Bremen-Verden

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Bremen-Verden, but formally Duchy of Bremen and Principality of Verden (German pronunciation: [ˈfeːɐdn]; German: Herzogtum Bremen und Fürstentum Verden) were two territories (immediate fiefs) of the Holy Roman Empire, which emerged and gained Imperial immediacy in 1180. By their original constitution they were the prince-bishoprics of Bremen and Verden. In 1648 they were secularised, meaning they were transformed into heritable monarchies by constitution. The respective Emperor was to enfeoff a dynast to rule each fief and to hold in his family the inheritable respective title of duke and prince.

The Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden have always been ruled in personal union. Therefore they are colloquially referred to as the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (German: Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden) or short Bremen-Verden. At first the Swedish dynasty was enfeoffed, then followed by the House of Hanover. With the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Bremen-Verden's status as fiefs of imperial immediacy had become void. So formally the duchies turned into sovereign states. But being ruled in personal union by the rulers of the neighboured Kingdom of Hanover, they have de jure been incorporated in real union into the Hanoveran state, thus ending Bremen-Verden's statehood in 1823.

[edit] Territory and Insignia

The territory belonging to the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden covered about the triangular area between the mouths of the rivers Elbe and Weser to the North Sea and today's German federal states of Hamburg and Bremen. This area included about today's Lower Saxon counties (German singular: Kreis) of Cuxhaven (southerly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme, Stade and Verden as well as of the Bremian exclave of the city of Bremerhaven. The city of Bremen and the city of Cuxhaven (a Hamburgian exclave) as well as the Land of Hadeln (a Saxe-Lauenburgian exclave around Otterndorf) were not part of Bremen-Verden, with Hadeln conveyed to Bremen-Verden in 1731. Stade used to be the capital.

Bremen-Verden's insignia combined the coats of arm of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, a black cross on white ground, and those of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen (two crisscrossed keys see Bremen-Verden's seal), with the key being the epithet symbol of Simon Petrus, the saint patron of the former archiepiscopal Cathedral of St. Peter in the city of Bremen. A single diagonal key has also become the symbol of that city (see Coat of arms of Bremen) and of Bremen-Verden's capital Stade, there in upright position.

[edit] History

[edit] How Sweden occupied the prince-bishoprics of Bremen and Verden in 1631 and 1632

At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War the prevailingly Lutheran Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen maintained neutrality, as did most of the territories, quite homogeneously Protestant, as they were, in the Lower Saxon Circle, a fiscal and military subsection of the Holy Roman Empire. Also the neighboured Prince-Bishopric of Verden tried to maintain neutrality, but being part of the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle with its troublesome confrontation between Calvinist, Catholic and Lutheran rulers and their territories, Verden got soon involved in the war.

In 1623 Verden's Chapter, consisting prevailing of Lutheran capitulars, elected Frederick II, Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden to be the ruler. Since he was Lutheran the Holy See denied him the title of bishop.^[1] Frederick II was a son of King Christian IV of Denmark.

So when in 1626 Christian IV, being in personal union Duke of Holstein, i.e. a vassal of the Emperor, joined the anti-imperial war coalition of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and England under James I, that was an act of felony. Christian IV was defeated in the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, on 27 August 1626, by the troops of the Catholic League under Johan 't Serclaes, Count of Tilly. Christian IV and his surviving troops fled to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and took their headquarters in Stade. Administrator John Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, in personal union also Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck, fled to the latter and left the rule in the Prince-Archbishopric to the Chapter and the Estates.

In 1626 Tilly and his Catholic Leaguist troops occupied the prevailingly Lutheran Prince-Bishopric of Verden, which caused a flight of Lutheran clergy. He demanded the Bremian Chapter to allow him to enter the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. The Chapter declared its loyalty to the Emperor and delayed an answer to the request, arguing that it had to consult with the Estates in a Diet first, which would be a lengthy procedure.

Meanwhile Christian IV ordered allied Dutch, English and French troops for his support to land in the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, while extorting from the latter high war contributions to finance his war. The Chapter's pleas for a reduction of the contributions Christian IV commented by arguing once the Leaguists would take over, his extortions will seem little.

In 1627 Christian IV withdrew from the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, in order to fight Wallenstein's invasion of his Duchy of Holstein. Tilly then invaded the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and captured its southern parts. The city of Bremen shut its city gates and entrenched behind its improved fortifications. In 1628 Tilly beleaguered Stade with its remaining garrison of 3,500 Danish and English soldiers. On May 5, 1628 Tilly granted them safe-conduct to England and Denmark and the whole Prince-Archbishopric was in his hands. Now Tilly turned to the city of Bremen, which paid him a ransom of 10,000 rixdollars in order to spare its siege. The city remained unoccupied.

The populations in both prince-bishoprics were subjected to measurements of reCatholicisation within the scope the Counter-Reformation, with Lutheran services suppressed and Lutheran pastors expelled. In July 1630 Tilly and most of the Catholic occupants were withdrawn, since on June 26 Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden had landed with 15,000 soldiers at Peenemünde, opening a new front in the Thirty Years’ War. He had been won by French diplomacy to join a new anti-imperial coalition, soon also joined by the Netherlands.

