Background
Philipp Ludwig was the eldest son of Count Philipp Moritz of Hanau-Münzenberg and Princess Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau. He was born in Hanau on 26 November 1632, and baptized there on 13 January 1633.
Philipp Ludwig was the eldest son of Count Philipp Moritz of Hanau-Münzenberg and Princess Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau. He was born in Hanau on 26 November 1632, and baptized there on 13 January 1633.
After his death, the Hanau-Münzenberg-Schwarzenfels line inherited Hanau-Münzenberg. In 1634, the political situation in the Thirty Years" War forced Philipp Moritz to flee with his family. He fled via Metz, Châlons, Rouen and Amsterdam to his Orange-Nassau relatives in Delft and The Hague.
Philipp Moritz died in 1638, only 33 years old.
Thus Philipp Moritz III inherited Hanau-Münzenberg at the age of 5. The Reichskammergericht appointed his mother as his sole guardian.
Unlike earlier rulers of Hanau-Münzenberg, she maintained a relaxed relationship with the Hanau-Münzenberg-Schwarzenfels line of the family. Philipp Ludwig III died of the measles at the age of 8, on 12 November 1641 in The Hague.
When Johann Ernst died a year later, Hanau-Münzenberg fell to the Hanau-Lichtenberg line.
Philipp Ludwig III was buried on 18 February 1646 in the family crypt in the Church of Saint Mary in Hanau, together with his mother and his successor. His pewter coffin was stolen in 1812, during the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars. He was reburied in a joint coffin, together with corpses from other coffins that had also been stolen.
He was the last member of the main Hanau-Münzenberg line.