Spanish Guelders

Upper Guelders or Spanish Guelders was one of the four quarters in the Imperial Duchy of Guelders. In the Dutch Revolt, it was the only quarter that did not secede from the Habsburg Monarchy to become part of the Seven United Netherlands, but remained under Spanish rule during the Eighty Years' War.

Within the Low Countries, the counts, later dukes at Geldern had collected several territories down the Meuse river, which were physically separated from their original territory by those lands along the Lower Rhine which were held by the Dukes of Cleves. The northern territories were administrated within three quarters:

These lower quarters today form the Dutch province of Gelderland.

The most important cities in Upper Guelders were Geldern, Venlo and Roermond. Together with the Duchy of Cleves, the region originally was part of the South Guelderish language area, part of the Low Franconian dialect group.

In 1471 Duke Arnold of Guelders, stuck in the conflict with his only surviving son Adolf of Egmond, gained the support of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold, but in turn had to give his duchy in pawn. Charles seized Guelders upon Duke Arnold's death in 1473, and despite the protests raised by the ducal House of Egmond incorporated it into the Burgundian Netherlands, the later dowry of his daughter Mary the Rich to her husband Archduke Maximilian I of Austria from the House of Habsburg.

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