In February 1631 John Frederick, the exiled Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen conferred with Gustavus II Adolphus and a number of Lower Saxon princes in Leipzig, all of them troubled by the House of Habsburg's growing influence wielded by virtue of the Edict of Restitution in a number of Northern German Lutheran prince-bishoprics. John Frederick speculated to regain the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and therefore in June/July 1631 officially allied himself with Sweden. For the war being John Frederick accepted Swedish supremacy, while Gustavus II Adolphus promised to restitute the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen to its exiled elected Administrator.

In October an Army, newly recruited by John Frederick, started to reconquer the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and - supported by Swedish troops - to capture the neighboured Prince-Bishopric of Verden, de facto dismissing Verden's intermittent Catholic Prince-Bishop Franz Wilhelm, Count of Wartenberg, (ruled 1630–1632) and causing the flight of the Catholic clergy wherever they arrived. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden was then subjected to Swedish military administration.

The reconquest of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, helped by forces from Sweden and from the city of Bremen, was completed by May 10, 1632. John Frederick was back in his office, only to realise what Swedish supremacy meant. The Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen continuously suffered from billeting and alimenting soldiers. The relation between the Estates, who had to maintain administration under Catholic occupation, and the returned Administrator were difficult. The Estates preferred to directly negotiate with the occupants, this time the Swedes.

After John Frederick's death in 1634 Chapter and Estates regarded Frederick's (later Danish Crown Prince) dismissal as coadjutor by Ferdinand II by virtue of the Edict of Restitution illegitimate. But the Swedish occupants had to be persuaded first, to accept Frederick's succession. So Chapter and Estates ruled the Prince-Archbishopric until the conclusion of the negotiations with Sweden. In 1635 he succeeded as Lutheran Administrator Frederick II in the Sees of Bremen and of Verden. But he had to render homage to the minor Queen Christina of Sweden.

In 1635/1636 the Estates and Frederick II agreed with Sweden upon the prince-bishopric's neutrality. But this didn’t last long, because in the Danish-Swedish Torstenson War (1643–45) the Swedes seized de facto rule in both prince-bishoprics. Christian IV of Denmark had to sign the Second Peace of Brömsebro on August 13, 1645, a number of Danish territories, including the two Swedish occupied prince-bishoprics, were ceded into Swedish hands. So Frederick II had to resign as Administrator in both prince-bishoprics. He succeeded his late father on the Danish throne as Frederick III of Denmark in 1648.

With the impending enfeoffment of the military Great Power of Sweden with the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, as under negotiation for the Treaty of Westphalia, the city of Bremen feared to be fall as well under Swedish rule. Therefore the city beseeched an imperial confirmation of its status of Imperial immediacy from 1186 (Gelnhausen Privilege). In 1646 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, granted the Free Imperial City the requested confirmation (Diploma of Linz).

[edit] The Transformation of the prince-bishoprics of Bremen and Verden into Bremen-Verden in 1648

The political entities of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden were transformed by the Peace of Westphalia (1648) into the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden, without changing the territories' status of Imperial immediacy and Imperial Estate (German singular: Reichsstand, plural: Reichsstände). Every Imperial Estate, thus Bremen and Verden separately, was represented in the Diet (German: Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire.

The two neighboured territories could not unite in a real union without finding support by the Emperor and a majority among the Imperial Estates, which never happened. They were parts of two different Imperial Circles. From 1500 on the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and thus its successor Duchy of Bremen belonged to the Saxon Circle (later the Lower Saxon Circle; German: Sächsischer or later Niedersächsischer Kreis), an fiscal and military substructure of the Empire. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden and thus its successor Principality of Verden, on the other hand, belonged to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle (German: Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Kreis, colloquially Westphalian Circle).

The Holy Roman Empire's taxes were collected and armies recruited and financed along the lines of the Imperial Circles. Bremen and Verden sent their representatives to the Circle Diet of their respective Imperial Circle. The Circle Diet decided, how to share the burden of the taxes to be levied among the member territories. Thus Bremen and Verden even conflicted on the border between each other – i.e. on who may levy taxes where – which were not solved, even though the two fiefs were ruled in personal union by Swedes.^[2]

Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, at first enfeoffed the Queen regnant Christina of Sweden and her legal heirs with the duchy and the principality, as Sweden's prey from its participation in the Thirty Years' War. Bremen-Verden provided Sweden a strategically advantage, because it would participate by them in recruiting and financing armies in two Imperial Circles already covering all of the Northern and North Western parts of the Holy Roman Empire, with Swedish Hither Pomerania, member in the Upper Saxon Circle, covering the Empire's North East.

