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The House of Arenberg

The Arenbergs began as lords in the Eifel and became one of the great families of the southern Netherlands. The family's foundation describes how its loyalty to the Habsburgs was rewarded with the rank of prince in 1576 and of duke in 1644 [2]. The house has been continued by three successive lines, the last of them through a Ligne heir who took the Arenberg name in the sixteenth century [1]. This page follows the Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) article on the family and the history published by the Arenberg Foundation in Enghien.

The first line: lords of Arberg

According to the NDB, the first bearer of the name, the free lord Heinrich von Arberg, appears in 1166; he was the son of Gerhard, burgrave of Cologne [1]. The NDB notes that it cannot be established whether Gerhard was related to the burgraves named since 1032 [1]. The family's documented lands lay in the Eifel on the upper Ahr, where a castle on the Arenberg hill probably gave the family its name, and further afield in the Erft valley, on the Sieg and in the Westerwald [1].

The last of this first line, Johann, sold the burgraviate of Cologne to the Archbishop in 1279 and died shortly afterwards, before 1281 [1].

The second line: La Marck

Johann's daughter Mechtild married Engelbert, a younger son of Count Eberhard of the Mark, on 25 January 1299 [1]. Their descendants formed the second line of the lords of Arenberg and acquired large estates in what are now Belgium, the Netherlands and Lorraine [1]. Side branches of this line included the lords of Neufchâteau and Rochefort, the family that would bear the title of dukes of Bouillon (founded by Robert, "the Boar of the Ardennes"), and the counts of Schleiden [1]. The main line died out in October 1544 with Robert III, count of the Mark and lord of Arenberg [1].

The third line: Ligne-Arenberg

The inheritance passed to Robert's sister Margaretha (Marguerite de La Marck), who married Jean de Ligne, baron of Barbançon, on 18 October 1547 [1][2]. With the consent of Charles V, the marriage contract provided that their descendants would bear the name and arms of Arenberg; this founded the third line, which still exists [1]. In 1549 Charles V raised the lordship of Arenberg to a county, which the NDB sees as a reward for Jean de Ligne's services in the Netherlands [1]. Jean, a general of the Spanish armies, was killed at the battle of Heiligerlee in 1568 [2].

On 5 March 1576 the county became a princely county, and on 9 June 1644 a duchy [1]. The foundation names Marguerite as sovereign princess-countess from 1576 [2].

Dukes in the Habsburg Netherlands

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the house made important acquisitions: the lordship of Enghien, bought from King Henry IV of France in 1606; the duchy of Aarschot in Brabant, inherited in 1612 from Duke Charles of Aarschot and Croÿ; and the county of Lalaing, among others [1]. Almost all the princes and dukes served the Habsburgs as provincial governors or senior officers, and held residences at Enghien, Heverlee and the Arenberg (now Egmont) Palace in Brussels [1].

The foundation's portraits trace the dukes of this period [2]:

• Charles (1550–1616), second sovereign prince, married Anne de Croÿ in 1587;
• Philippe-Charles (1587–1640), third prince and 6th duke of Aarschot, who, the foundation says, was wrongly accused of conspiring against the Spanish crown and died in captivity in Madrid;
• Philippe-François (1625–1674), first sovereign duke of Arenberg;
• Léopold-Philippe (1690–1754), fourth duke, an imperial marshal and commander in chief in the Austrian Netherlands, wounded at Malplaquet in 1709;
• Charles-Marie-Raymond (1721–1778), fifth duke, an Austrian marshal wounded in the Seven Years' War.

Revolution, Meppen and Recklinghausen

Louis-Engelbert (1750–1820), sixth duke, lost his sight in a hunting accident two years after his marriage in 1773 and was the last duke to reign in the old Eifel territories [2]. Under the Imperial Recess of 1803 the duke was compensated for the loss of his rights on the left bank of the Rhine with the Vest Recklinghausen and the district of Meppen, which now formed the duchy of Arenberg [1].

Note on sources. The sources describe the end of this new duchy differently. The NDB says the duke lost his sovereignty when Napoleon united the territory with the French Empire and the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1810 and 1811 [1]. The foundation says that Prosper-Louis (1785–1861), seventh duke, received the larger duchy on the right bank in 1803 and lost it in 1815, when it was occupied by the Prussians and the Hanoverians [2]. GOTHA reports both.

In 1826 the King of Hanover raised the mediatized territory of Meppen to the duchy of Arenberg-Meppen [1]. The foundation calls Engelbert-Auguste (1824–1875) the last duke with sovereign rights in Arenberg-Meppen [2].

The dukes since 1875

The foundation lists the later heads of the house [2]:

According to the foundation, Engelbert-Marie suffered the French and Belgian sequestrations after the First World War [2]. The present duke, Leopold, is also 19th duke of Aarschot, 8th duke of Meppen and 8th prince of Recklinghausen, and is managing director of the Arenberg Foundation in Enghien [2][3].

Key dates

Licence: this article is original GOTHA text, released under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Its sources are summarised or briefly quoted.