Religion.—The majority of the population belong to the Reformed or Calvinist faith, but the Lutherans, United Protestants, Catholics, and Jews are well represented. At the end of 1867 the number of Protestant churches in the province MIS 1375; Roman Catholic churches, 486; Jewish synagogues, 246; and other churches, 8. Ali the churches recognized by the state enjoy equal rights.
supreme court of appeal is at Cassel, with two high courts of justice at Cassel and Fulda, under whose jurisdiction are various climbed and magisterial courts.
Electoral Hesse was formerly a limited monarchical government. The ruler bore the title of electoral prince and landgraf of Hesse, grand-duke of Fulda, prince of Hers feld, Hanau, Fritzlar, and Isenburg, count of Katzenellenbogen, Dietz, etc. The dia i city, which is hereditary in the male line only, is at present heal by the elector Frederick Wilhelm I. The elector was assisted in the government by a council of ministers, who were partially responsible. A new constitution,. based on the federal decision of 1837, i was promulgated in 1860. There were two representative chambers, the higher of which comprised the princes of the electoral several mediatized princes (see MEDIATE), officers of state, and the higher nobility; while the lower chamber comprised 48 members, one-third of whom represented the landed proprietors, and the remainder the civic and rural districts. The chambers were convoked at least once in every three years. Each parish was presided over by a burgher-master (brirgernzeister) or magistrate, each circle by a government official, and each province by a special governor.
Hesse-Cassel occupied the eighth place in the German confederation, It had three votes in the plenum or general council of the diet, and supplied a contingent of and a reserve of 2,840 men to the federal army.
is the elder line of the house of Hesse, founded by landgraf Wilhelm IV., or the wise, son of Philip the magnanimous, who reigned from 1567 to to 1592, and held his court at Cassel. Wilhelm was succeeded by his son Maurice, who joined the Protestant church. and five years before his death resigned the government in 1627 to his son Wilhelm V. The latter fought on the side of Sweden during the thirty years' war, for which lie was put under the ban of the empire. His two brothers. Hermann and Ernest respectively, founded the lines of Hesse-Rotenburg and Hesse Rheinfels; and on his death in 1637 his widow assumed the regency for their young son, Wilhelm VI., and by her ability, secured for him, as an indemnification for the losses I•hich the country had sustained during the war, time greater part of Schaumburg and the principality of Hersfeld. The successors of Wilhelm V. pursued the practice he had begun of hiring out Hessian soldiers to fight in the service of foreign princes, a practice by which the finances of the state were considerably augmented at the expense of the welfare and morality of the people; while, in some instances, it led to the forma tion of important alliances on the part of the reigning house. The landgraf, Friedrich
I., who succeeded his father in 1730, had become king of Sweden in 1720, in right of his wife, the princess Ulrike Eleanor, sister of Charles XII. His brother, Wilhelm VIII., to whom he had resigned his Hessian territories, fought under the British aud Hanoverian flag in the seven years' war, and gained considerable renown for himself and his troops during the course of the war, which was especially disastrous to the wel fare of his states. Williehn's son, Friedrich II., persevered in the same course, and kept up a splendid court on the proceeds of the pay, amounting to £3,000,000, which the British government gave him for the services of the 22,000 Hessians who fought against the Americans in the war of independence. Friedrich, who had become a con vert to the Romish church, died in 1785, and was succeeded by his son, Wilhelm IX., who reigned as Wilhelm I., after his elevation to the rank of an elector in 1803. This prince frequently shifted sides and parties during the French revolutionary and imperial war, fighting with his Hessian mercenaries first under British colors, then in conjunc tion with Prussia, and in 1806 as the ally of Napoleon, who in return fur his aid prom ised to respect the neutrality of the electorate. After the battle of Jena, the French emperor, suspecting the motives which had actuated the elector in augmenting his army, threw troops into the Hessian territory, and at the peace of Tilsit incorpo rated the electorate in the newly formed kiugdom of Westphalia. In 1S13 Wilhelm returned to his dominions after the overthrow of French power in Germany, and at Once began to restore the old order of things as far as he could; while he entered upon a course of vexatious litigation to recover the state lands that had been sold during his exile, and appealed to the diet with such importunate pertinacity for indemnification. that he obtained various important concessions at the congress of Vienna, although he failed in his wish to secure the title of king, of which be was especially ambitious. In accordance with the promise which he had made his subjects on his restoration to power, he summoned a body of jurists to construct a constitution; but no sooner was a draft of this new scheme completed, than he refused to fulfill his promises. Els death in 1821 was regarded as a fortunate event for the electorate; but his son and Wilhelm II., by his narrow policy, increased the rapidly growing disorders of the state, while his relations to his mistress, the obnoxious countess of rendered him peculiarly unpopular with his subjects. These disorders were partially arrested the retirement of the elector in 1831, and the nomination of the electoral the rank of regent. But the history of the 16 years' regency of prince Friedrich il helm exhibits only a series of intrigues at court, dissensions between the government and the representatives of the people, and a retrogressive policy, which left Hesse far behind other German states in material prosperity. The death of the old elector at .