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27th great-grandfather Henry II, known as the Proud (1108 - October 20, 1139) was Duke of Saxony (1138-1139) and Duke of Bavaria (1126-1139) as Henry X. He was the son of Henry the Black Duke of Bavaria, and Wulfhild, daughter of Magnus Billung, Duke of Saxony, and thus a member of the Welf family. His father and mother both died in 1126, and as his elder brother Conrad had entered the church, Henry became duke of Bavaria and shared the family possessions in Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia with his younger brother, Welf. In 1127 he was married to Gertrude, the only child of the Lothar II, Holy Roman Emperor. The couple had only one son, Henry the Lion. After the marriage, Henry took part in the warfare between the king and the Hohenstaufen brothers, Frederick II, Duke of Swabia, and Conrad, afterwards the German king Conrad III. While engaged in this struggle Henry was also occupied in suppressing a rising in Bavaria, led by Frederick, Count of Bogen, during which both duke and count sought to establish their own candidates in the bishopric of Regensburg. After a war of devastation, Frederick submitted in 1133, and two years later the Hohenstaufen brothers made their peace with Lothar. In 1136 Henry accompanied his father-in-law to Italy, and taking command of one division of the German army marched into southern Italy, devastating the land as he went. Having distinguished himself by his military abilities during this campaign, Henry left Italy with the German troops, and was appointed by the emperor as his successor in the Duchy of Saxony. When Lothair died in December 1137 Henry's wealth and position made him a formidable candidate for the German throne; but the same qualities which earned for him the surname of Proud, aroused the jealousy of the princes, and so prevented his election. The new king, Conrad III, demanded the imperial insignia which were in Henrys possession, and the duke in return asked for his investiture with the Saxon duchy. But Conrad, who feared his power, refused to assent to this on the pretext that it was unlawful for two duchies to be in one hand. Attempts at a settlement failed, and in July 1138 the duke was placed under arrest. He died in the next year, in the Abbey of Quedlinburg, (now in Saxony-Anhalt), Germany. Welf, English Guelf , or Guelph , Italian Guelpho dynasty of German nobles and rulers who were the chief rivals of the Hohenstaufens in Italy and central Europe in the Middle Ages and who later included the Hanoverian Welfs, who, with the accession of George I to the British throne, became rulers of Great Britain. The origin of the "Elder House" of Welf is a matter of controversy, since Welf in the Carolingian period seems to have been rather widespread as a baptismal name. The first clearly discernible ancestor of the dynasty is the Count Welf who had possessions in Bavaria in the first quarter of the 9th century and whose daughters Judith and Emma married, respectively, the Frankish Emperor Louis I the Pious and the East Frankish King Louis the German. The best analyses of the evidence trace the Burgundian and the Swabian Welfs to two nephews of Judith and Emma, namely Conrad (d. c. 876) and the so-numbered Welf I (d. before 876). Conrad's son Rudolf (d. 911 or 912) became king of Burgundy in 888, and this kingdom remained with his descendants until 1032. Welf II (d. 1030), who was probably of the fifth generation from Welf I, had so strong a position in southern Germany that he and his son Welf III could occasionally defy the German kings. Welf III was enfeoffed as Duke of Carinthia in 1047, but died in 1055. His German possessions then passed to his nephew Welf IV (d. 1107), whose father was Alberto Azzo II of the House of Este (q.v.). Welf IV began the "Younger House" of Welf. Welf IV became Duke of Bavaria as Welf I, in 1070. He abandoned his alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV to become an important supporter of the papal party in Italy. His 17-year-old son, Welf V (later Welf II of Bavaria), married the 43-year-old Countess Matilda of Tuscany in 1089; the marriage ended in separation. The elder Welf thereupon appealed to Henry IV for help against Matilda. Henry attacked Matilda's castle in Nogara, south of Verona, but abandoned the siege when Matilda's army counterattacked. The Este family tried, in Welf V's name, to claim Matilda's lands after her death but were unsuccessful. The Duchy of Bavaria passed, in 1156, to Henry the Lion, who held it until his downfall in 1180. Bavaria and Saxony, with great inheritances by marriages, made the Welfs the most potent rivals of the Hohenstaufen kings and emperors. The German king and Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV was a son of Henry the Lion. The Welf kingship collapsed with him; but the tradition of Welf hostility to the Hohenstaufen emperors led to the Italian use of a form of the name for a supporter of the papacy against the emperor (see Guelf and Ghibelline). Reconciliation between Welfs and Hohenstaufens was achieved in 1235, when the Emperor Frederick II enfeoffed Otto IV's grandson, Otto the Child (d. 1252) with the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a shrunken remnant of what his ancestors had held in Saxony. More on origin: The original house of Welf descended from Count (Graf) Welf I, and ended in 1055, whereupon the heiress of the house married Azzo II d'Este, an Italian lord. From their marriage descended Dukes of Bavaria and Saxony, and the later Dukes of Braunschweig (Brunswick) and Kings of Hanover and Great Britain. It also included one short-term Tsar of Russia: Ivan VI. From Azzo's second marriage descended the family known as d'Este, which ruled Modena and Ferrara in Italy. Interestingly, when Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex, had morganatic children in the 19th century, they took the surname of d'Este. The name finally took on political significance during the battles between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Those who generally opposed the Hohenstaufen emperors were known as Guelphs, since that family usually led them, and the Hohenstaufen supporters were known as Ghibellines, from the Italian name of the Hohenstaufen castle, Waibling. http://en.wikipedia.org
William B.
