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Robert was the first person to call himself Count of Nassau, but the title was not confirmed until 1159, five years after Robert's death. Robert's son Walram I (1154–1198) was the first person to be legally titled Count of Nassau.
- 1093; 930 years ago
- Overview
- Walramian Nassau.
- Ottonian Nassau.
Nassau, historical region of Germany, and the noble family that provided its hereditary rulers for many centuries. The present-day royal heads of the Netherlands and Luxembourg are descended from this family, called the house of Nassau.
The region of Nassau is located in what is now the western part of the Land (state) of Hesse and the Westerwald Kreis (district) of Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany. The Lahn River divides Nassau roughly into two halves: in the south are the Taunus Mountains; in the north lies the Westerwald.
Walram II’s son, Adolf of Nassau, was the German king from 1292 to 1298. Adolf’s descendants, however, partitioned their lands, and by the late 18th century the Walramian inheritance was divided between the Nassau-Weilburg and Nassau-Usingen branches. In 1801 Napoleonic France acquired the Walramians’ lands west of the Rhine; in 1803 the branches o...
Otto I’s descendants also indulged in partitions and subdivisions, and one branch of the family acquired extensive Dutch territories, becoming known as the Nassau-Dillenburg-Breda branch. Upon the death of the last ruler of this branch in 1544, a cousin, William of Nassau (the future William I the Silent, prince of Orange), inherited the branch’s Dutch principality of Orange, and members of this line were henceforth called princes of Orange-Nassau. William the Silent was the founder of the dynasty of hereditary stadholders who were prominent in the Netherlands in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. When William’s direct male line became extinct upon the death of King William III of England in 1702, the Ottonians’ possessions in both the Netherlands and Nassau passed to Count John William Friso of the Ottonian branch of Nassau-Dietz. The Nassau-Dietz branch eventually reunited the Ottonians’ partitioned German territories in the 18th century.
The Ottonian ruler William VI of Orange lost his German possessions to Napoleon in 1806 but was awarded Luxembourg by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 in compensation. William VI also succeeded to the kingdom of the Netherlands as King William I in that year. His descendants (including female descendants) still reign in the Netherlands today with the princely title of Orange-Nassau. When the Ottonian branch became extinct in the male line with the death of William III in 1890, his daughter, Wilhelmina, became queen of the Netherlands while Luxembourg passed to Duke Adolf of Nassau, a member of the Walramian branch of the house of Nassau. The Walramian line is still the ruling house of the grand duchy of Luxembourg.
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In 1255, after the Counts of Nassau acquired the estates of Weilburg, the sons of Count Henry II divided Nassau for the first time. Walram II received the county of Nassau-Weilburg . From 1328 on, his younger brother, Otto I , held the estates north of the Lahn river, namely the County of Nassau-Siegen and Nassau-Dillenburg .
- County
- Nassau
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Agnes of Leiningen. Father. Henry II of Nassau. Mother. Matilda of Guelders and Zutphen. Otto I of Nassau, German: Otto I. von Nassau (born in 1224 [1] and died between 3 May 1289 and 19 March 1290) [2] [3] was Count of Nassau and is the ancestor of the Ottonian branch of the House of Nassau .
- 1224
- Henry II of Nassau
- between 3 May 1289 and 19 March 1290
- Matilda of Guelders and Zutphen
The House of Nassau was created in 1159 when Count Walram of Laurenburg changed his name to Walram of Nassau; his family living in the castle of the same name located in Western Germany until the 15th century. In the 1200's the family split into two branches: one remained as
Over time the Nassaus of Breda were given ever more important offices by the Dukes of Burgundy and then by members of the House of Habsburg who ruled much of the Low Countries. Count Hendrik III of Nassau (1483-1538), for example, held high civil and military offices. He was also involved in the education of the future Emperor Charles V. He married the Burgundian noblewoman Claudia de Chalon ...
son William II. Frederick Henry, prince of Orange, count of Nassau (born Jan. 29, 1584, Delft, Holland—died March 14, 1647, The Hague) was the third hereditary stadtholder (1625–47) of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, or Dutch Republic, the youngest son of William I the Silent and successor to his half-brother Maurice, prince of Orange.
