Schaumburg-Lippe was formed as a county in 1647 through the division of the
County of Schaumburg by treaties between the
Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the
Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and the Count of
Lippe. The division occurred because Count Otto V of Holstein-Schaumburg had died in 1640 leaving no male heir. Initially Schaumburg-Lippe's position was somewhat precarious: it had to share a wide variety of institutions and facilities with the County of Schaumburg (which belonged to Hesse-Kassel), including the representative assembly and the highly productive
Bückeberg mines, and the
Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel retained some feudal rights over it. It was further threatened by the headstrong policies of the ruling Count,
Frederick Christian. To counter these threats, Frederick's grandson, Count
William (who reigned 1748–1777) retained a standing army of up to 1000 troops – quite a lot for such a small territory. With William's death in 1777, the junior line
Schaumburg-Lippe-Alverdissen inherited the county, thereby reuniting Schaumburg-Lippe with Lippe-Alverdissen. Schaumburg-Lippe was a county until 1807, when it became a principality; from 1871 it was a state within the
German Empire. In 1913, it was the least populous state in the German Empire. The capital was
Bückeburg, while
Stadthagen was the only other town. Under the constitution of 1868, there was a legislative diet of 15 members with ten elected by the towns and rural districts, one each by the nobility, clergy and educated classes and the remaining two nominated by the prince. Schaumburg-Lippe sent one member to the
Bundesrat (federal council) and one deputy to the
Reichstag. The principality lasted until the
end of the German monarchies in 1918, when it became a
free state as the
Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe. In November 1918, Prince Adolf was the penultimate German monarch to abdicate. == Rulers of Schaumburg-Lippe ==