[edit] Bremen-Verden in personal union with Sweden (1648–1712) and under Danish occupation (1712–15)

Herzogtum Bremen und Fürstentum Verden (de) Hertigdömet Bremen och Furstendömet Verden (sv) Duchy of Bremen and Principality of Verden State of the Holy Roman Empire and fief of the Swedish Crown ←   ← 1648–1719 →   → Flag of Sweden Capital Stade, Verden Government Principality Historical era Middle Ages  - Ceded to Sweden by     Peace of Westphalia   May 15, 1648 1648  - First Bremian War 1654  - Second Bremian War 1666  - Treaty of Nijmegen 1679  - Seized by Denmark-Norway 1712  - Ceded to Hanover by     Treaty of Stockholm   November 9, 1719 1719

The Swedes installed a new authority, Bremen-Verden's General Government (German: Brem- und verdensches Generalgouvernement), and chose Stade to be the new seat of government, with Bremervörde being the former capital. The Swedish takeover in 1648 became a milestone for Bremen-Verden's interior constitution. Bremen-Verden turned from two elective monarchies into a hereditary double monarchy, with a personal rule of the prince-(arch)bishop or administrator exchanged for a vicegerent government bound by Swedish instructions. The lax administrative structures were replaced with strictly hierarchic authorities with fixed competences. The co-rule of the Estates was restricted to their mere say. Bremen and Verden declined from independent territories of imperial immediacy to a collectively governed dominion of a European great power with all the pertaining restrictions and opportunities.^[3]

For her new fief, the Duchy of Bremen, the Queen regnant Christina of Sweden (ruled 1644–1654), from 1648 on simultaneously Duchess of Bremen and Princess of Verden, was strictly after annexing the Free Imperial City of Bremen for it would be an important taxpayer. Earlier the city of Bremen had de facto participated in the Diets of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. The latter's successor state, the Swedish Duchy of Bremen, tried to regain the city, arguing the Treaty of Westphalia named the city of Bremen as part of the to be established Duchy.

Christina of Sweden, in personal union Duchess of Bremen and Princess of Verden installed in the two latter functions her residence in the former monastery of Zeven. She abolished witch-burning in Bremen-Verden. In 1650 Charles Gustav, Hereditary Duke of the Palatinate of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg, since 1649 declared and 1650 recognised heir to the Swedish throne and thereby simultaneously to Bremen-Verden's dukedom, came to Stade for interlocutions of unknown content. In 1650 the Lutheran clergy was subjected to a consistory, the new leading body after there was no Prince-Archbishop or Prince-Bishop anymore.

Bederkesa Castle, since 1381 stronghold of the City of Bremen's possessions within Swedish Bremen-Verden, in 1654 ceded to the latter by the Recess of Stade.

Bremen-Verden's Swedish government tried to militarily defeat the Free Imperial City of Bremen, provoking two wars. In 1381 the city of Bremen had captured de facto rule in an area around Bederkesa and westwards thereof up to the lower Weser stream near Lehe. Early in 1653 Bremen-Verden's Swedish troops captured Lehe by violence. In February 1654 the city of Bremen achieved, that Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, granted it a seat and the vote in the Holy Roman Empire's Diet, thus accepting the city’s status as Free Imperial City of Bremen.

Ferdinand III ordered his vassal Duchess Christina of Bremen (ruled 1648 to June 1654), in personal union Queen regnant of Sweden to compensate the city for the damages caused and to restitute Lehe. When in March 1654 the city started to recruit soldiers in the area of Bederkesa, in order to prepare for further arbitrary acts by Swedish Bremen-Verden, the latter's Governor General, Hans Christoffer von Königsmarck enacted the First Bremian War (March to July 1654), arguing to act in self-defence. The Free Imperial City of Bremen had meanwhile urged Ferdinand III for support, who in July 1654 ordered his vassal Duke Charles Gustav of Bremen, in personal union king Charles X Gustav of Sweden, who had succeeded Christina of Bremen after her abdication, to cease the conflict, which resulted in the Recess of Stade (November 1654). This treaty left the main issue, accepting the city of Bremen's imperial immediacy, unresolved. But the city agreed to pay tribute and levy taxes in favour of and cede its possessions around Bederkesa and Lehe to Swedish Bremen-Verden.

Sweden and Swedish Bremen-Verden protested sharply, when in December 1660 the city council of Bremen rendered homage as Free Imperial City of Bremen to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1663 the city gained seat and vote in the Imperial Diet, sharply protested by the representatives of the Swedish Duchy of Bremen and Principality of Verden therein. In March 1664 the Swedish Diet came out in favour of waging war on the Free Imperial City of Bremen. Right after Leopold I, busy with wars against the Ottoman Empire, had enfeoffed the minor King Charles XI of Sweden with Bremen-Verden, and with the neighboured Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle being paralysed by succession quarrels and France being not opposed, Sweden started from its Bremen-Verden the Second Bremian War (1665–66).

The siege of the city by the Swedes under Carl Gustaf Wrangel brought Brandenburg-Prussia, Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle, Denmark, Leopold I and the Netherlands to the scene, all in favour of the city, with Brandenburgian, Brunswickian, Danish and Dutch troops at Bremen-Verden's borders ready to invade. So Sweden had to sign on 15 November 1666 the Treaty of Habenhausen, obliging it to destroy the fortresses built close to Bremen and banning Bremen from sending its representative to the Diet of the Lower Saxon Circle. From Bremen-Verden no further Swedish attempts to violently capture the city sprang out. Asked in 1700 what to do by Charles XII of Sweden, Bremen-Verden's General Government recommended to concede Bremen's status as a Free imperial City.

