Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse

Philip I
Landgrave of Hesse
Portrait of Philip I
Born	13 November 1504 Marburg, Landgraviate of Hesse, Holy Roman Empire
Died	31 March 1567 (aged 62) Kassel, Landgraviate of Hesse, Holy Roman Empire
Spouse	Christine of Saxony Margarethe von der Saale
Issue	Agnes Anna William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel Philipp Ludwig Barbara of Hesse Louis IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Marburg Elisabeth Philip II, Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels Christine George I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt Philipp, Count zu Dietz Hermann, Count zu Dietz Christopher Ernst, Count zu Dietz Margretha, Countess zu Dietz Albrecht, Count zu Dietz Philipp Konrad, Count zu Dietz Moritz, Count zu Dietz Ernst, Count zu Dietz Anna
House	House of Hesse
Father	William II, Landgrave of Hesse
Mother	Anna of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (13 November 1504 – 31 March 1567), nicknamed der Großmütige ("the magnanimous") was a leading champion of the Protestant Reformation and one of the most important of the early Protestant rulers in Germany.

Philip was the son of Landgrave William II of Hesse and his second wife Anna of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. His father died when Philip was five years old, and in 1514 his mother, after a series of struggles with the Estates of Hesse, succeeded in becoming regent on his behalf. The struggles over authority continued, however. To put an end to them, Philip was declared of age in 1518, his actual assumption of power beginning the following year. The power of the Estates had been broken by his mother, but he owed her little else. His education had been very imperfect, and his moral and religious training had been neglected. Despite all this, he developed rapidly as a statesman, and soon began to take steps to increase his personal authority as a ruler.

The first meeting of Philip of Hesse with Martin Luther took place in 1521, at the age of 17, at the Diet of Worms. There he was attracted by Luther's personality, though he had at first little interest in the religious elements of the gathering. Philip embraced Protestantism in 1524 after a personal meeting with the theologian Philipp Melanchthon. He then helped suppress the German Peasants' War by defeating Thomas Müntzer at the Battle of Frankenhausen.

Philip refused to be drawn into the anti-Lutheran league of George, Duke of Saxony, in 1525. By his alliance with John, Elector of Saxony, concluded in Gotha on 27 February 1526, he showed that he was already taking steps to organize a protective alliance of all Protestant princes and powers. At the same time, he united political motives with his religious policy. As early as the spring of 1526, he sought to prevent the election of the Catholic Archduke Ferdinand as Holy Roman Emperor. At the Diet of Speyer in the same year, Philip openly championed the Protestant cause, rendering it possible for Protestant preachers to propagate their views while the Diet was in session, and, like his followers, openly disregarding ordinary Roman Catholic ecclesiastical usages.