Limburg-Luxemburg dynasty

Coat of arms of Luxembourg (see also Armorial of Luxembourg and Limbourg (fr)

arms of Waleran III, Duke of Limburg

arms of the Counts of Grandpré and Counts of Loon

arms of Henry V, Count of Luxembourg, his father's arms of Limburg with addition of azure stripes leaving a barry of argent and azure.

The Luxembourg line was initially a cadet branch of the Lotharingian ducal House of Limburg–Arlon, who were in turn a branch of the Luxembourg branch of the so-called House of Ardenne. In 1247 Henry, younger son of Duke Waleran III of Limburg inherited the County of Luxembourg upon the death of his mother Countess Ermesinde, a scion of the House of Namur. Her father, Count Henry IV of Luxembourg, was related on his mother's side to the Ardennes-Verdun dynasty (also called the elder House of Luxembourg), which had ruled the county since the late 10th century.

Holy Roman Empire under Charles IV

  Habsburg

  Luxembourg

  Wittelsbach

Count Henry V's grandson Henry VII, Count of Luxembourg upon the death of his father Henry VI at the 1288 Battle of Worringen, was elected Rex Romanorum in 1308. The election was necessary after the Habsburg king Albert I of Germany had been murdered, and Henry, backed by his brother Archbishop-Elector Baldwin of Trier, prevailed against Charles, Count of Valois. Henry arranged the marriage of his son John with the Přemyslid heiress Elisabeth of Bohemia in 1310, through whom the House of Luxembourg acquired the Kingdom of Bohemia, enabling that family to compete more effectively for power with the Habsburg and Wittelsbach dynasties. One year after being crowned Holy Roman Emperor at Rome, Henry VII, still on campaign in Italy, died in 1313.

The prince-electors, perturbed by the rise of the Luxembourgs, disregarded the claims raised by Henry's heir King John, and the rule over the Empire was assumed by the Wittelsbach duke Louis of Bavaria. John instead concentrated on securing his rule in Bohemia and gradually vassalized the Piast dukes of adjacent Silesia from 1327 until 1335. His son Charles IV, in 1346 mounted the Imperial throne. His Golden Bull of 1356 served as a constitution of the Empire for centuries. Charles not only acquired the duchies of Brabant and Limburg in the west, but also the former March of Lusatia and even the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1373 under the Kingdom of Bohemia.

The family's decline began under Charles' son King Wenceslaus, deposed by the prince-electors in 1400 who chose the Wittelsbach Elector Palatine Rupert. In 1410 rule was assumed by Wenceslaus' brother Sigismund, who once again stabilized the rule of the Luxembourgs and even contributed to end the Western Schism in 1417; however, with his death in 1437, the senior branch of the dynasty became extinct. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, the Habsburg archduke Albert V of Austria. The Habsburgs finally prevailed as Luxembourg heirs, ruling the Empire until the extinction of their senior branch upon the death of Maria Theresa in 1780.

Emperor Charles IV

• Henry VII (1275–1313) – elected king of Germany in 1308 in succession to the assassinated Albert I, crowned emperor in 1312. He was succeeded by Louis IV from the House of Wittelsbach.
  • Baldwin – brother of Henry, prince-archbishop of Trier and thereby archchancellor of Burgundy 1307–1354.
• John the Blind (1296–1346) – only son of Henry. He was enfeoffed with Bohemia by his father in 1310, married the Přemyslid heiress Elisabeth of Bohemia and deposed the Bohemian king Henry the Carinthian.
• Charles IV (1316–1378) — eldest son of John. He was elected king of Germany in opposition to Louis IV in 1346 and succeeded his father as king of Bohemia in the same year, crowned emperor in 1355.
  • John Henry, Margrave of Moravia – younger brother of Charles. He married Countess Margaret of Tyrol, daughter of Henry the Carinthian in 1330.
    • Jobst of Moravia (1351–1411) – eldest son of John Henry. Margrave of Brandenburg 1388–1411, elected King of the Romans in 1410.
• Wenceslaus (1361–1419) – eldest surviving son of Charles. As margrave of Brandenburg from 1373 to 1378, he was elected king of Germany in 1376 and succeeded his father as king of Bohemia in 1378. Declared deposed by the prince-electors in 1400, he was succeeded by Rupert of Wittelsbach.
• Sigismund (1368–1437) – younger son of Charles. Margrave of Brandenburg from 1378 to 1388, he was king of Hungary and Croatia from 1387 in right of his wife Mary, and was elected king of Germany in 1411,[1] succeeding his brother as king of Bohemia in 1419, being crowned emperor in 1433 yet he left no male heirs.
• Elizabeth of Luxembourg, only child of Emperor Sigismund, married Archduke Albert V of Austria from the Albertinian line of the House of Habsburg in 1422, becoming queen of Hungary from 1437 as well as queen of Germany and Bohemia from 1438 until Albert's death in 1439. She was the heiress who conveyed the major portion of the Luxembourg inheritance to the Habsburgs and, later, the Jagiellons through her daughter Elisabeth of Austria.

• Jacquetta of Luxembourg