Bremervörde under Danish attack in 1657.

Following the Treaty of Roskilde in 1656 Denmark lost Scania and Blekinge to Sweden. A Danish attempt to conquer in return Swedish Bremen-Verden failed in 1657/1658. But the Danish threat to Swedish Bremen-Verden turned more virulent in 1667. In that year the local branch of the House of Oldenburg ruling in the County of Oldenburg, adjacent to Bremen-Verden's western border, died out with Anton Günther, Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, and Christian Albert, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp inherited the County, but ceded it to his father-in-law Frederick III, King of Denmark and Norway,^[4] 1635 to 1645 Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden (titled Frederick II of Bremen) until he had been expelled by the Swedish occupants in 1645.

So Danish ruled territories clung around Bremen-Verden at its northern and western border. Both powers entered into a dangerous competition for the exclusive opportunity to levy the lucrative tolls from ships heading for Hamburg and Bremen, with the former at that time being a ducal Bremian and the latter a comital Oldenburgian privilege.

After a stay in Hamburg (1666–1668) with the administrators of her Swedish estates, Diego Texeira de Sampayo and his son Manuel Teixeira, in order to reorganise her revenues, in 1668 Christina of Sweden (after her Catholic conversion in 1655 Christina Alexandra), stopped by in Stade on her way home to Rome.

The rise of Swedish centralisation and absolutism found its way partially into Bremen-Verden's practise. Bremen-Verden wasn't mainstreamed as to its jurisdiction and its military system, but the latter strictly subjected to Stockholms generalty. Especially in jurisdiction Bremen-Verden's Estates maintained their stake. But Bremen-Verden's tax-levying department, almost entirely manned with Swedes and using Swedish as administrative language, was directly subordinated to the finance ministry in Stockholm.

From 1675 to 1676 Bremen-Verden was captured and then occupied by Brandenburg-Prussian and Danish troops in the course of the Swedish–Brandenburg War and the Scanian War. Under French influence the Brandenburg-Prussian and Danish occupants withdrew according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1679) and the favourable Treaty of Nijmegen. By the latter Ferdinand II, Baron of Fürstenberg, the Prince-Bishop of Münster, granted Sweden a loan amounting to 100,000 rixdollars, for which in return Swedish Bremen-Verden had to pawn its exclave of the town of Wildeshausen and the pertaining adjacence to the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. In the 1690s the usual practise, that tax laws had a certain maturity, was abolished, so that the Swedish and Bremen-Verden's Estates had no chance any more to demand any concessions in return for a renewal of tax laws.

Like in Sweden proper the constitutional and administrative bodies in the Swedish dominions gradually lost de facto importance due to ever growing centralisation. Bremen-Verden's Estates lost more and more influence, they less and less often convened. After 1692 the Estates' say had almost vanished.^[5] This led to considerable unease among the Estates, so that in May 1694 reprensentatives of the local Swedish general government and the Estates met at the former monastery of Zeven to confer on the status of the Duchies.

In 1712 in the course of the Second or Great Northern War (1700–1721) against the Swedish supremacy in the Baltic Denmark occupied Swedish Bremen-Verden.

[edit] Bremen-Verden in personal union with Great Britain and Hanover (1715–1803)

In 1715 Frederick IV of Denmark, still fighting in the Great Northern War, gained with George I Louis, British king and Hanoveran prince-elector, a new ally in the anti-Swedish coalition. For George Louis's aid Denmark sold to him Swedish Bremen-Verden, which it kept under occupation since 1712. So the Prince-Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg (or, colloquially called after its capital Electorate of Hanover; German: Kurfürstentum Braunschweig und Lüneburg, or Kurhannover) took de facto possession of Bremen-Verden and stipulated in the Treaty of Stockholm (1719), settling the war with Sweden, to compensate the latter by 1 million rixdollars.

Sketch map of the Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg (alias Electorate of Hanover), c. 1720, and its neighbouring territories such as the Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel (alias Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel), and the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück. George I Louis acquired Saxe-Lauenburg and Bremen-Verden for his electorate.

In 1728 Emperor Charles VI enfeoffed George II Augustus, who in 1727 had succeeded his father George Louis, with the reverted fief of Saxe-Lauenburg. By a redeployment of Hanoveran territories in 1731 Bremen-Verden was conveyed the administration of the neighboured Land of Hadeln (at the Northern tip of Bremen-Verden), since 1180 an exclave, first of the younger Duchy of Saxony, from 1296 on of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, one of the former's successors. It took George II Augustus until 1733 to get Charles VI to also enfeoff him with the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden.

