Stamboom van Hagenbeek

Vader: Gerard IV van Gelre en Zutphen
Moeder: Margaretha van Brabant

• Geboren: vóór 1229
• Gedoopt: [[see https://ia802701.us.archive.org/1/items/actenbetreffend03ducgoog/actenbetreffend03ducgoog.pdf)]]
• Overleden: tussen 1297 en 1298 (ongeveer 68 jaar oud)
• Begraven: te Nideggen

Richardis v.Limburg, 1278-1284 Vormund für den Sohn
1. Wilhelm is supposed to have married two sisters. That is extraordinary. Sisters are related in the first degree, so there was an affinitas-relationship in the first degree. Forbidden by the church up to the fourth degree! The first similar case I know is that of king Manuel of Portugal who married in 1500 Maria of Aragon, sister of his previous wife Isabella. But Wihelm is supposed to have remarried before 1251 (see below), two and a half centuries earlier. I do not think it likely that a dispensation for marrying Richardis could have been obtained in case Wilhelm had been actually married to her sister. And in case Wilhelm had indeed married two sisters without a dispensation, such scandalous behaviour should certainly have been recorded somewhere.
2. The only source for the marriage of Margaretha and Wilhelm is an act given by Butkens Trophées de Brabant, part I, Preuves p 79-80. In that act dated 12-3-1237 Henry, duke of Brabant promises to marry his niece, Margaretha of Gelre, to Wilhelm of Jülich Wilhelm of Jülich in case her previous engagement with Dirk van Valkenburg could be cancelled. There is no proof at all that this initiative of Duke Henry led to a marriage of Margaretha with Wilhelm.
3. It may well be that Margaretha's brother count Otto of Gelre was less eager to cancel the engagement with Valkenburg (an alliance probably planned by Otto himself). So he may have offered Wilhelm his other sister Richardis. Perhaps Margarethe married after all with Valkenburg and died a few years later (in child birth?). Anyway Valkenburg finally (re)married around 1247 Bertha van Limburg, widow of Theoderich von Hochstaden, who himself died January 1246.
4. In the "acten betreffende Gelre and Zutphen 1107-1415" page 399, by Van Doornick one can see that Wilhelm was married to Richardis before 13 January 1250. The act suggest but does not say explicitly that she was Otto's sister. However, in an act of 26 may 1300 Gerhard of Jülich mentions "domini Henrici quondam Leodiensis ecclesiae episcope, dilecti nostri avunculi (see I.A. Nyhoff, Gedenkwaardigheden uit de geschiedenis van Gelderland door onuitgegeven oorkonden opgehelderd en bevestigd, deel I, nr 70, p 81, Arnhem, 1830. Knowing that she was Otto's sister, she must have been born at the very latest first half 1230 (if posthuma), probably several years earlier. I guess about 1224.
5. Walther Möller in his Stammtafeln Westdeutscher Adelsgeschlechter I (table VII) just mentions Wilhelm's engagement to Margarethe and his subsequent marriage to Richardis. He does not indicate explicitly who was the mother of his children, but I presume he meant they were all by Richardis.
6. Eberhard Winkhaus in his Ahnen zu Karl dem Grossen und Widukind mentions the engagement of Wilhelm to Margarethe ( + 1251!) and his marriage (um 1240!) with Richardis. No sources. The death date 1251 may be an error; as her sister in law Margarethe of Cleve, first wife of Otto of Gelre, died that year.
7. Wilhelm and his eldest son, Wilhelm (primogenitus), both died 16-3-1278 in a fight in Aachen. Lacomblet I gives an act (nr 835), dated 2-2-1287, in which Richardis mentions Wilhelm primogenitus as senior noster filius. It is not totally impossible that she refers to a stepson, but it seems far more likely that he was indeed Richardis' son.
Summarizing: Wilhelm most probably married only once, after 1237 and well before 1250 with Richardis of Gelre, and Richardis was the mother of all his children.