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Updated: May 31, 2025
So much for the origin of Guelph and Ghibelline, of which we may further say that a royal representative of the former party still exists, in King Edward VII. of England, who traces his descent from the German Welfs. And now to return to the siege of Weinsberg, to which Conrad returned after having disposed of the army of relief.
But the Saxons supported the wealthy Lothar, who was chosen emperor, and won over to his side Henry the Proud, grandson of Welf I., to whom Lothar gave his daughter in marriage, and gave, also, the dukedom of Saxony, in addition to his dukedom of Bavaria. In these events lay the roots of the long rivalship between the Welfs and the Hohenstaufens.
One asks, with increased wonder, noticing in the Welfs generally nothing but the same albuminous simplicity, and poverty rather than opulence of uttered intellect, or of qualities that shine, How the Welfs came to play such a part, for the last thousand years, and still to be at it, in conspicuous places?
Germany, which for centuries before and after was broken into warring factions, to such extent that its emperors could truly say, "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," was then divided between the two strong parties of the Welfs and the Waiblingers, or the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, as pronounced by the Italians and better known to us.
This country Bavaria was also at one time the home of the Welfs; they were a strong, determined race, and spent much time and energy in vigorous opposition to Holy Roman Emperors, possibly as men of common sense they considered the whole prevailing idea of empire rather nonsensical; they were eventually banished to the country about Hanover and Brunswick, where they flourished by virtue of their forceful character and we Britons have reason to be grateful that it was so.
While the Hohenstaufens were trickling out until the luckless Conradin lost his head at Naples, while fierce Welfs like Otto of Brunswick wrecked themselves on the rock of papal insistence, Bohemia's rulers were profiting. Ottokar I seems to have been particularly astute in this line of business.
If the Welfs had not much articulate intellect, let us guess they made a good use, not a bad or indifferent, as is commoner, of what they had. Princess Elizabeth Christina, the insipid Brunswick specimen, backed by Seckendorf and Vienna, proves on consideration the desirable to Friedrich Wilhelm in this matter. But his Son's notions, who as yet knows her only by rumor, do not go that way.
The Welfs, ignorant of Matilda's gift of her lands to the Papacy, eagerly accepted the bait; but soon discovering that they were being used as tools, they ceased to give any help, and in fact became reconciled to the Emperor. But meanwhile the Pope had discovered other more deadly weapons with which to wound the Emperor.
"The Guelfs or Welfs were the ancestors of Henry the Proud, who, through his mother, represented the ancient Dukes of Saxony. The word Ghibelin is derived from Wibelung, a town in Franconia, from which the emperors of that time are said to nave sprung. ARLINGTON STREET, Feb. 18, 1768. You have sent me a long and very obliging letter, and yet I am extremely out of humour with you.
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