At both feoffments George II Augustus swore that he would respect the existing privileges and constitutions of the Estates in Bremen-Verden and of Hadeln, thus confirming 400-year-old traditions of Estate participation in government. Being a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and represented in its Diet by virtue of his Electorate of Hanover, George II Augustus didn’t bother about Bremen-Verden's status of imperial estate. Since Bremen-Verden had turned Hanoveran it never again sent its own representatives to a Diet.

In 1730 Bremen-Verden's government was reorganised and retitled as Royal British and Electoral Brunswick-Lunenburgian Privy Council for Governing the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, which colloquially turned into Royal Government.^[6] Stade remained the capital. In Hanover, the electoral capital, the Privy Council of Hanover (electoral government) installed a new ministry in charge of the Imperial Estates ruled in personal union by the electors, it was called the Department of Bremen-Verden, Hadeln, Lauenburg and Bentheim.

Contemporary map of Bremen-Verden (ca. 1750), including Hadeln, but also the city of Bremen and Hamburg's exclave of Ritzebüttel, de facto and legally no part of Bremen-Verden.

In the course of the Anglo-French and Indian War (1754–63) on North American colonies Britain feared a French invasion in Hanover. Thus George II Augustus formed an alliance with his Brandenburg-Prussian cousin Frederick II,the Great combining the North American conflict with the Austro–Brandenburg-Prussian Third Silesian or Seven Years’ War (1756–63). In summer 1757 the French invaders defeated George II Augustus' son William Duke of Cumberland, leading the Anglo-Hanoveran army, and drove him and his army into remote Bremen-Verden, where in the former monastery of Zeven he had to capitulate on September 18 (Convention of Kloster-Zeven). But George II Augustus denied his recognition of the convention. In the following year the British army, supported by troops from Brandenburg-Prussia, Hesse-Kassel and the Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg expelled again the occupants.

Bremen-Verden remained unaffected for the rest of the war and after its end peace prevailed until the French Revolutionary Wars started. The War of the First Coalition against France (1793–97) with Great Britain-Hanover and other war allies forming the coalition, didn't affect Bremen-Verden's territory, since the first French Republic was fighting on several fronts, even on its own territory. But also in Bremen-Verden men were drafted in order to recruit the 16,000 Hanoveran soldiers fighting in the Low Countries under British command against France. In 1795 the Holy Roman Empire declared its neutrality, comprising Hanover, and a peace treaty with France was under negotiation until it failed in 1799.

By this time the War of the Second Coalition against France (1799–1802) started and Napoléon Bonaparte urged Brandenburg-Prussia to occupy Hanover. In the Treaty of Basel (1795) Brandenburg-Prussia and France had stipulated, Brandenburg-Prussia would ensure the Holy Roman Empire's neutrality in all the latter’s territories north the demarcation line of the river Main, including Hanover. To this end also Hanover had to provide troops for the so-called demarcation army maintaining the armed neutrality. In 1801 24,000 Brandenburg-Prussian soldiers invaded surprising Hanover, which surrendered without a fight.

In April 1801 Brandenburg-Prussian troops arrived in Bremen-Verden's capital Stade and stayed there until October of the same year. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first ignored Brandenburg-Prussia's hostility, but when Brandenburg-Prussia joined the pro-French coalition of armed 'neutral' powers such as Denmark-Norway and Russia, Britain started to capture Brandenburg-Prussian sea vessels. After the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) the coalition fell apart and Brandenburg-Prussia withdrew its troops.

[edit] The Duchies of Bremen and Verden in the Napoléonic wars (1803–13)

After Britain - without any ally - had declared war on France (May 18, 1803), French troops invaded British Hanover on May 26 and installed - among others - two occupation companies in Bremen-Verden's capital Stade on June 18. According to the Convention of Artlenburg (July 5, 1803), confirming the military defeat of Hanover, the Hanoveran army was disarmed and its horses and ammunitions were handed over to the French. The Privy Council of Hanover, with minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer holding up the Hanoveran stake, fled to the trans-Elbian Hanoveran territory of Saxe-Lauenburg. In the summer 1803 the French occupants raised their first war contribution with 21,165 rixdollars alone levied in Bremen-Verden. In 1803 the Duchy of Bremen had 180,000 inhabitants and an area of 5,325.4 square kilometres, the Principality of Verden 1,359.7 square kilometres and 20,000 inhabitants (1806), while Hadeln comprised 311.6 square kilometres.

In autumn 1805 at the beginning of the War of the Third Coalition against France (1805–1806) the French occupational troops left Hanover in a campaign against Austria. British, Swedish and Russian coalition forces captured Hanover, including Bremen-Verden. In December the Empire of the French, since 1804 France’s new form of government, ceded Hanover, which it didn’t hold anymore, to Brandenburg-Prussia, which captured it early in 1806. But when the Kingdom of Prussia^[7], after it turned against France, was defeated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (November 11, 1806), France recaptured Hanover, including Bremen-Verden.

