See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.
----------GUELDERLAND: Start--------
GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1079-1473.
Under the House of Nassau.
Acquisition by the Duke of Burgundy.
"The arable extent of Guelderland, its central position, and
the number of its ancient towns, rendered it at all times of
great importance. The men of Zutphen and Arnheim were foremost
among the claimants of civic freedom; and at Tiel and Bommel
industry struck early root, and struggled bravely to maturity
through countless storms of feudal violence and rapine.
Guelderland was constituted a county, or earldom, by Henry
III. [Emperor, A. D. 1079], and bestowed on Otho, count of
Nassau; and thus originated the influence of that celebrated
family in the affairs of the Netherlands. Three centuries
later the province was created a duchy of the empire. Vigour
and ability continued to distinguish the house of Nassau, and
they were destined to become eventually the most popular and
powerful family in the nation. Apart from their influence,
however, Guelderland hardly occupies as important a place in
the general history of the country as Utrecht or Holland." In
1473, when the House of Burgundy had acquired sovereignty over
most of the Netherland states, Charles the Bold availed
himself of a domestic quarrel between the reigning prince of
Guelderland and his heir "to purchase the duchy from the
former for 92,000 crowns of gold. The old duke died before the
pecuniary portion of the bargain was actually completed; and,
the rightful heir being detained in prison, the grasping lord
of Burgundy entered into possession of his purchase, for which
no part of the price was ever paid."
_W. T. McCullagh,
Industrial History of Free Nations,
chapters 8 and 10 (volume 2)._
GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1713.
The Spanish province ceded to Prussia.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
----------GUELDERLAND: End----------
GUELF PARTY, Captains of the.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1358.
GUELF PARTY:
Guelfic origin of the House of Hanover, or Brunswick-Lüneburg.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1714;
also, GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES;
and ESTE, HOUSE OF.
----------GUELFS: Start--------
GUELFS, OR GUELPHS, AND GHIBELLINES:
German origin of these Factions and their feuds.
On the death (A. D. 1125) of Henry V., the last of the
Franconian dynasty of Germanic emperors, Lothaire, Duke of
Saxony, was elected emperor, in rather a tumultuous and
irregular manner. Lothaire, and the Saxons generally, were
embittered in enmity against the house of Franconia, and
against the new family—the Suabiau or Hohenstauffen—which
succeeded by inheritance, through the female line, to the
Franconian claims. It was the object of his reign, moreover,
to pass the imperial crown from his own head to that of his
son-in-law, Henry the Proud. Hence arose a persecution of the
Suabian family, under Lothaire, which stirred deep passions.
Henry the Proud, for whose succession Lothaire labored, but
vainly, united in himself several ancient streams of noble
blood. He "was fourth in descent from Welf [or Guelf], son of
Azon marquis of Este, by Cunegonda, heiress of a distinguished
family, the Welfs of Altorf in Suabia." His ancestor, Welf,
had been invested with the duchy of Bavaria. He himself
represented, by right of his mother, the ancient ducal house
of Saxony; and, by favor of his imperial father-in-law, the
two powerful duchies, Bavaria and Saxony, were both conferred
on him. He also received Hanover and Brunswick as the dowry of
his wife. "On the death of Lothaire in 1138 the partisans of
the house of Suabia made a hasty and irregular election of
Conrad [one of the Hohenstauffen princes], in which the Saxon
faction found itself obliged to acquiesce. The new emperor
availed himself of the jealousy which Henry the Proud's
aggrandizement had excited. Under pretence that two duchies
could not legally be held by the same person, Henry was
summoned to resign one of them, and on his refusal, the diet
pronounced that he had incurred a forfeiture of both. Henry
made but little resistance, and before his death, which
happened soon afterwards, saw himself stripped of all his
hereditary as well as acquired possessions. Upon this occasion
the famous names of Guelf [or Guelph] and Ghibelin were first
heard, which were destined to keep alive the flame of civil
dissension in far distant countries, and after their meaning
had been forgotten. The Guelfs, or Welfs, were, as I have
said, the ancestors of Henry, and the name has become a sort
of patronymic in his family. The word Ghibelin is derived from
Wibelung, a town in Franconia, whence the emperors of that
line are said to have sprung. The house of Suabia were
considered in Germany as representing that of Franconia; as
the Guelfs may, without much impropriety, be deemed to
represent the Saxon line."
