This stronghold was the beginning of the town of Dordrecht, and from here a little later the name Holland was gradually applied to the whole county.

Of his successors the most illustrious was William II (1234 to 1256) who was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen, and would have received from Pope Innocent IV the imperial crown at Rome, had he not been unfortunately drowned while attempting to cross on horseback an ice-bound marsh.
In 1299 the male line of this dynasty became extinct; and John of Avennes, Count of Hainault, nephew of William II, succeeded.

His son, William III, after a long struggle with the Counts of Flanders, conquered Zeeland and became Count henceforth of Holland, Zeeland and Hainault.

His son, William IV, died childless; and the succession then passed to his sister Margaret, the wife of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria.
It was contested by her second son William, who, after a long drawn-out strife with his mother, became, in 1354, Count of Holland and Zeeland with the title William V, Margaret retaining the county of Hainault.
Becoming insane, his brother Albert in 1358 took over the reins of government.

In his time the two factions, known by the nicknames of "the Hooks" and "the Cods," kept the land in a continual state of disorder and practically of civil war.