A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Ada, Countess of Holland

4091325A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography — Ada, Countess of Holland

ADA,

Countess of Holland, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. At the death of her father, Diederyk, or Theodora the Seventh, which took place in 1203, she was in the sixteenth year of her age, and it being a question whether Holland, then a fief of the Empire, would be given to a young unmarried female, her ambitious mother married her immediately on the death of Diederyk, to Count Louis van Loon, who took up arms to assert his right to the headship of Holland, in opposition to William of Friesland, the late Count's brother, by whom Ada was taken prisoner, in the castle of Leydon; and in agreement with a stipulation between himself and her husband, she was sent to England, and placed under the protection of King John. In 1207, William of Friesland being then victorious, Ada was suffered to return to Holland on her husband's stipulating to ackowledge the British King as his liege lord, whom he was bound to serve and obey. The countess took up her residence in the bishoprick of Liege, where she is supposed to have died in 1218; on the 29th. of July of which year, her husband, by whose side she was buried at Herkenrode, also died.