This arrangement of 1458 allowed him to have a befitting marriage and offspring entitled to inherit, and so increased the chances of survival of the comital house.

[2] The History of Hanau-Münzenberg is dominated by a large series of guardianships for counts still minor when inheriting the county from their fathers: Without interruption this happened during six accessions between 1512 and 1638.

The reformation was introduced gradually during the reign of Philipp II: when church staff retired, their successor would be a Lutheran.

When he was appointed, he explained that he wanted to spend little effort on vespers and the daily mass, but would instead concentrate on his sermons and putting forward the Gospel.

The real reformer of Hanau was his successor Philipp Neunheller MA; during his time in office, the new faith gained more and more ground.

[4] Also under the reign of Philipp II started the project to replace the mediaeval fortifications of the town of Hanau by the latest in Renaissance-fortification available.

In consequence Philipp Ludwig II and his younger brother, Count Albrecht, joined the Nassau-Dillenburg court, a centre of the Reformation movement in Germany and closely tied to the Electorate of the Palatinate of the Rhine.

He succeeded with this nearly everywhere in his sphere of influence, except in a few villages in the district Bornheimerberg, which surrounded Frankfurt and the condominiums shared with the Roman Catholic archbishop-elector of Mainz.

Also in the condominiums Philipp Ludwig II shared with Mainz he couldn't change anything — whether his subjects had become Lutheran during the reformation or had remained Roman Catholic.

The introduction of Calvinism and the location of the County of Hanau-Münzenberg, at only half a day's journey away from Frankfurt with its trade fairs, made Hanau an attractive place to settle for Calvinist refugees from France and later from the Southern Netherlands.

In 1597 and 1604, the count and the refugees entered into two treaties which gave them a large degree of self-government and founded the "New Town" of Hanau, south to the historic mediaeval settlement.

The reigning count, now Philipp Moritz, chose to change sides, in order to retain the military command of his capital.

In November 1631, Swedish troops occupied Hanau and King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden entered the city.

He was a Calvinist and for him choosing between the Roman Catholic Emperor and the Lutheran Swedish king may have been like a choice between Scylla and Charybdis.

He gave Philipp Moritz's brothers, Heinrich Ludwig (1609–1632) and Jakob Johann (1612–1636) the town and district of Steinheim, which was also a former possession of Mainz.

[9] From September 1635 to June 1636, Hanau was unsuccessfully besieged by imperial troops under General Guillaume de Lamboy.

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen used the occupation of Hanau by the Swedish and the siege as background in his picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus.

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.

[15] Only the Enlightenment and the economic crises resulting out of the Napoleonic Wars let to the Hanau Union which ended this double structure in 1818.

Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau, the widow of Count Philipp Moritz, had received Steinau Castle as her dowager seat.

[16] Friedrich Casimir tried to implement mercantilism into Hanau-Münzenberg 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.

[20] Regarding the question if the administrative district of Babenhausen was part of Hanau-Münzenberg or Hanau-Lichtenberg nearly lead into a war of both landgraviates in 1736 and into an extensive lawsuit at the highest courts of the Holy Roman Empire.

When his father received this news finally he was not amused at all: He tried to secure that Frederick II couldn't change the confession of his lands in any thinkable way.

One measure he took was to make Hanau-Münzenberg a secundogeniture of Hesse-Cassel known as Hesse-Hanau, and transfer it immediately to his grandson, William IX.

Later on, a contingent of about 2,400 soldiers recruited in Hesse-Hanau served during the American Revolutionary War for King George III, an uncle to William IX.

When the French occupied the lands of William I in 1806 the new principality was put under military rule until 1810 and then became part of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt.

The last elector, Frederick William gave the title "Princess of Hanau" to his wife Gertrude Falkenstein, a commoner and divorcée he could marry only morganatically.