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Palatinate-Zweibrücken
Pfalz-Zweibrücken
Arms-Palatinate-Zweibrücken
1444 - 1661

Capital
Circle
Bench
Zweibrücken
Upper Rhenish
Council of Princes
Partitioned from P.-S. and Zweibrücken 1444
Ceded Veldenz 1543
Acquired Neuburg 1557
Partitioned 1569
Partitioned 1604
Extinct; to Palatinate-Landsberg 1661

Palatinate-Zweibrücken was the name of a state of the Holy Roman Empire based in the Duchy of Zweibrücken in the southwest of modern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Palatinate-Zweibrücken was partitioned from Palatinate-Simmern and Zweibrücken in 1444 by Stephen for his son Louis I. The new state was granted the County of Veldenz and the Duchy of Zweibrücken. His son and eventual successor Alexander the Lame founded the Alexanderkirche in 1489 in which many future members of the House of Wittelsbach would be buried. Count Palatine Louis II became a proponent of the Reformation, and made possible the Swiss Marburg Colloquy by allowing Protestant theologians to bypass the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Bishoprics of Speyer and Worms.

In 1543 his successor Wolfgang was forced to give the County of Veldenz to Rupert of Palatinate-Veldenz. In 1548 the Emperor invaded Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the soldiers left only in 1552. He signed the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, a treaty drawn up to try and end the religious conflict in Germany. In 1557 the state was enlarged with the annexation of the Duchy of Neuburg and in the secularisation of a few of the Prince-Abbeys. In 1569 he joined King Charles IX of Sweden on his campaign to assist French Huguenots but was killed early in the conflict. After his death his sons partitioned the state into Palatinate-Neuburg, Palatinate-Zweibrücken, Palatinate-Sulzbach, Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Vohenstrauss-Parkstein and Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld.

Wolfgang's successor John I changed the state religion from Lutheranism to Calvinism. After his death in 1604 Palatinate-Zweibrücken was further partitioned into itself (for John II) and the collateral lines of Palatinate-Landsberg and Palatinate-Kleeburg. Palatinate-Zweibrücken was devastated during the Thirty Years' War, and only one tenth of the population survived it. After the death of Count Palatine Frederick in 1661, Palatinate-Zweibrücken passed to the line of Palatinate-Landsberg.

Name

Reign

Louis I 1444 - 1489
Caspar 1489 - 1490
Alexander 1490 - 1514
Louis II 1514 - 1532
Wolfgang 1532 - 1569
John I 1569 - 1604
John II 1604 - 1635
Frederick 1635 - 1661
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