He traded some localities with Duke Frederick III of Lorraine and took lordship of Bitsch in the same year.

In 1570, Count James of Zweibrücken-Bitsch died without male heir and Ludowika Margaretha inherited the County of Bitsch, the Lordship of Ochsenstein and half the Lordship of Lichtenberg (Philip's father had already held the other half).

This upset his powerful Catholic neighbour and liege lord, Duke Charles III of Lorraine.

Since Philip V's army was no match for Lorraine, he took his case to the Imperial Chamber Court in Speyer.

In a treaty signed in 1606, it was agreed that Bitsch would revert to Lorraine and Hanau-Lichtenberg would retain Lemberg.

During the Nine Years' War, it was sacked by French troops under General de Ezéchiel Mélac, who devastated the Palatinate in 1689.

At the same time, the part of Lemberg Castle that was still habitable after the Thirty Years' War, was completely destroyed.

In 1736, Johann Reinhard III, the last count of Hanau-Lichtenberg, died without male heir and the duchy passed to his grandson, Landgrave Ludwig IX of Hesse-Darmstadt, the son of Countess Charlotte of Hanau-Lichtenberg, sole heir of the county of Hanau Lichtenberg, and Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.

In 1763, Pirmasens was granted city rights by Ludwig IX, who stayed in his small residence even after taking office in Hesse-Darmstadt after his father's death in 1768.

On 15 March 1945 Pirmasens was captured by US troops, and the following year it became part of the newly established German state Rhineland-Palatinate.

During the occupation, on 19 September 1945, the Museum of Pirmasens announced that about 50 paintings, which had been stored in the air-raid shelter at Husterhoh School during the war, had been plundered during the arrival of the American troops.

[10] Evolution of population (since 1875): Town council as at August 2014: Pirmasens is twinned with:[11] Husterhoeh Kaserne was a former (1945–1994) US military facility in Pirmasens, and is now a mostly closed Bundeswehr facility, which still hosts U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center – Europe.