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Bogislaw XIV or Bogislav XIV (Template:Lang-la; Template:Lang-pl) (31 March 1580 – 10 March 1637) was the last Duke of Pomerania. His titles included Duke of Stettin (Szczecin), Cassubia and Vandalia; Prince of Rügen; and Lutheran Bishop of Kammin.
Bogislaw was born in Barth as a member of the House of Pomerania. He was the third son of Duke Bogislaw XIII by his first wife Clara of Brunswick-Lüneburg. On the death of his father in 1606, he and his younger brother George became joint Dukes of Rügenwalde (Darłowo). George died in 1617, and Bogislaw became sole ruler. In 1620 his domain was incorporated into the Duchy of Stettin, which he inherited on the death of his elder brother Francis. Early in 1625 he became ruler of all West Pomerania on the death of the last Duke of Wolgast, Philip Julius, and on the 19 February he was married to Elisabeth (24 September 1580 - 21 December 1653), fifth daughter of John II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, by his first wife, Elisabeth of Brunswick-Grubenhagen.
Despite his attempts to avoid becoming embroiled in the Thirty Years' War, Bogislaw was forced to allow imperial troops commanded by Albrecht von Wallenstein to use his territories as a base in 1627. In turn, his lands became embroiled in the war, with all its disastrous consequences. In the 1630s many of the local nobility tried to lessen his power, and this problem occupied Bogislaw in the early 1630s. After being struck by a disease and partially paralyzed in 1633, he abdicated a year later. Bogislaw died without issue in 1637, the last of his line, and was buried in Stettin.
The succession to his lands was disputed between George William, Elector of Brandenburg, the heir under a pact between the two families in 1464, and his brother-in-law Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who had occupied much of Pomerania on entering the Thirty Years' War in 1629. According to Bogislaw' last will, his lands were to pass to Sweden, not to Brandenburg-Prussia, but when the allocation of territory was decided at the Peace of Westphalia which concluded the war in 1648, the territories were split between Sweden and Brandenburg, marking the end of Pomerania as an autonomous, political entity.
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References
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