In 1486, Eindhoven was plundered and burned by troops from Guelders.

In 1247, the city was ceded to the count of Guelders as collateral for a loan.

The feudal system lead to conflict, and the prince-bishopric was at odds with the Counts of Holland and the Dukes of Guelders.

The Veluwe region was soon seized by Guelders, but large areas in the modern province of Overijssel remained as the Oversticht.

After the death of her father and her brother, Ermgard, the heiress of Zutphen married the count of Guelders ; her son Henry I, Count of Guelders was the first to wear both titles.

The county emerged about 1096, when Gerard III of Wassenberg was first documented as " Count of Guelders ".

Guelders was often at war with its neighbours, not only with Brabant, but also with the County of Holland and the Bishopric of Utrecht.

On separate occasions, in return for loans from the treasury of Guelders, the bishop of Utrecht granted the taxation and administration of the Veluwe, and William II --- Count of both Holland and Zeeland, and who was elected anti-king of the Holy Roman Empire ( 1248 – 1256 )--- similarly granted the same rights over Nijmegen ; as neither ruler proved able to repay their debts, these lands became integral parts of Guelders.

In 1339 Count Reginald II of Guelders ( also styled Rainald ), of the House of Wassenberg, was elevated to the rank of Duke by Emperor Louis IV of Wittelsbach.

William was confirmed in the inheritance of Guelders in 1379, and from 1393 onwards held both duchies in personal union ( in Guelders as William I, and in Jülich as William III ).

In 1423 Guelders passed to the House of Egmond, which gained recognition of its title from Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, but was unable to escape the political strife and internecine conflict that had so plagued the preceding House of Jülich-Hengebach, and more especially, the pressure brought to bear by the expansionist rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy.

Adolf, who had enjoyed the support of Burgundian Duke Philip III (" the Good ") and of the four major cities of Guelders during his rebellion, was unwilling to strike a compromise with his father when this was demanded by Philip's successor, Duke Charles the Bold.

The bargain was completed in 1472-73, and upon Arnold's death in 1473, Duke Charles added Guelders to the " Low Countries " portion of his Valois Duchy of Burgundy.

Upon Charles ' defeat and death at the Battle of Nancy in January 1477, Duke Adolf was released from prison by the Flemish, but died the same year at the head of a Flemish army besieging Tournai, after the States of Guelders had recognized him once more as Duke.

Subsequently, Guelders was ruled by Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, husband of Charles the Bold's daughter and heir, Mary.

The last independent Duke of Guelders was Adolf's son Charles of Egmond ( 1467 – 1538, r1492 – 1538 ), who was raised at the Burgundian court of Charles the Bold and fought for the House of Habsburg in battles against the armies of Charles VIII of France, until being captured in the Battle of Béthune ( 1487 ) during the War of the Public Weal ( also known as the Mad War ).

This alliance emboldened William to challenge Emperor Charles V's claim to Guelders, but the French, mightily engaged on multiple fronts as they were in the long struggle to against the Habsburg " encirclement " of France, proved less reliable than the Duke's ambitions required, and he was unable to hold on to the duchy ; in 1543, by the terms of the Treaty of Venlo, Duke William conceded the Duchy of Guelders to the Emperor.

At the Treaty of Utrecht, ending the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, the Spanish Upper Quarter was again divided between Prussian Guelders ( Geldern, Viersen, Horst, Venray ), the United Provinces ( Venlo, Montfort, Echt ), Austria ( Roermond, Niederkrüchten, Weert ), and the Duchy of Jülich ( Erkelenz ).

: This article deals with the historical county and duchy of Guelders, for other meanings see Gelderland.

Guelders or Gueldres ( Dutch: Gelre, German: Geldern ) is a historical county, later duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the Low Countries.

In later years the county of Zutphen became a part of the Duchy of Guelders, and the Duchy of Limburg was dependent on the Duchy of Brabant.

The first document mentioning the existence of this community is the town charter granted by Mathieu d ' Alsace in 1181 to Gerard de Guelders, Count of Boulogne ; Calais became part of the county of Boulogne.

His son, the last Burgundian duke Charles the Bold, in 1473 annexed the Duchy of Guelders, which had been pawned by late Arnold of Egmond.

