Countess Palatine Sabina of Simmern was born in Simmern on 13 June 1528 as the daughter of John II, Count Palatine of Simmern and Beatrix of Baden. She was their tenth and penultimate child.
Following the death of her mother in 1535, she was taken in by her relative, the future Frederick II, Elector Palatine, and his wife, Dorothea of Denmark. Dorothea was a niece of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
On 8 May 1544, Sabina married Lamoral, Count of Egmont, in Speyer. This marriage had been arranged, among others, by Emperor Charles and happened during the Imperial Diet. This meant that the wedding was attended by the Emperor, several members of his family and other German nobility. Following their wedding, the newlyweds settled in Brussels. Sabina became a part of the court of Charles’s sister Mary. Over the years, she gave birth to 13 children, eight daughters and three sons of whom survived to adulthood.
Sabina saw her family again when her brother became Frederick III, Elector Palatine. Sabina and her husband travelled to Heidelberg to celebrate this, but Sabina was pregnant, so the visit didn’t last very long. There was also a political element; King Philip II of Spain had requested that Lamoral bring Frederick his best wishes in order to improve his relationship with the electors. However, Frederick supported Calvinism, which caused a rift with the Habsburgs. Sabina and Lamoral had remained loyal to the Catholic faith, and Sabina also had limited contact with her siblings because of this.
At the court in Brussels, Sabina reportedly had a rivalry with Anna of Saxony, Princess of Orange. There were rifts over who had precedence, which reportedly escalated to such an extent that the women pushed through a door at the same time as neither would yield to the other.1 Nevertheless, Sabina still danced with Anna’s husband at the wedding of Alexander Farnese and Maria of Portugal while Lamoral danced with Anna.
Sabina’s life as she knew it came to a crashing halt in 1567 when her husband was arrested by the Duke of Alba on charges of high treason. Sabina tried to use every connection she had to free him. She even wrote a threatening letter to King Philip II, telling him that he would not prefer it if she sought help abroad.
On 31 March 1568, she wrote to the Duke of Alba, “The Countess of Egmont very humbly shows that she has heard that the Lord Count of Egmont, her husband, is in a pitiful condition and is in danger of falling into a serious illness which may be caused by him as he has been kept in a room for four or five months and therefore cannot be in the open air. Therefore, I request your Highness, in order to avoid any greater difficulty, to grant the said Lord Count the freedom to walk in the fresh air around the castle of Ghent and to allow Lord Jacob, his physician who knows his body well, to visit and heal him and that one of his servants who is staying in the castle be allowed to bring his meat without having to be passed from hand to hand.”2 She also claimed that her husband, as a knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece, had special rights.
After hearing he was to be sentenced to death, he wrote to her about how much he loved her and that she should take care of their children.3 He also wrote to King Philip II of Spain asking him not to let his dear wife and children suffer under disapproval or confiscation.4
In the end, it was no use. On 5 June 1568, Lamoral was executed on the Grand Place in Brussels. Sabina had retreated to a convent with her children after her husband’s arrest. All his goods had been confiscated, and she was left destitute. Even the Duke of Alba felt sorry for her, and he arranged for King Philip II to grant her an allowance. Lamaoral’s remains were brought to Zottegem, where they were interred in the church. It wasn’t until 1576 that the confiscated goods were returned to Sabina.
Sabina devoted these years to caring for her children. One of her sons, Philip, was captured by the Spanish in 1575, and it was Sabina who fought to have him released. Several of her daughters became nuns. Her three sons all eventually succeeded as Count of Egmont in turn.
Sabina died in Antwerp on 19 July 1578, and she was interred alongside her husband in Zottegem.
Their coffins were rediscovered by accident in 1804. Along with the coffins of Lamoral and Sabina, three heart-shaped lead boxes were found; these contained the embalmed hearts of Lamoral, as well as sons Philip and Charles.
The coffins were transferred to the new crypt underneath the church in 1857. During renovations in 1951, the coffins were opened, and the skeletons and hearts were researched. The bones were given special treatment to preserve them, and they were reinterred in 1954. They now lie in sarcophagi with a transparent top so that the bones can be seen. The hearts remained in an archive until 2008 but are now in the Town Hall across the street from the crypt. Their boxes are on display in the crypt. The Town Hall also houses Sabina’s original coffin plate and a lock of her hair. It also has one of Lamoral’s vertebrae, which was damaged during his execution, in a display case. In 2016, the glass dome was added.5
You can visit the crypt by picking up the key at the Town Hall in Zottegem.
- Anna van Saksen by Femke Deen p.103
- Geschiedenis van Lamoral Graaf van Egmont by Eugène Van Damme & C.-L. Gyselinck p.46
- Slachtoffer van verraad en intrige by Herman Vandormael & Aline Goosens p.158
- Slachtoffer van verraad en intrige by Herman Vandormael & Aline Goosens p.158
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