Hesse-Kassel, Landgraviate of

Hesse is partitioned at the death of German Landgrave Philip of Hesse, also called Philip the Magnanimous, among his four sons.

Hesse-Kassel goes to William IV, who had participated with his brother-in-law Maurice of Saxony in the princely rebellion of 1552 that had liberated his father from his five-year captivity by the Holy Roman emperor Charles V.

Kassel becomes the capital of Hesse-Kassel, which is the largest, most important, and most northerly of the four new Hesse landgraviates.

Darmstadt becomes in 1567 the residence of the ruling family of Hesse-Darmstadt, one of the four successor states to Hesse.

The Book of Concord, published in 1580, contains the three ancient creeds (Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian), the Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Schmalkaldic Articles, Luther's Small and Large Catechism, Melanchton's Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord.

This becomes the official teaching of the Lutheran churches but of these Lutheran symbols only the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism are accepted by all Lutheran churches.

Protestants have continued to debate, among other issues, adiaphorism, the opinion that certain doctrines or practices in morals or religion are matters of indifference because they are neither commanded nor forbidden in the Bible.

After two political conferences in 1558 and 1561 had failed to produce agreement on the effort to heal the divisions in German Lutheranism after Martin Luther's death in 1546 and to keep the Lutheran churches from being absorbed into an all-Protestant union, the Lutheran rulers in Germany entrust the project to several theologians, who produce the Formula of Concord, essentially an interpretation of the Augsburg Confession.

Written primarily by the theologians Jakob Andreä and Martin Chemnitz, and put in final form in 1577, this work, which further defines the Lutheran position in reference to controversies both within and outside the ranks, inaugurates the era of Lutheran orthodoxy.

The Formula attempts to settle the matter of adiaphorism by stating that rites and ceremonies that are matters of religious indifference cannot be imposed during times of controversy.

Landgrave Philip II of Hesse-Rheinfels had married Anna Elisabeth of Palatinate-Simmern in 1569, thereby becoming the son-in-law to the Elector Frederick III, one of the leaders of Calvinism.

His territory is absorbed by his elder brother Wilhelm IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, after Philip dies childless on November 30, 1583.

He is buried in St. Goar, where Wilhelm erects an imposing Renaissance monument.

William IV, Landgrave (or count) of Hesse-Kassel from 1567, is called “the Wise” because of his accomplishments in political economy and the natural sciences.

The partition of the Hessian lands at that time had left William with little basis for a forceful foreign policy.

Domestically, he has sought a compromise between Lutherans and Calvinists.

He is an outstanding organizer and a skilled economist.

The Ökonomische Staat (1585), a territorial survey compiled for him, is a model of administrative statistics.

William also pursues scientific studies and perhaps owes his lasting fame to his research in astronomy.

On friendly terms with the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, he constructs numerous astronomical instruments and calculates many stellar positions.

A coalition of Protestant German states from the Protestant Union or League of Evangelical Union (also known as the Evangelical Union or Union of Auhausen), to defend the rights, lands and person of each member following the establishment, by the Holy Roman Emperor and Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, of Roman Catholicism in Donauwörth in 1607 and after a majority of the Reichstag have decided in 1608 that the renewal of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 should be conditional upon the restoration of all church land appropriated since 1552.

Meeting on May 14, 1608, in Auhausen, near Nördlingen, the Protestant princes of the Palatinate, Anhalt, Neuburg, Württemberg, Baden, Ansbach, Bayreuth, Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Brandenburg, Ulm, Strasbourg and Nürnberg form a military league under the leadership of Frederick IV of the Palatinate.

The Protestant Union is weakened from the start by the non-participation of several powerful Protestant rulers, such as the Elector of Saxony.

The Union is also beset by internal strife between its Lutheran and Calvinist members.

Emperor Rudolf eventually retracts his claim to the throne of Jülich and for a brief time supports the House of Wettin (Duke of Saxony) and their claim to Jülich-Cleves-Berg.

However, the claim made by the House of Wettin is ultimately withdrawn.

The conflict gains momentum when Duke Wolfgang William and Elector John Sigismund establish their respective claims to the throne.

King Henry IV of France suggests that the lands be divided between both Duke William and Elector Sigismund.

The Count of Hesse recommends that both individuals rule Jülich-Cleves-Berg jointly.

Both claimants agree to rule together and they also promise to maintain religious tolerance enshrined in the Dortmund Recess developed on June 10, 1609.

The siege of Jülich ends on September 2, 1610, when the fortress surrenders and Imperial troops withdraw.

The conduct of the Protestant Union in the Jülich dispute and the warlike operations of the Union army in Alsace seems to make a battle between the Catholic League and Union inevitable.

Historically, the Jülich-Cleves War is recognized as a precursor to the Thirty Years' War.

Tilly had not immediately responded to the Swedish invasion, being engaged in what seemed to be more pressing matters in northern Italy.

Gustav's sole ally is the city of Stralsund, and over the ensuing months, the situation has not improved.

While he can claim the support from German princes, these are the “dispossessed” like Mecklenburg and Saxe-Weimar, the expectant like the claimants to Brunswick-Lüneburg, the occupied, like Magdeburg, and the threatened, like Hesse-Kassel.

In terms of real support of money, men, supplies and arms, these alliances meanlittle.

External alliances are little better: Russia had offered duty free grain to be sold in Amsterdam, a scheme that has raised only seventy-eight thousand thalers, and France has hedged its bets.

The difficulty in developing concrete alliances with German states is understandable.

Non-threatened Lutheran princes see the advantage in using the Swedish "menace" to wrest terms from Vienna, rather than commit what amount to acts of treason.

French reticence at entering an alliance is less understandable for, like Sweden, France has been engaged in several decades of fighting, so peace and demobilization offer significant advantages; like Sweden, though, there are significant and concrete gains to be achieved in territory, influence, and prestige, if they are to be on the winning side of the renewal of fighting in northern Europe.

The Imperialists had captured Mantua in early 1631, effectively ending the Mantuan war, and the ensuing peace treaty at Cherasco (February 1631) insured that the large imperial army tied up in northern Italy is now free to expend its energy in the German states.