| Duchy of Guelders Hertogdom Gelre (nl) Herzogtum Geldern (de) |
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| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||
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Coat of arms |
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| Duchy of Guelders with Gelderland, about 1477 | ||||
| Capital | Geldern | |||
| Government | Principality | |||
| Historical era | Middle Ages, Renaissance | |||
| - Gerard I first Count of Guelders |
1096 | |||
| - Raised to duchy | 1339 | |||
| - Held by Jülich | 1393-1423 | |||
| - Acquired by Burgundy | 1473 | |||
| - Lower Quarters to Dutch Republic |
1581 | |||
| - Annexed by France | 1795 | |||
Guelders or Gueldres (Dutch: Gelre, German: Geldern) is the name of a historical county, later duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the Low Countries.
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The duchy was named after the town of Geldern (Gelder) in present-day Germany. Though the present province of Gelderland (English also Guelders) in the Netherlands occupies most of the area, the former duchy also comprised parts of the present Dutch province of Limburg as well as those territories in the present-day German state of North Rhine-Westphalia that were acquired by Prussia in 1713.
Four parts of the duchy deserve some special attention, because they had their own centres, as they were separated by rivers:
spatially separated from the Lower Quarters (Gelderland):
The county emerged about 1096, when Gerard III of Wassenberg was first documented as "Count of Guelders". It was then located on the territory of Lower Lorraine, in the area of Geldern and Roermond, with its main stronghold at Montfort (built 1260). Count Gerard's son Gerard II in 1127 acquired the County of Zutphen in northern Hamaland by marriage. In the 12th and 13th century, Guelders quickly expanded downstream along the sides of the Maas, Rhine, and IJssel rivers and even claimed the succession in the Duchy of Limburg, until it lost the 1288 Battle of Worringen against Berg and Brabant.
Guelders was often at war with its neighbours, not only with Brabant, but also with the County of Holland and the Bishopric of Utrecht. However, its territory did not only grow because of its success in warfare, but it also thrived in times of peace. The biggest part of the Veluwe and the city of Nijmegen for example were given as a collateral to Guelders. On separate occasions the bishop of Utrecht gave the Veluwe and William II, who was count of both Holland and Zeeland and who was elected anti-king of the Holy Roman Empire (1248-1256), gave Nijmegen in use to Guelders in return of a loan. However neither of them were able to repay their debts, so these lands became integral parts of Guelders.
In 1339 Count Reginald II of Guelders was elevated to the rank of a duke by Emperor Louis IV of Wittelsbach. After the line became extinct in 1371, William I of Jülich inherited Guelders and from 1393 onwards held both duchies in personal union. In 1423 Guelders passed to the House of Egmond, who even reached the recognition by Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg. Duke Adolf however, stuck in a fierce inheritance conflict with his father Arnold, soon came under pressure from the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold, who had him captured and imprisoned in 1471. Upon Arnold's death in 1473, Duke Charles added Guelders to his Burgundian Netherlands.
The last independent Duke of Guelders was Adolf's son Charles of Egmond (1492-1538), who, backed by France, expanded his realm further north, to incorporate what is now the Province of Overijssel. He was not just a man of war but also a skilled diplomat and was therefore able to keep his independence. He bequeathed the duchy to Duke William the Rich of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, who however was not able to hold on to it and Emperor Charles V of Habsburg soon moved in. Guelders finally lost its independence, when it was united with the Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands in 1543.
Charles V abdicated in 1556 and decreed that the territories of the Burgundian Circle should be held by the Spanish Crown. When the northern Netherlands revolted against King Philip II of Spain in the Dutch Revolt, the three northern quarters of Gelderland joined the Union of Utrecht and became part of the United Provinces upon the 1581 Act of Abjuration, while only the Upper Quarter remained a part of the Spanish Netherlands.
At the Treaty of Utrecht, ending the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, the Spanish Upper Quarter was again divided between Prussian Guelders (Geldern, Viersen, Horst, Venray), the United Provinces (Venlo, Montfort, Echt), Austria (Roermond, Niederkrüchten, Weert), and the Duchy of Jülich (Erkelenz). In 1795 Guelders was finally conquered and incorporated by the French First Republic, and partitioned between the départements of Roer and Meuse-Inférieure.
The coat of arms of the region evolved during the ages.
William Thatcher, the lead character in the 2001 film A Knight's Tale played by Heath Ledger claimed to be Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein from Gelderland so as to appear to be of noble birth and thus qualify to participate in jousting.
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