Landgrave Louis IV of Hesse-Marburg (27 May 1537 – 9 October 1604) was the son of Landgrave

Philip I of Hesse Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (13 November 1504 – 31 March 1567), nicknamed (in English: "the Magnanimous"), was a German nobleman and champion of the Protestant Reformation, notable for being one of the most important of the early Protesta ...

and his wife

Christine of Saxony Christine of Saxony (25 December 1505 – 15 April 1549) was a German noble, landgravine consort of Hesse by marriage to Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse.Eckhart G. Franz (Hrsg.): Haus Hessen. Biografisches Lexikon. (= Arbeiten der Hessischen Hi ...

. After the death of his father in 1567, Hesse was divided among his sons and Louis received

Hesse-Marburg The Landgraviate of Hesse-Marburg (german: Landgrafschaft Hessen-Marburg) was a German landgraviate, and independent principality, within the Holy Roman Empire, that existed between 1458 and 1500, and between 1567 and 1604/1650. It consisted ...

(Upper Hesse) including

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...

and

Giessen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

. Louis received his education at the court of Duke Christoph of Württemberg. He had the Marburg Castle renovated by his architect Ebert Baldewein. Wanting to enlarge his territory peacefully, he bought parts of the Fuldischen Mark in 1570 from the counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken and the rest in 1583 from the count of

Nassau-Weilburg The House of Nassau-Weilburg, a branch of the House of Nassau, ruled a division of the County of Nassau, which was a state in what is now Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1344 to 1806. On 17 July 1806, upon the dissolution of t ...

. On 10 May 1563 he married Hedwig of Württemberg and his second marriage was to Marie, Countess of Mansfeld. When he died in 1604 he left no heirs. His 1597 will bequeathed his territory between his nephew,

Maurice of Hesse-Kassel Maurice of Hesse-Kassel (german: Moritz; 25 May 1572 – 15 March 1632), also called Maurice the Learned or Moritz, was the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) in the Holy Roman Empire from 1592 to 1627. Life Maurice was born in Kassel ...

and Louis V of Hesse-Darmstadt, on the condition that it would remain

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

Ancestry

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