On the other side stood Philipp I (the elder) and most of the influential persons and institutions in the county, including its four towns.

In 1642 the last male member of the Hanau-Münzenberg family, Count Johann Ernst, died.

The next male of kin was Friedrich Casimir, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg, then still a minor under the guardianship of Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl.

The inheritance happened during the final years of Thirty Years' War, the feudal Overlords, partly enemy to Hanau, tried to hold back fiefs traditionally held by Hanau-Münzenberg, the county of Hanau-Münzenberg was of Reformed Confession, Friedrich Casimir and the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg were Lutheran and even to reach the capital of Hanau-Münzenberg, the town of Hanau, proved to be very difficult for the heir: Friedrich Casimir only managed by travelling in disguise.

But due to growing numbers from 1658 to 1662 an own church building for the Lutherans was erected in the town against the protest of the reformed majority, the Johanneskirche.

Therefore, a lot of villages in Hanau-Münzenberg had a set of reformed church, school, vicarage and cemetery and another one for the Lutherans.

[5] Only the Enlightenment and the economic crises of the Napoleonic Wars led to the Hanau Union [de] which ended this double structure in 1818.

[6] Friedrich Casimir tried to implement mercantilism into his county severely devastated by the effects of Thirty Years' War.

On the other hand, the count's extravagant initiative to lease Guiana from the Dutch West India Company was a devastating experiment.

But Friedrich Casimir was put under the guardianship of his relatives by emperor Leopold and the count's possibilities to stage new experiments were severely curtailed.

Count Johann Reinhard III, the last male member of the Hanau family died in 1736.