The family takes its name from the ancestral castle of Wittelsbach in Upper Bavaria. In 1180 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I invested Count Otto of Wittelsbach with the much-reduced duchy of Bavaria Bavaria (bəvâr`ēə), Ger. Bayern, state (1994 pop. 11,600,000), 27,239 sq mi (70,549 sq km), S Germany.
..... Click the link for more information. , of which he had deprived the Guelphic duke, Henry the Lion. In 1214 Otto's son, Otto II, also received the Rhenish Palatinate. After Otto's death (1253) the Wittelsbach possessions were divided between an elder branch, which received the Rhenish Palatinate and W Bavaria, and a younger branch, which received the rest.
The Wittelsbachs reached their zenith under Duke Louis III, of the elder branch, who became Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV Louis IV or Louis the Bavarian, 1287?–1347, Holy Roman emperor (1328–47) and German king (1314–47), duke of Upper Bavaria.
..... Click the link for more information. (reigned 1314–47). Louis IV temporarily (1324–73) attached Brandenburg Brandenburg (brän`dənb
rk), state (1994 est. pop. 2,540,000), c.
..... Click the link for more information. to his dynasty and through his second marriage added Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland. In 1329, Louis IV subdivided the Wittelsbach lands; the elder branch, descended from Louis's brother Rudolf, received the Rhenish and the Upper Palatinate, while the younger branch, descended from Louis's first marriage, received Bavaria proper.
The electoral dignity at first was to alternate between the two branches but was settled permanently on the Palatinate branch by the Golden Bull of 1356. Both branches underwent several subdivisions, but in the early 16th cent. Bavaria was reunited by Duke Albert IV, who introduced succession by primogeniture. (For the subdivisions of the Palatinate branch, which is not treated here in detail, see Palatinate Rhenish or Lower Palatinate (Ger. Rheinpfalz or Niederpfalz), often called simply the Palatinate, is a district (c.2,100 sq mi/5,440 sq km) of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Ger. Rheinland-Pfalz).
..... Click the link for more information. .)
In 1443 Philip the Good of Burgundy seized Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland from Countess Jacqueline, his first cousin. In the 16th and 17th cent. the Bavarian Wittelsbachs championed the Roman Catholic cause while the Palatinate branch were the leading Protestant princes. After the defeat of the elector palatine, known as Frederick the Winter King Frederick the Winter King, 1596–1632, king of Bohemia (1619–20), elector palatine (1610–20) as Frederick V. The Protestant diet of Bohemia deposed the Roman Catholic King Ferdinand (Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II ) and chose Frederick as king.
..... Click the link for more information. of Bohemia, his electoral voice was transferred (1623) to Duke Maximilian I Maximilian I, 1573–1651, elector (1623–51) and duke (1597–1651) of Bavaria, one of the outstanding figures of the Thirty Years War and an ardent supporter of the Counter Reformation.
..... Click the link for more information. of Bavaria, who also received the Upper Palatinate. A new electorate was created in 1648 for Frederick's son, to whom the Rhenish Palatinate was restored.
Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria was chosen (1742) Holy Roman emperor as Charles VII Charles VII, 1697–1745, Holy Roman emperor (1742–45) and, as Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria (1726–45). Having married a daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, he refused to recognize the pragmatic sanction of 1713 by which Holy Roman Emperor
..... Click the link for more information. ; with the death (1777) of his son, Maximilian III, the Bavarian branch of the Wittelsbachs died out, and the Palatinate-Sulzbach line acceded in Bavaria in the person of Elector Charles Theodore, who died in 1799 without issue. He was succeeded by the duke palatine of Zweibrücken, senior member of the Palatinate branch, who thus united all Wittelsbach lands under his sole rule and who in 1806 became king of Bavaria as Maximilian I Maximilian I, 1756–1825, king (1806–25) and elector (1799–1806) of Bavaria as Maximilian IV Joseph. His alliance with French Emperor Napoleon I earned him the royal title and vast territorial increases at the Treaty of Pressburg (1805) and made him
..... Click the link for more information. . His successors as kings of Bavaria were Louis I Louis I, 1786–1868, king of Bavaria (1825–48), son and successor of King Maximilian I. He was chiefly responsible for transforming Munich into one of the handsomest capitals of Europe and for making it a center of the arts.
..... Click the link for more information. , Maximilian II Maximilian II, 1811–64, king of Bavaria (1848–64), son and successor of Louis I . He had liberal tendencies and was a patron of art and learning.
..... Click the link for more information. , Louis II Louis II, 1845–86, king of Bavaria (1864–86), son and successor of King Maximilian II. Much was hoped from the handsome, talented, and liberal young prince at his accession, but his prodigality and eccentricity soon alienated his subjects.
..... Click the link for more information. , Otto I Otto I, 1848–1916, king of Bavaria (1886–1913). Although incurably insane after 1872, he succeeded his brother King Louis II under the regency of his uncle Luitpold (1886–1912) and Luitpold's son Louis (1912–13).
..... Click the link for more information. , and Louis III Louis III, 1845–1921, last king of Bavaria (1913–18). He succeeded (1912) his father, Luitpold , as regent for the insane Otto I but proclaimed himself king in 1913. He was overthrown in the Bavarian revolution of Nov., 1918.
..... Click the link for more information. , who was deposed in 1918.
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, wife of Francis Joseph Francis Joseph or Franz Joseph, 1830–1916, emperor of Austria (1848–1916), king of Hungary (1867–1916), nephew of Ferdinand , who abdicated in his favor.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians, consort of Albert I Albert I, 1875–1934, king of the Belgians (1909–34), nephew and successor of Leopold II . He married (1900) Elizabeth, a Bavarian princess. In World War I his heroic resistance (1914) to the German invasion of Belgium greatly helped the Allied cause.
..... Click the link for more information. , issued from a collateral line of the dynasty, and the Wittelsbachs have intermarried for centuries with all the royal families of Europe. A line of the Palatinate branch (see Zweibrücken Zweibrücken (tsvī'brü`kən), Fr. Deux-Ponts, city (1994 pop.
..... Click the link for more information. ) ruled Sweden from 1654 to 1741. Crown Prince Rupert (d. 1955), son of King Louis III and claimant to the Bavarian throne (the family never renounced their claim), also inherited, through a complicated succession, the claim of the Stuart Stuart or Stewart, royal family that ruled Scotland and England. The Stuart lineage began in a family of hereditary stewards of Scotland, the earliest of whom was Walter (d. 1177), grandson of a Norman adventurer.
..... Click the link for more information. dynasty to the British throne.
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