William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel

William VI
Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel
William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel
Born	23 May 1629 Kassel
Died	16 July 1663 (aged 34) Haina
Spouse	Margravine Hedwig Sophie of Brandenburg
Issue	Charlotte Amelie, Queen of Denmark William VII Luise Charles Philipp Georg Elisabeth Henriëtte, Electoral Princess of Brandenburg
House	House of Hesse-Kassel
Father	William V, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel
Mother	Amalie Elisabeth von Hanau-Münzenberg
Religion	Calvinism

William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (23 May 1629 – 16 July 1663), known as William the Just, was Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1637 to 1663.

Born in Kassel, he was the son of William V (whom he succeeded) and his wife Amalie Elisabeth, Gräfin of Hanau-Münzenberg (daughter of Philip Louis II of Hanau-Münzenberg and his wife Countess Catharina Belgica of Nassau). His mother remained his guardian until he came of age. Despite Hesse-Kassel's defeat in the Thirty Years' War, William's mother did not wish to acknowledge the accord of 1627. This required that the unmarried Marburger heir and the Landgraves of Hessen-Darmstadt should fall, but Amalie Elisabeth had other ideas and led Hesse-Kessel in 1645 into the "Hessenkrieg", ruling as Landgräfin on her son's behalf. This war began when Hesse-Kassel's troops began to besiege the city of Marburg. Three years later, in 1648, the war ended with a victory for Kassel, although the citizens of Darmstadt also gained from it. Domination over the Marburger territories went over to the landgrave of Hesse-Kassel after the accord was dissolved and a new agreement was reached. William VI succeeded in what its ancestors had tried to do in vain since 1604, that is, to end the Hesse-Marburg landgraviate, and to annex the Marburger lands to Hesse-Kassel.

After these wars, William attended above all to the extension of the universities within his domains and the foundation of more new Lehranstalts. To finally resolve the quarrel with the landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt, Wilhelm delivered to George II the territory around Gießen, along with Ämtern by Biedenkopf.