WOLFGANG, COUNT PALATINE: Palagrave and duke of Zweibrucken and Neuburg, and ardent supporter of the Reformation; b. at Zweibrucken (50 m. w. of Speyer) Sept. 26, 1526; d. at Nessun (near Limoges), France, June 11, 1569. He was the only son of Louis II. of Zweibrucken (d. 1532), and after receiving his first training, at the instance of his Reformed uncle, Rupert, who was regent during Wolfgang's minority, under Kaspar Glaser, he was sent, in 1541, for further instruction first to the electoral court at Treves, and later to that of the Palatinate. In the latter part of 1543 he assumed personal control of his duchy, and during the Schmalkald War, though he was a firm Protestant, he remained neutral. On the close of
Until the hostilities the emperor, despite WolfAbrogation gang's protests, commanded him to of the introduce the Augsburg Interim (see Augsburg Interim, 2), which the, duke accord Interim. ingly did Aug. 22, 1548, declaring that he would obey so fax as he conscien tiously could. But the clergy declared that the Interim contained much that they could not do with a good conscience, and Wolfgang reported to the emperor that, while he had fulfilled the requirements as to fasts and feasts, the attitude of .his clergy ren dered him unable to carry out the other injunctions of the Interim. The emperor then referred him to the bishops, but as they were unwilling to send him any but Roman Catholic clergy, while he would receive only those who, according to the terms of the Interim, would administer communion under both kinds, the Interim was only partially enforced. A renewal of the imperial demands led Wolfgang, on April 19, 1549, again to insist that the fasts and feasts be observed as secular ordinances, but at the same time he informed the emperor that his clergy, without exception, refused to carry out the Interim, and that the bishops had sent him no clergy who were ready to do so. He therefore begged the em peror himself to adjust the matter. In Sept., 1549, and in March, 1550, the bishops performed their visitations in the district of Zweibrucken, but since Wolfgang refused to allow the clergy any conces sions beyond the Interim, ecclesiastical affairs seem, even then, to have gone on as before.
As soon as the Treaty of Passau (cf. Augsburg, Religious Peace of) rendered it possible, Woifgang directed the visitation held in the Meisenheim district in July, 1553, the results showing that the pastors were discharging their functions in Protestant fashion. In the Upper Palatinate, of which he was regent from 1551 to 1557, he directed that the liturgy issued by the Palsgrave Otto Henry be followed, and in Zweibrucken he replaced the liturgy of 1533 on June 1, 1557, by one which was akin to the Lutheran liturgies of Württemberg and Mecklenburg. To insure the acceptance of the new liturgy a visitation was made in July and Aug., 1553, and it
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In 1559 Wolfgang interposed in favor of the Protestants at Treves, and in 1561 he pleaded, with other Protestant princes, at the Diet of Naumburg, for his French coreligionists before Charles IX. At the same time he soon manifested increasing antipathy to Calvinism, and to prevent it from entering his domains he directed the rigid Lutheran Johann Marbach (q.v.) to make a new visitation in 1564, while:in the year following he appointed Tilemann Hesshusen (q.v.) his chaplain. At the Diet of Augsburg he even sought, though without success, to induce the Protestant princes to refuse to recog-
Assistance nize the Elector Frederick III.; and to the with the restlessness that characterized
Huguenots. him at this time, he entered into negotiations with the adventurer Wilhelm of Grumbach and made a military treaty with Philip II. of Spain. The year 1568 saw a new change of position, doubtless caused in part by the deeds of Alva in the Netherlands, for Wolfgang now canceled his Spanish alliance and entered into close relations with the Elector Frederick. The duke had never forgotten that peril to the foreign Reformed meant danger to German Protestants, and as early as 1563 he had raised troops to assist the French Huguenots, nor did he disband them until after the news of the peace of Amboise. When, therefore, Cond6 and Coligny again sought help for the French Protestants from the Protestant princes of Germany, Wolfgang bound himself, on Sept. 18, 1568, to assist them at his own expense. With a small force of 8,440 infantry and 8,750 cavalry he set forth, though the French king had already sent against him, under the duke of Aumale, a force at least equal to his own. On Feb. 20, 1569, he broke camp from Bergzabern, crossed the Saone on Mar. 28, and continued his march despite the news of the Huguenot defeat near Jarnac (March 13) and the death of Conde. On Apr. 23 he crossed from Burgundy into France, and on June 9 gained a battle on the Vienne. Here only a three-days' march separated him from the Huguenot forces, and Coligny was already advancing, with a few cavalry, to meet him. On June 11 the two forces met at Nessun, but illness and exertion had completely exhausted Wolfgang, and a few hours later he died. His body was temporarily interred at Angouleme, whence it was taken, two years later, by sea via La Rochelle and Lübeck to Germany, where it was finally buried in the church at Meisenheim Sept. 23, 1571. .
The assistance rendered by Wolfgang of Zweibrücken materially strengthened the position of the French Protestants, and without it they would scarcely have gained the terms secured them by the treaty,of St. Germain (Aug. 1, 1570), so that it was with good reason that the Huguenot leaders wrote his sons, June 8, 1571, that, next to God, they owed to Wolfgang their lives, estates, honor, and religious freedom. The family laws of the pres-
Character ent house of Wittelsbach, which traces and its lineage to Wolfgang, are strongly
Influence. influenced by his famous will of Aug.18, 1568; and the sincerity of his character, the purity of his, family life, the insight and rectitude evinced in the government of his little territory, and his extraordinary prowess insure him a place of honorable memory; among all Protestants.
Bibliography: : R. Menzel, Wolfgang von Zaoesbirilcken, Munich, 1893 (the earlier literature is fully given); J. Ney,
Pfalzgraf Wolfgang, Leipsic, 1912.
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