In the late 15th century, the senior branch became the sovereign Dukes of Guelders, whilst the younger branch split into the Counts of Egmond ( elevated to become Princes of Gavere in 1553 ) and the Counts of Buren and Leerdam.

From the end of the 11th century the counts of Guelders, the first being Gerard III of Wassenberg, also known as Gerard I, Count of Guelders, also possessed the lordship in Erkelenz.

Prussia first set foot on the Rhine in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves and about a century later Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian.

A Prussian king first set foot on the Rhine in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves and about a century later Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian.

In the 12th and 13th century, Guelders quickly expanded downstream along the sides of the Maas, Rhine, and IJssel rivers and even claimed the succession in the Duchy of Limburg, until it lost the 1288 Battle of Worringen against Berg and Brabant.

The canonical institution of the third order dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, when a community of Beguines at Guelders sought affiliation to the order, and Blessed John Soreth, General of the Carmelites, obtained a Bull ( 7 October 1452 ) granting the superiors of his order the faculties enjoyed by the Hermits of Saint Augustine and the Dominicans of canonically establishing convents of " virgins, widows, beguines and mantellatae ".

During his childhood, the government was led by three successive factions, first the King's mother, Mary of Guelders ( 1460 – 1463 ) ( who briefly secured the return of the burgh of Berwick to Scotland ), then James Kennedy, Bishop of St Andrews, and Gilbert, Lord Kennedy ( 1463 – 1466 ), then Robert, Lord Boyd ( 1466 – 1469 ).

It was ruled by the Counts of Zutphen between 1018 and 1182, and then formed a personal union with Guelders.

Around 1616 the Heerlijkheid Borculo, ( until then an independent state, where Rekken was a part of ) became a property of the duke of Guelders, and with that to the former Dutch Republic.

The town now ended up, together with the Duchy of Guelders, under to the Spanish House of Habsburg and was part of the Spanish Netherlands, then the richest country in Europe.

The Saxon duchy of Hamaland played an important role in the formation of the duchy of Guelders.

* 1288 – June 5 – John I of Brabant defeats the duchy of Guelders in the Battle of Worringen — one of the largest battles in Europe of the Middle Ages — thus winning possession of the duchy of Limburg.

* June 5 – Battle of Worringen: John I of Brabant defeats the duchy of Guelders in one of the largest battles in Europe of the Middle Ages, thus winning possession of the duchy of Limburg.

Though the present province of Gelderland ( English also Guelders ) in the Netherlands occupies most of the area, the former duchy also comprised parts of the present Dutch province of Limburg as well as those territories in the present-day German state of North Rhine-Westphalia that were acquired by Prussia in 1713.

In the Middle Ages Maasbree and Baarlo belonged to the duchy of Guelders.

Through the centuries the town has filled the role of commercial centre, principal town in the duchy of Guelders and since 1559 it has served as the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Roermond.

Around 1180-1543, Roermond belonged to the duchy of Guelders.

Charles the Bold's death before the gates of Nancy was the prelude to renewed unrest, both with Utrecht and the duchy of Guelders, and the town suffered economic hardship because of it.

Paternally, a branch of the Egmonts ruled the sovereign duchy of Guelders until 1538.

* the Upper Quarter ( Bovenkwartier ) of the duchy of Guelders ( around Venlo and Roermond, in the present province of Dutch Limburg, and the town of Geldern in the present German district Kleve )

The conflict arose after the last Waleran IV, Duke of Limburg, had died without male heirs in 1279, and his duchy was inherited by his daughter Ermengarde, who had married Reginald I, Count of Guelders.

Charles was born at Grave and raised at the Burgundian court of Charles the Bold, who had bought the duchy of Guelders from Adolf of Egmond in 1473.

The Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands had only been united in a personal union by Charles V with the incorporation of the duchy of Guelders in his Burgundian territories in 1544, and been constituted as a separate entity with his Pragmatic Sanction of 1549.

The département de la Roer was formed from the duchies of Jülich and Cleves, the part of the Archbishopric of Cologne left of the Rhine, the free city of Aachen, the Prussian part of the duchy of Guelders and some smaller territories.

* Guelders of the States ( Staats-Oppergelre ): as a result of the Treaty of Utrecht ( 1713 ) a part of Spanish Guelders was ceded to the United Provinces, e. g. Venlo and Echt ; another part came to Prussia and a small part around Roermond was left for the Austrian duchy of Guelders.