_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 5 (volume 2)._
Sir Andrew Halliday, in his "Annals of the House of Hanover,"
traces the genealogy of the Guelfs with great minuteness and
precision—with more minuteness, perhaps, in some remote
particulars, and more precision, than seems consistent with
entire credibility. He carries the line back to Edico, king or
prince of the Heruli, or Rugii, or Scyrii,—the stock from
which came Odoacer, who overturned the Western Roman Empire
and made himself the first king of Italy. Edico, who was
subject to Attila, and the favorite adviser of the king of the
Huns, is thought to have had a son or brother named Guelf or
Welf, who fell in battle with the Ostrogoths. It is to him
that Sir Andrew is disposed to assign the honor of being the
historical chief of the great family of the Guelfs. If not
from this shadowy Guelf, it is from another of like name in
the next generation—a brother of Odoacer—that he sees the
family spring, and the story of its wide-branching and
many-rooted growth, in Friuli, Altdorf, Bavaria, old Saxony,
Brunswick, Hanover,—and thence, more royally than ever, in
England,—is as interesting as a narrative of highly
complicated genealogy can be.
_Sir A. Halliday,
Annals of the House of Hanover._
From the Guelf uncertainly indicated above were descended two
Marquesses of Este, "successively known in German and Italian
story as the first and second of that name. … Azo, the
second Marquess of Este in Italy (born A. D. 995, died 1097),
the head of the Italian (junior) branch of Guelphs [see ESTE],
married Cunigunda, the sole heiress of the German Guelphs of
Altdorf, thus uniting in his family the blood, wealth, and
power of both branches of the old Guelphs, and becoming the
common father of the later German and Italian princes of the
name of Guelph.
{1615}
No wonder, then, that he was elected by the Emperor, Henry
III., as his representative in Italy. … Cunigunda, the first
wife of Azo II., bore him one son, Guelph, who was known in
German history as Guelph VI. He succeeded to his mother's
titles and vast estates on her death, A. D. 1055, and to those
of his father, A. D. 1097. … Henry IV. invested him with the
Duchy of Bavaria, A. D. 1071—a title first assumed 170 years
before (A. D. 900) by his almost mythological ancestor, Henry
of the Golden Chariot." This Guelph VI. was the grandfather of
Henry the Proud, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, referred to
above.
_P. M. Thornton,
The Brunswick Accession,
chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_O. Browning,
Guelfs and Ghibellines._
See, also,
SAXONY: A. D. 1178-1183;
and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268;
and, also, ESTE, HOUSE OF.
GUELFS:
The outcrop of the contention in Italy.
Its beginnings, causes, course and meaning.
See ITALY: A. D. 1215;
and FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.
----------GUELFS: End----------
GUÉLFS. White and Black (Bianchi and Neri).
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300;
and 1301-1313.
GUELPHS OF HANOVER, The Order of the.
"The Hanoverian troops having much distinguished themselves at
the battle of Waterloo, George IV. (then prince regent)
determined to found an order of merit which might, with
especial propriety, be conferred upon such of them as deserved
the distinction, and the 12th of August, 1815, was fixed upon
as the date of its foundation. By the second statute, the
Order is inseparably annexed to the possession of the
Hanoverian crown, by vesting the grand-mastership in the
sovereign of that country for the time being."
_C. R. Dodd,
Manual of Dignities,
part 3._
GUERANDE. Treaty of.
See BRITTANY: A. D. 1341-1365.
GUERNSEY, The Isle of.
See JERSEY AND GUERNSEY.