biography
| name: |
Juliana of Stolberg-Wernigerode, Countess of Nassau
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pronunciation:
[yüliahna]
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1506–80)
|
| biography:
| Dutch countess, born in Stolberg, E Germany, the daughter of Botho VIII of Stolberg-Wernigerode and Anne of Eppenstein-Königstein. She married first (1525) Philip of Hanau, had four children, and was widowed in 1529. Her second marriage (1531) was to William of Nassau-Dillenburg (the Rich), with whom she had seven daughters and five sons; the eldest son was William the Silent, followed by John the Elder, Louis, Adolf, and Henry. Although the elder children had been baptized as Catholics they were brought up as Protestants, and after 1536 all became Protestant. She supported William of Orange financially in 1568. With her second son John she encouraged the reformed religion in Nassau Dillenburg, suppressing Catholicism and Calvinism, but after a series of theological disputes at Dillenburg (1570–1) she, with all her children, switched from Lutheranism to Calvinism. |
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