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26th great-grandfather of WDB Henry the Lion (1129-1131 - August 6, 1195; in German, Heinrich der Löwe) was Duke of Saxony as Henry III since 1142, and Duke of Bavaria as Henry XII since 1156, both until 1180. He was the most powerful of the German princes of his time, until the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty succeeded in isolating him and eventually depriving him of his duchies of Bavaria and Saxony during the reign of his cousin Frederick I and of Frederick's son and successor Henry VI. Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen, in part through the combined legacies of his four grandparents. He was the son of Henry the Proud, duke of Bavaria and Saxony, who was the son of duke Welf IV and an heiress of the Billungs, former dukes of Saxony. Henry's mother was Gertude, only daughter of Emperor Lothar II and his wife Richenza of Nordheim, heiress to the Saxon territories of Nordheim and Brunswick-Lüneburg. Henry's father died in 1139 when Henry was still a child, and King Conrad III did not immediately give the two duchies to Henry. He acquired Saxony in 1142 and Bavaria in 1156. He is the founder of Munich (1157-58; München) and Lübeck (1159); he also founded and developed the cities of Stade, Lüneburg and Braunschweig (city) (Brunswick), where he had a bronze Lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the yard of his castle Dankwarderode, next to the Brunswick cathedral, in 1166 -- the first bronze statue north of the Alps still existing today (see "Brunswick cathedral" for a photo). He made Brunswick the capital of his principality. In 1175, Henry refused to aid his cousin Emperor Frederick I in a renewed invasion of Lombardy, because he did not consider this Italian adventure worth the effort, even when Frederick offered him the rich city of Goslar, Saxony, as a reward. Barbarossa's war in Lombardy ended in failure and bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Henry had to face a feudal lawsuit for insubordination and was condemned by the Empire's princes, who resented his enormous power and vast realm, in 1180, losing most of his principality. He was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years and stayed with his father-in-law, Henry II. During the last years of his life Henry tried to regain what he had lost, but he mostly failed. When the Nazis exhumed his corpse, they were disappointed finding a comparatively small man with black hair. In 1158 he married as his second wife Matilda (1156 -1189) the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and sister of Richard Lionheart. Henry had the following issue: from his first wife Gertrude of Bavaria (1155-1197), married first Frederick IV, Duke of Swabia and then king Canute IV of Denmark Henry I, Palatine Count of the Rhein (1173-1227) Lothar of Bavaria (1174-1190) Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Duke of Swabia (1175-1218) William, Duke of Lüneburg (1184-1213) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Notes on the Welf (Guelph) Dynasty: Welf, English Guelf , or Guelph , Italian Guelpho dynasty of German nobles and rulers who were the chief rivals of the Hohenstaufens in Italy and central Europe in the Middle Ages and who later included the Hanoverian Welfs, who, with the accession of George I to the British throne, became rulers of Great Britain. The origin of the Elder House” of Welf is a matter of controversy, since Welf in the Carolingian period seems to have been rather widespread as a baptismal name. The first clearly discernible ancestor of the dynasty is the Count Welf who had possessions in Bavaria in the first quarter of the 9th century and whose daughters Judith and Emma married, respectively, the Frankish emperor Louis I the Pious and the East Frankish king Louis the German. The best analyses of the evidence trace the Burgundian and the Swabian Welfs to two nephews of Judith and Emma, namely Conrad (d. c. 876) and the so-numbered Welf I (d. before 876). Conrad's son Rudolf (d. 911 or 912) became king of Burgundy in 888, and this kingdom remained with his descendants until 1032. Welf II (d. 1030), who was probably of the fifth generation from Welf I, had so strong a position in southern Germany that he and his son Welf III could occasionally defy the German kings. Welf III was enfeoffed as duke of Carinthia in 1047, but died in 1055. His German possessions then passed to his nephew Welf IV (d. 1107), whose father was Alberto Azzo II of the House of Este (q.v.). Welf IV began the “Younger House” of Welf. Welf IV became duke of Bavaria as Welf I, in 1070. He abandoned his alliance with the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV to become an important supporter of the papal party in Italy. His 17-year-old son, Welf V (later Welf II of Bavaria), married the 43-year-old countess Matilda of Tuscany in 1089; the marriage ended in separation. The elder Welf thereupon appealed to Henry IV for help against Matilda. Henry attacked Matilda's castle in Nogara, south of Verona, but abandoned the siege when Matilda's army counterattacked. The Este family tried, in Welf V's name, to claim Matilda's lands after her death but were unsuccessful. The Duchy of Bavaria passed, in 1156, to Henry the Lion, who held it until his downfall in 1180. Bavaria and Saxony, with great inheritances by marriages, made the Welfs the most potent rivals of the Hohenstaufen kings and emperors. The German king and Holy Roman emperor Otto IV was a son of Henry the Lion. The Welf kingship collapsed with him; but the tradition of Welf hostility to the Hohenstaufen emperors led to the Italian use of a form of the name for a supporter of the papacy against the emperor (see Guelf and Ghibelline). Reconciliation between Welfs and Hohenstaufens was achieved in 1235, when the emperor Frederick II enfeoffed Otto IV's grandson, Otto the Child (d. 1252) with the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a shrunken remnant of what his ancestors had held in Saxony. More on origin: The original house of Welf descended from Count (Graf) Welf I, and ended in 1055, whereupon the heiress of the house married Azzo II d'Este, an Italian lord. From their marriage descended Dukes of Bavaria and Saxony, and the later Dukes of Braunschweig (Brunswick) and Kings of Hanover and Great Britain. It also included one short-term tsar of Russia: Ivan VI. From Azzo's second marriage descended the family known as d'Este, which ruled Modena and Ferrara in Italy. Interestingly, when Pr Augustus, Duke of Sussex, had morganatic children in the 19th century, they took the surname of d'Este. The finaly name took on political significance during the battles between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Those who generally opposed the Hohenstaufen emperors were known as Guelphs, since that family usually led them, and the Hohenstaufen supporters were known as Ghibellines, from the Italian name of the Hohenstaufen castle, Waibling. http://en.wikipedia.org
William B.
