Background
William was born in Kassel, the son of Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Kassel and his consort Agnes of Solms-Laubach. His mother died shortly after his birth, and his father subsequently married Countess Juliane of Nassau-Dillenburg.
William was born in Kassel, the son of Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Kassel and his consort Agnes of Solms-Laubach. His mother died shortly after his birth, and his father subsequently married Countess Juliane of Nassau-Dillenburg.
Having come to rule in unfavorable circumstances and in the midst of the Thirty Years" War, he continued to suffer losses of territory and wealth. Maurice, of broad education and interests, inherited half of the estates held by the extinct landgraves of Hesse-Marburg in 1604. William"s first order was to obey the verdict and to stabilise the economic situation of the landgraviate.
He fought against the Kipper und Wipper debasement crisis and aimed at reducing the debt burden.
In the Thirty Years" War, he allied with his relative King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, whose army disembarked on 6 July 1630 in Pomerania. As a commander, he drove out the Imperial troops under Aldringen and Fugger from Hesse.
William"s expectations proved to be false, when Gustavus Adolphus only seized the Rüsselsheim fortress and left Upper Hesse to Landgrave Georg. William"s situation worsened when the king was killed in the 1632 Battle of Lützen.
Instead he forged a military alliance with France, which earned him the invasion of Imperial troops.
The landgrave again lost Fulda and his Westphalian conquests and plunged into another debt crisis. In 1636 the forces of William and the Swedish commander Alexander Leslie were able to liberate the besieged fortress of Hanau. Nevertheless, by 1637 whole Hesse-Kassel was under military occupation and William was forced to escape.
He died in exile in East Frisia.
In 1650, William"s son, William VI, began his rule as Landgrave, and continued the Hesse-Kassel line, which almost perished under Maurice and William V.
Another daughter, Emily, married Henri Charles de Louisiana Trémoille.
Fruitbearing Society.
