Hesse-Wanfried


The mini-state Hesse-Wanfried existed from about 1700 to 1731. It was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the area of the today's Land of Hesse. Governed by a cadet line of the House of Hesse under the sovereignty of the land of Hesse-Kassel.

History

was Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1592 until 1627 when he abdicated in favour of his son William V, his younger sons receiving apanages which created several cadet lines of the house, of which, with amalgamation, that of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg survived till 1834.
In 1627 Ernest, a younger son of Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, received Rheinfels and lower Katzenelnbogen as his inheritance, and some years later, on the deaths of two of his brothers, Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Eschwege and Herman IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg, he added Eschwege, Rotenburg, Wanfried and other districts to his possessions. Ernest, who was a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, was a great traveller and a voluminous writer. About 1700 his two sons, William and Charles , divided their territories, and founded the families of Hesse-Rotenburg and Hesse-Wanfried. The latter family died out in 1755, when William's grandson, Constantine, reunited the lands except Rheinfels, which had been acquired by Hesse-Kassel in 1735, and ruled them as Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg.

The governing Landgraves of Hesse-Wanfried