| William IV | |
|---|---|
| Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel | |
| Portrait of William IV | |
| Spouse(s) | Sabine of Württemberg |
| Issue | |
| Anna Marie Hedwig Agnes Sofie Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel Sabine Sidonie Christian Elisabeth Christine Juliane |
|
| Titles and styles | |
| The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel | |
| Noble family | House of Hesse-Kassel |
| Father | Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse |
| Mother | Christine of Saxony |
| Born | Kassel 24 June 1532 |
| Died | 25 August 1592 |
William IV of Hesse-Kassel (24 June 1532 – 25 August 1592), also called William the Wise, was the first Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel). He was the founder of the oldest line, which survives to this day.
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William was born at Kassel, the eldest son of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous and Christine of Saxony. After his father's death in 1567, the territory of Hesse was divided between the four sons out of the late landgrave's first marriage and William received the portion around the capital Kassel.
William took a leading part in safeguarding the Lutheran Reformation and was indefatigable in his endeavours to unite the different sections of Protestantism against Catholicism. However, he was reluctant to use military force in this conflict.
As an administrator he displayed rare energy, issuing numerous ordinances, appointing expert officials, and in particular ordering his slender finanances. By a law of primogeniture he secured his land against such testamentary divisions as had diminished his father's estate.
William is most notable for his patronage of the arts and sciences. As a youth he had cultivated close connections with scholars and as a ruler he kept up this connection. William was a pioneer in astronomical research and perhaps owes his most lasting fame to his discoveries in this branch of study. Most of the mechanical contrivances which made Tycho Brahe's instruments so superior to those of his contemporaries were adopted at Kassel about 1584, and from that time the observations made there seem to have been about as accurate as Tycho's; but the resulting longitudes were 6' too great in consequence of the adopted solar parallax of 3'.
The principal fruit of the observations was a catalogue of about a thousand stars, the places of which were determined by the methods usually employed in the 16th century, connecting a fundamental star by means of Venus with the sun, and thus finding its longitude and latitude, while other stars could at any time be referred to the fundamental star. It should be noticed that clocks, on which Tycho depended very little, were used at Kassel for finding the difference of right ascension between Venus and the sun before sunset; Tycho preferred observing the angular distance between the sun and Venus when the latter was visible in the daytime.
The Hessian star catalogue was published in Lucius Barettus's Historia coelestis (Augsburg, 1668), and a number of other observations are to be found in Coeli et siderum in eo errantium observationes Hassiacae (Leiden, 1618), edited by Willebrord Snell. R. Wolf, in his Astronomische Mittheilungen, No. 45 (Vierteljahrsschrift der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zurich, 1878), has given a resume of the manuscripts still preserved at Kassel, which throw much light on the methods adopted in the observations and reductions.
William was married to Sabine of Württemberg, daughter of Christoph, Duke of Württemberg. They had the following children:
In addition William had a few illegitimate children. Most significant and favored among these was Philipp von Cornberg (1553–1616), William's son by Elisabeth Wallenstein. Philipp was ennobled by his father and became the ancestor of the current Barons von Cornberg.
| Preceded by Philip I of Hesse |
Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel 1567–1592 |
Succeeded by Maurice |