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William of Winchester (11 April 1184 - 13 December 1213), also called William of Lüneburg (German: Wilhelm von Lüneburg) or William Longsword,[1] a member of the House of Welf, was heir to his family's allodial lands in the Duchy of Saxony after the deposition of his father, Duke Henry the Lion in 1180. William was the fifth and youngest son of Henry the Lion and Matilda, the eldest daughter of King Henry II of England.[2] He was born in Winchester, England during his father's exile; he probably remained there when Henry returned to Saxony and was raised at King Richard's court. After his unsuccessful uprising, Henry had submitted to the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1181 and though he had to leave Germany, he could retain the Welf possessions around Lüneburg, Braunschweig, and Haldensleben. He finally reconciled with Frederick's son and successor Emperor Henry VI in 1194 and surrendered his younger sons William and Otto as hostages for the payment of the ransom for the release of their uncle King Richard. William was extradited to Duke Leopold V of Austria and temporarily held in Hungary. When Henry the Lion died in 1195, William, Otto and their elder brother Henry V inherited his Saxon allods. The Welf brothers entered into an agreement with the Cologne archbishop Adolf of Altena, who in 1198 crowned Otto King of the Romans during the throne quarrel with the Hohenstaufen heir Philip of Swabia. Upon the death of their maternal uncle King Richard in 1199, William and Henry again went to England in order to assert their inheritance claims against their cousin John Lackland, though to no avail. After the Danish conquest of Holstein in 1201, William met Valdemar, the brother of King Canute VI of Denmark in Hamburg, where he arranged his marriage with the king's sister Helena.[1] Both entered into matrimony in spring 1202, accompanied by the provision of a significant dowry. Their only child was Otto (1204-1252),[1] who inherited his father's property and became the first Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235. William's hopes to assume the rule in Holstein, however, were disappointed by the Danish court. In May 1202, the Welf brothers met at Paderborn, where they divided their father's heritage. William received the northern territories up to the Danish border around the town of Lüneburg, the territory of Lauenburg beyond the Elbe River, Hitzacker, Lüchow, and Dannenberg, as well as the lands around Haldensleben and in the eastern Harz mountain range including Blankenburg and Heimburg with Regenstein Castle. William concentrated on consolidating his rule, strongly relying on the salt trade around Lüneburg, which became his permanent residence. Upon William's death in 1213, Otto IV acted as a guardian for his brother's son Otto the Child. As both Otto IV and his brother Henry V died without male heirs, Otto the Child became sole ruler of the Welf possessions and progenitor of all Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg. References ^ Jump up to: a b c Anderson, James (1732). Royal Genealogies: or, the genealogical tables of emperors, kings and princes, from Adam to these times in two parts. James Bettenham. p. 515. Retrieved 9 April 2012. Jump up ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Matilda (1156-1189)". Dictionary of National Biography. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 58-9. 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
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