In 1807 Bremen-Verden was incorporated into the ephemeric Kingdom of Westphalia, only to be annexed by the Empire of the French in 1810, forming the arrondissement Stade in the département Bouches-de-l'Elbe and several cantons in the département Bouches-du-Weser.^[8]

[edit] From Restitution to the end of Bremen-Verden's statehood by incorporation into Hanover in 1823

In 1813 the Duchies of Bremen and Verden were restored to the Electorate of Hanover, which transformed into the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814. Even though Bremen-Verden's status as a territory of imperial immediacy had become void with the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchies were not right away incorporated in real union into the Hanoveran state. Since the Hanoveran monarchs had moved to London, Hanover had become a state of very conservative and backwarded rule, with a local government recruited from local aristocrats adding up much to the preservation of outdated structures. The real union with Hanover only followed in 1823, when an administrative reform united Bremen-Verden and Hadeln to form the High-Bailiwick of Stade, administered according to unitarian modern standards, thereby doing away with various traditional Bremian government forms.

For the further history see Stade Region (1823–1977), which emerged by the establishment of the High-Bailiwick of Stade in 1823, comprising the territories of the former Duchies of Bremen and Verden and the Land of Hadeln.

[edit] Dukes of Bremen and Princes of Verden (1648–1823)

House of Vasa:

• 1648–54 Christina of Sweden (*1626–1689*)

House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken:

• 1654–60 Charles X Gustav of Sweden (*1622–1660*)
• 1660–97 Charles XI of Sweden (*1655–1697*), enfeoffed by the Emperor in 1664
• 1697–1718 Charles XII of Sweden (*1682–1718*)
• 1718–19 Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (*1688–1741*), only by claim, with Bremen-Verden ceded by its Danish occupants to Hanover in 1715, never enfeoffed by the Emperor

House of Hanover:

• 1715–27 George I of Great Britain (*1660–1727*), only by claim, never enfeoffed by the Emperor
• 1727–60 George II of Great Britain (*1683–1760*), enfeoffed by the Emperor in 1733
• 1760–1820 George III of the United Kingdom (*1738–1820*), with de facto dispossession from 1803–1813
• 1820–23 George IV of the United Kingdom (*1762–1830*), only pro forma, the title had turned void and the Duchies were deleted as political entities in 1823.

[edit] Heads of Bremen-Verden's government (1648–1823)

[edit] Governors-General under Swedish Rule (1646/1648–1712)

• 1646–63 Hans Christoffer Königsmarck (*1600–1663*)
• 1663–66 Gustaf Evertsson Horn (*1614–1666*)
• 1668–93 Henrik Horn (*1618–1693*), de facto interrupted 1676–1679 by Brandenburg-Prussian and Danish occupation in the course of the Scanian War
• 1693–1693 Erik Dahlbergh (*1625–1703*)
• vacancy
• 1696–98 Jürgen Mellin (*1633–1713*)
• 1698–1710 Nils Carlsson Gyllenstierna af Fogelvik (*1648–1720*)
• 1711–12 Mauritz von Vellingk (*1651–1727*)
• vacancy due to Danish occupation

[edit] Presidents of the government under Hanoveran Rule (1715–1807, 1813–1823)

• 1715–16 Cord Plato von Schloen, called Gehle (*1661–1723*)
• 1716–30 Johann Friedrich von Staffhorst (*1653–1730*)
• vacancy

From 1739 on the presidents were in personal union reeves (German: Greve or Gräfe) of the Land of Hadeln:

• 1739–59 Philipp Adolf von Münchhausen, ranked state minister, also appointed head of the Hanoveran Chancery (German: Deutsche Kanzlei) in London
• 1759–82 Bodo Friedrich von Bodenhausen (*1719–?*), ranked state minister in 1769
• 1782–98 Gotthelf Dietrich von Ende (*1726–1798*)
• vacancy
• 1800–10 Christian Ludwig von Hake (*1745–1818*), ranked state minister, name giving for the species Hakea
• vacancy due to French annexation
• 1813–23 Engelbert Johann Marschalck (*1766–1845*), Bremen-Verden's Estates elected him president of the provisional government after the French retreat. In 1823 he became the first High-Bailiff of Stade Region, the merely administrative entity succeeding Bremen-Verden's dissolution in 1823.

Source^[9]

[edit] Presidents of the government under Westphalian Rule (1807–10)

• 1800–10 Christian Ludwig von Hake (*1745–1818*)
• 1810, April–December Johann Julius Conrad von Schlütter (*1749–1827*)

[edit] Nobility of Bremen

Luneberg Mushard, Bremisch- und Verdischer Ritter-Sahl Oder Denckmahl Der Uhralten Berühmten Hoch-adelichen Geschlechter Insonderheit der Hochlöblichen Ritterschafft In Denen Hertzogthümern Bremen und Verden. 1720 [1]

[edit] Notable people from the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden

A list of interesting people whose birth, death, residence or activity took place in Bremen-Verden.

