg, 10 April 1487 – Dillenburg Castle, 6 October 1559), succeeded his father in 1516. Married:

in Koblenz on 29 May 1506 to Countess Walburga of Egmont (c. 1489 – 7 March 1529);

in Siegen Castle on 20 September 1531 to Countess Juliane of Stolberg-Wernigerode (Stolberg, 15 February 1506 – Dillenburg, 18 June 1580).

Elisabeth (1488 – Dillenburg, 3 June 1559), married in Siegen in February 1506 to Count John III of Wied (1485 – 18 May 1533).

Mary (Vianden, February 1491 – Siegen, 1547), married in Siegen in February 1506 to Count Jobst I of Holstein-Schauenburg-Pinneberg (1483 – 5 June 1531).