Henri II de Longueville held Neuchâtel as a French-aligned principality while the Thirty Years' War ground to its close, and this 1648 issue was struck in the same year the Peace of Westphalia reshaped the political map of central Europe. Neuchâtel's precise status under the treaties was left deliberately ambiguous — nominally imperial, practically independent, and entirely dependent on the Longueville family's survival for its governance.
The Longueville line died out in 1694, triggering a succession dispute among fifteen claimants that the cantonal council eventually resolved in favor of the Prussian Hohenzollerns in 1707.
Henri II de Longueville held Neuchâtel as a French-aligned principality while the Thirty Years' War ground to its close, and this 1648 issue was struck in the same year the Peace of Westphalia reshaped the political map of central Europe. Neuchâtel's precise status under the treaties was left deliberately ambiguous — nominally imperial, practically independent, and entirely dependent on the Longueville family's survival for its governance.
The Longueville line died out in 1694, triggering a succession dispute among fifteen claimants that the cantonal council eventually resolved in favor of the Prussian Hohenzollerns in 1707.