• Heinrich Böse (*1783–1867*), Bremian and Danish and West Indian sugar manufacturer, politician, anti-Napoléonic freedom fighter
• Claus von der Decken (born in Rittershausen, today part of Balje; *1742–1826*), Hanoveran administrator, active in the restitution of Bremen-Verden to the Electorate of Hanover, Hanoveran minister
• Diedrich von Düring (*1611–1668*), military
• Alexander Erskein (also Alexander von Esken; *1598–1656*), diplomat, president of Swedish Bremen-Verden's government
• Gustaf Evertsson Horn (*1614–1666*), politician, military, governor-general of Bremen-Verden
• Henrik Henriksson Horn (*1618–1693*), politician, military, governor-general of Bremen-Verden
• Johann Friedrich Andreas Huth (*1777–1864*), merchant and merchant banker of Frederick Andrew Huth & Co. in London, supplying Wellington's armed forces with bread, donator of the library Friedrich-Huth-Bibliothek[2], in Harsefeld, Bremen-Verden, where he grew up
• Hans Christoffer von Königsmarck, military entrepreneur, general and strategist, governor-general of Bremen-Verden, grandfather of the next
• Maria Aurora von Königsmarck (born in Stade; *1662–1728*), grandchild of the former, Lutheran provostess of the Quedlinburg Abbey, mistress of Augustus the Strong
• Vincent Lübeck (born in Padingbüttel, near Cuxhaven; *1654–1740*), organist, composer, organ and music pedagogue, organist at the Ss. Cosmae et Damiani Lutheran Church in Stade (1675–1702)
• Christoph Meiners (born in Warstade; *1747–1810*), philosopher, historian, ethnologist
• Luneberg Mushard, teacher and historian, vice-rector at the Gymnasium Athenaeum in Stade, father of the next
• Martin Mushard (*1699–1770*), Lutheran pastor in Geestendorf (today a part of Bremerhaven), archeologist, prehistorian, son of the former
• Daniel Nicolai (since 1664, nobilitated von Greiffencrantz; *1613–1670*), chancellor of Swedish Bremen-Verden
• Johann Hinrich Pratje (born in Horneburg; *1710–1791*), general superintendent of the Lutheran consistory of Bremen-Verden proper (without Land of Hadeln) in Stade, historian
• Esaias von Pufendorf (*1628–1689*), diplomat, chancellor of Swedish Bremen-Verden's government
• Michael Richey (*1678–1761*), polyhistor, professor of history and Greek language, poet, rector at the Gymnasium Athenaeum in Stade
• Arp Schnitger (also Schnitker; *1648–1719*), organ constructor, built, among others, the organs in the Lutheran churches of St. Pancratius in Neuenfelde (Altes Land) and of Ss. Cosmae et Damiani in Stade
• Johann Hieronymus Schroeter (*1745–1816*), lawyer, official astronomer, since 1781 bailiff (German: Amtmann) in Lilienthal, where he erected the second biggest telescope in the world at that time (1793), from 1799 on co-sponsored by George III of the United Kingdom, in personal union Duke of Bremen
• Dietrich von Stade (the Elder) (*1637–1718*), Lutheran consistorial secretary, archivist, Germanist, father of the next
• Dietrich von Stade (the Younger) (*1674–1725*), archivist, secretary of Swedish Bremen-Verden's government, secretary of the directorate of the Lower Saxon Circle, comitial emissary at the Reichstag in Regensburg, son of the former
• Johann Hinrich Voß (*1751–1826*), philologist, teacher, translator of Homer into German, lyricist, editor, rector of the Latin School in Otterndorf (1778–1782)
• Anton Christian Wedekind (*1763–1845*), administrator, jurist, historian, especially of North Western German history including the time when Bremen-Verden was annexed as the French départements Bouches-de-l'Elbe and Bouches-du-Weser.

