William II, Landgrave of Hesse-Wanfried-Rheinfels

William " the Younger " ( II ) of Hesse- Wanfried ( born August 25, 1671 at Langenschwalbach, † April 1, 1731 in Paris, and also buried there ) was a son of the Landgrave Karl von Hessen- Wanfried ( 1649-1711 ) and whose first wife Sophie Magdalene von Salm- Reifferscheid († 1675). He succeeded his father as Landgrave of Hesse - Wanfried and as Landgrave of Hesse and the Rhine - rock ( Hesse - Wanfried Rhine rock). He called himself after 1711, Landgrave of Hesse- Rhine rock.

Life

William the Younger, who was first a canon in Cologne and Strasbourg, described " stunted poor in mind and in bad environment" as a. After the death of his father in 1711 he appeared in Wanfried, where now his younger half brother Christian had taken control. It came to a dispute, the. , Emperor Charles VI was settled. Christian gave up the land county, but received the Residential Palace in Eschwege, which was solved for this purpose in 1713 from its 1667 pledge made ​​to the House of Brunswick- Bevern, and a yearly appanage of 7500 guilders. Wilhelm reigned from 1711 to 1731. He was mostly on the road, often at the Viennese court. The Emperor put him in 1718 in the possession of the castle rock Rhine, where troops of the Landgrave Charles of Hesse -Kassel had three heavy sieges successfully rejected by the French.

Wilhelm let yourself back in 1719 with the approval of the Pope due to the threatened extinction of Hessen- Wanfried to the lay state. The emperor gave the marriage of the 48 -year-old Landgrave with Ernestine Theodora, daughter of the Duke Theodor von Pfalz -Sulzbach Eustace, on September 19, 1719. The marriage remained childless. After William's death, his widow was initially on the Rhine Castle Rock, but was then prioress of the Carmelite convent Neuburg / Donau, where she died on April 5, 1775.

William's younger half brother Christian, who called himself since 1711 Christian von Eschwege, 1731 Landgrave of Hesse - Wanfried and Hessen- Rhein rock.