Peter Melander, Count of Holzappel

Peter Melander, Count of Holzappel (8 February 1589 – 17 May 1648) was an important first Protestant military leader in the Thirty Years' War and Chief of the imperial troops of the League of 1647 until his death.

Peter Melander was born, as Peter Eppelmann, in Niederhadamar, the son of a farmer. Documentary evidence of his birth date exist. The older literature says that he was born in 1585; this was based on an erroneous inscription in his epitaph in the church of Holzappel. After his father's death in 1592, Peter Eppelman joined his childless uncle John, a secretary of Maurice of Orange, in the Netherlands. His uncle had translated the family name Eppelmann into Greek as Melander, and Peter also took this name. Through the efforts of John Melander, the family was raised to knightly nobility in 1606. They then took over the name of Holzappel from the extinct noble Holzappel of Voitsburg-Selzberg family from the Giessen area.

In 1638, Peter Melander married Countess Agnes of Effern (d. 1656). With her he, had his only child, a daughter named Charlotte Elisabeth, later Countess of Schaumburg-Holzappel. She married Prince Adolph of Nassau-Schaumburg and thereby became Elisabeth Charlotte, Princess of Nassau-Schaumburg.

Melander's descendants include Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and King Charles XVI of Sweden.

The strictly Protestant Melander took his first tentative steps towards a military career in the Dutch army. In 1615, he joined the Venetian army and fought in the Uskok War. In 1620, he commanded a Swiss regiment in Basel as Colonel. He then fought in the Veltliner War (1620–1622) and the Mantuan War of Succession (1628–1631). He reached the first highlight of his military career in 1633 with his appointment as Lieutenant General and secret war council of the Landgrave William V of Hesse-Kassel. William V was allied with the Swedes, so Peter Melander fought with the Hessian troops against the imperial army. In the Battle of Oldendorf on 28 June 1633, he commanded the center of the Protestant forces under Duke George of Brunswick-Calenberg and contributed much to the victory over the Imperial army and defeated them several more times as he chased them through Westphalia. He captured Hamm on 26 May 1634 and on 27 June 1634, he defeated General Bönnighausen and forced him to retreat across the Rhine. Landgrave William V died in the Autumn of 1637 and his widow, countess Amalie Elisabeth became regent for her eight-year-old son William VI. She held on to her late husband's anti-Habsburg policies. Melanders was no longer willing to support this stance and resigned the command of the Hessian troops in mid-July 1640. He was then courted by the Emperor.

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