Source^[10]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Nevertheless colloquially the Administrators were often referred to as bishops.
2. ^ Cf. Wolfgang Dörfler, Herrschaft und Landesgrenze: die langwährenden Bemühungen um die Grenzziehung zwischen den Stiften und späteren Herzogtümern Bremen und Verden, Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 2004, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der Ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 22).
3. ^ Beate Christine Fiedler, 'Die Entwicklung der schwedischen Staatsform im 17. Jahrhundert und ihre Auswirkung auf die deutschen Provinzen Bremen und Verden', In: Landschaft und regionale Identität: Beiträge zur Geschichte der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden und des Landes Hadeln, Heinz-Joachim Schulze (ed.), Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1989, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 3), pp. 84-96, here p. 92.
4. ^ Matthias Nistahl, 'Die Reichsexekution gegen Schweden in Bremen-Verden', In: Landschaft und regionale Identität: Beiträge zur Geschichte der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden und des Landes Hadeln, Heinz-Joachim Schulze (ed.), Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1989, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 3), pp. 97–123, here pp. 97seqq.
5. ^ Beate Christine Fiedler, 'Die Entwicklung der schwedischen Staatsform im 17. Jahrhundert und ihre Auswirkung auf die deutschen Provinzen Bremen und Verden', In: Landschaft und regionale Identität: Beiträge zur Geschichte der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden und des Landes Hadeln, Heinz-Joachim Schulze (ed.), Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1989, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 3), pp. 84–96, here p. 92.
6. ^ In German: Königlich Großbritannischer und Churfürstlich-Braunschweigisch-Lüneburgischer zur Regierung der Herzogthümer Bremen und Verden verordneter Geheimer Rath und Regierungs-Räthe, cf. Klaus Isensee, Die Region Stade in westfälisch-französischer Zeit 1810–1813: Studien zum napoleonischen Herrschaftssystem unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Stadt Stade und des Fleckens Harsefeld, Stade: Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein, 2003, zugl.: Hanover, Univ., Diss., 1991, (Einzelschriften des Stader Geschichts- und Heimatvereins; Bd. 33), p. 28
7. ^ The usage of the name element of the Electorate of Brandenburg became senseless, when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved on August 6, 1806, thereby abolishing the function of prince-electors electing its emperors
8. ^ Cf. on this period Isensee, Klaus (2003). Die Region Stade in westfälisch-französischer Zeit 1810-1813: Studien zum napoleonischen Herrschaftssystem unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Stadt Stade und des Fleckens Harsefeld (zugl.: Hanover, Univ., Diss., 1991, (Einzelschriften des Stader Geschichts- und Heimatvereins; vol. 33) ed.). Stade: Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein. 
9. ^ Axel Behne, 'Verfassung und Verwaltung der Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden und des Landes Hadeln', In: Geschichte des Landes zwischen Elbe und Weser: 3vols., Hans-Eckhard Dannenberg and Heinz-Joachim Schulze (eds.), Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1995–2008, vol. 3: 'Neuzeit (2008)', (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 9), pp. 301–332, here p. 306, ISBN 3-9801919-9-9
10. ^ Lebensläufe zwischen Elbe und Weser: Ein biographisches Lexikon, Brage Bei der Wieden and Jan Lokers (eds.) on behalf of the Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 2002, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 16)

[edit] References

• Dannenberg, Hans-Eckhard and Heinz-Joachim Schulze (eds.) (1995-2008). Geschichte des Landes zwischen Elbe und Weser (3 vol., vol. 1 Vor- und Frühgeschichte (1995), vol. 2 Mittelalter (einschl. Kunstgeschichte) (1995), vol. 3 Neuzeit (2008), (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vol. 7) ed.). Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden. ISBN (vol. 1) ISBN 3-9801919-7-5, (vol. 2) ISBN 3-9801919-8-2, (vol. 3) ISBN 3-9801919-9-9. 

[edit] See also

• Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen
• Gustav Gustavsson af Vasaborg
• Stade Region
• Swedish Pomerania
• Wismar

[edit] External links

• Map of Lower Saxony in 1789

v • d • e Lower Saxon Circle (1500–1806) of the Holy Roman Empire Ecclesiastical Bremen1 · Halberstadt1 · Hildesheim · Lübeck · Magdeburg1 · Ratzeburg (until 1701) · Schwerin1 Secular Bremen (from 1648) · Brunswick (Blankenburg (until 1731) · Calenberg2 · Celle2 · Grubenhagen (until 1596) · Wolfenbüttel) · Hanover (from 1708) · Holstein (Glückstadt · Gottorp) · Mecklenburg (Güstrow (until 1695) · Schwerin · Strelitz (from 1701)) · Rantzau (until 1734) · Regenstein · Saxe-Lauenburg2 Cities Bremen · Goslar · Hamburg · Lübeck · Mühlhausen · Nordhausen 1 until 1648.   2 until 1705.

v • d • e Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle (1500–1806) of the Holy Roman Empire Ecclesiastical Cambrai · Corvey1 · Liège · Minden2 · Münster · Stavelot–Malmedy1 · Osnabrück · Paderborn · Utrecht (until 1548) · Verden (until 1648) Prelates Corvey2 · Essen · Herford · Kornelimünster · Stavelot–Malmedy2 · Thorn · Werden Secular Cleves with Mark · East Frisia1 · Jülich–Berg · Guelders (until 1548) · Minden1 · Moers1 · Nassau-Dillenburg1 · Verden1 Counts and Lords from 1500 Bentheim · Bronkhorst (until 1719) · Diepholz · East Frisia (until 1667) · Horne3 (until 1614) · Hoya · Lingen3 · Lippe · Manderscheid (until 1546) · Moers (until 1541) · Nassau (Diez · Hadamar · Dillenburg (until 1664)) · Oldenburg (until 1777) · Pyrmont · Ravensberg3 · Reichenstein · Rietberg · Salm-Reifferscheid · Sayn · Schaumburg · Tecklenburg · Virneburg · Wied · Winneburg and Beilstein · Zimerauff from 1792 Anholt · Blankenheim and Gerolstein · Gemen · Gimborn · Gronsfeld · Hallermund · Holzapfel · Kerpen-Lommersum · Myllendonk · Reckheim · Schleiden · Wickrath · Wittem status uncertain Delmenhorst · Fagnolle · Schaumburg (Hesse · Lippe) · Spiegelberg · Steinfurt Cities Aachen · Cologne · Dortmund · Duisburg? · Herford? · Verden (from 1648) · Warburg? 1 from 1792.   2 until 1792.   3 without Reichstag seat.   ? status uncertain.