In the early 11th century Emperor
Henry II entrusted the administration of the
Klever Reichswald, a large forested area around the
Kaiserpfalz at
Nijmegen directly subordinate to the Imperial rule, to local
Lower Lorrainian nobles at
Geldern and Kleve. A County of Cleves (; ) was first mentioned in the 11th century.
Dietrich I was the first Count of Cleves and reigned from 1092 through 1119. In 1283, Cleves fought in the
War of the Limburg Succession and helped weaken the powerful
Electorate of Cologne. In 1355
Zevenaar passed from the control of the Duchy of Guelders to the County of Cleves. Upon the death of Count
Johann in 1368, the fief was inherited by his nephew
Adolf III of the Marck. Cleves and the Marck were finally ruled in
personal union by the
House of La Marck after Adolf's elder brother Count Engelbert III had died without issue in 1391. King
Sigismund of Germany raised Count
Adolph I to the status of a duke and a
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1417, and the
county became a
duchy. , Cleves The Cleves-Mark territories became one of the most significant estates of the
Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle in 1500, rivaled by the
Prince-Bishops of Münster. In 1511
John III of La Marck, son of Duke
John II of Cleves, married
Maria and her estates and titles were then merged with the Duchy of Cleves. Upon the death of his father-in-law Duke
William IV, John inherited the fiefs of Jülich and Berg through his wife. When John III succeeded his father as Duke of Cleves in 1521, the states of Jülich, Berge, Cleves and Mark formed the
United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. His daughter
Anne of Cleves (1515–1557) even became Queen Consort of
England for a few months in 1540, as her brother
William, duke since 1539, quarreled with Emperor
Charles V over the possession of
Guelders and sought support from King
Henry VIII.
John William was the son of William and the last duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berge. He died without issue in 1609, and the
War of the Jülich Succession broke out between the heirs of his two eldest sisters:
Maria Eleonora, Duchess of Prussia, and
Anna, Countess of Neuburg. Marie Eleonore's daughter
Marie was married to the Margrave of Brandenburg; Neuburg was a cadet branch of the
House of Wittelsbach. According to the 1614
Treaty of Xanten, Brandenburg received Cleves-Mark and Neuburg received Jülich-Berg. The
Hohenzollern margraves thereby got a first foothold in the
Rhineland; however, large parts of the Duchy of Cleves were occupied by the
United Provinces until the
Franco-Dutch War in 1672. Finally incorporated into
Brandenburg-Prussia by the Great Elector
Frederick William I of Brandenburg in 1666 and part of the
Kingdom of Prussia after 1701, Cleves was occupied by
French forces in the
Seven Years' War (1757–1762). In the 1795
Peace of Basel the Duchy of Cleves west of the Rhine and
Wesel was ceded to
France, and became part of the French
département of the
Roer. The rest of the duchy was occupied between 1803 and 1805, and became part of the puppet-state
Grand Duchy of Berg. In 1815, after the defeat of
Napoleon, the duchy became part of the Prussian
Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, which was combined with the
Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine to form the Prussian
Rhine Province in 1822. The cities
Gennep,
Zevenaar, and
Huissen became part of the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands as a result of the 1815
Congress of Vienna. ==Rulers of Cleves==