Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick

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Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Ernest Augustus (German: Ernst August) (17 November 1887, Penzing near Vienna – 30 January 1953, Castle Marienburg), reigning Duke of Brunswick (2 November 1913-8 November 1918), was a grandson of King George V of Hanover, whom the Prussians deposed in 1866. The last reigning monarch of the House of Hanover, Ernst August was a direct descendant of Henry the Lion.

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[edit] Ancestry and Early Life

Ernst's great-grandfather, Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was the fifth son of King George III of the United Kingdom who became king of Hanover in 1837 because Salic Law barred Queen Victoria from reigning in Germany.

His Royal Highness Ernst August Christian Georg, Prince of Hanover, Prince of Great Britain and Ireland, styled "Prince Ernest of Cumberland," was born at Penzing near Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of Ernst August of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and his wife, the former Princess Thyra of Denmark.1 His father succeeded as pretender to the Hanoverian throne and as Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale in the peerage of Great Britain in 1878. The younger Prince Ernst August became heir apparent to the dukedom of Cumberland and to the Hanoverian claim upon the deaths of his two elder brothers, George and Christian.

In 1884, the reigning Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, a distant cousin, died and the Duke of Cumberland claimed to succeed to that territory. However, the Imperial Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, managed to get the Federal Council (Bundesrat) of the German Empire to exclude the duke from the succession. Bismarck did this because the duke had never formally renounced his claims to the kingdom of Hanover, which had been annexed to Prussia in 1866 following the end of the Austro-Prussian War (Hanover had sided with losing Austria). Instead, Prince Albrecht of Prussia became the regent of Brunswick. After Prince Albrecht's death in 1906, the duke offered that he and his elder son, Prince George, would renounce their claims to the Duchy in order to allow Ernst, his only other surviving son, to take possession of the Duchy, but this option was rejected by the Bundesrat and the regency continued, this time under Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who had previously acted as regent for his nephew in Mecklenburg.

[edit] Marriage and accession to the duchy of Brunswick

When Ernst's older brother Prince Georg died in an automobile accident on 20 May 1912, the German Emperor sent a message of condolence to the Duke of Cumberland. In response to this friendly gesture, the Duke sent his only surviving son, Ernst, to Berlin to thank the Emperor for his message. In Berlin, Ernst met and fell in love with the Emperor William II's only daughter, Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia (13 September 1892-11 December 1980)

On 24 May 1913, Ernst and Viktoria Louise were married. This marriage ended the decades-long rift between the House of Hohenzollern and the House of Hanover. The wedding of Prince Ernst August and Princess Viktoria Luise was also the last great gathering of European sovereigns (many of whom were descended both from Queen Victoria and King Christian IX of Denmark) before the outbreak of the First World War. In addition to the German Emperor and Empress and the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, King George V and Queen Mary of Great Britain and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia attended. Upon the announcement of his betrothal to Princess Viktoria Luise in February 1913, Prince Ernst August took an oath of loyalty to the German emperor and accepted a commission as a cavalry captain and company commander in the Zieten Hussars, a Prussian Army regiment in which his grandfather (George V of Hanover) and great-grandfather (Ernst August I) had been colonels.

On 27 October 1913, the Duke of Cumberland formally renounced his claims to the duchy of Brunswick in favor of his surviving son. The following day, the Federal Council voted to allow Prince Ernst August of Cumberland to become the reigning Duke of Brunswick. The new Duke of Brunswick, who received a promotion to colonel in the Zieten Hussars, formally took possession of his duchy on 1 November.

During World War I, the duke rose to the rank of major-general. On 8 November 1918, he was forced to abdicate his throne along with the other German kings, grand dukes, dukes, and princes. The next year, his father's British dukedom was suspended as a result of the Duke's service in the German army during the war, so that when his father died in 1923, Ernst August did not succeed to his father's title of Duke of Cumberland. For the next thirty years Ernst August would remain as head of the House of Hanover, living in retirement on his various estates. He lived to see one of his children come to a European throne - in 1947 his daughter Frederika, became Queen of the Hellenes when her husband Prince Paul of Greece and Denmark succeeded his brother as King.

He died at Marienburg Castle in 1953.

[edit] Issue

The Duke and Duchess of Brunswick had five children 2:

Footnotes

1 Under settled practice dating to 1714, as a male-line descendant of King George III, Prince Ernst August III of Hanover also held the title of Prince of Great Britain and Ireland with the style of Highness. In the Court Circular printed in The Times and in the London Gazette, he was frequently styled Prince Ernest Augustus of Cumberland.

2 By Royal Warrant of 17 June 1914, King George V granted the eldest son and any children thereafter born to Prince Ernst August of Hanover, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, the title of Prince (or Princess) of Great Britain and Ireland with the style Highness. The provisions of this Royal Warrant ceased with George V's Letters Patent of 30 November 1917, and Hanoverian princes and princesses born after this date were no longer allowed the title Prince of Great Britain and Ireland with the style Highness. However, in 1931, the former Duke of Brunswick, as head of the House of Hanover and the senior male-line descendant of George III, issued a decree stating that the members of the former Hanoverian royal family would continue to bear the title of Prince (or Princess) of Great Britain and Ireland with the style of Royal Highness. This decree had no legal effect in the United Kingdom, although no British sovereigns since have attempted to stop this practice on the part of the former Hanoverian royal family. The members of the House of Hanover continue to seek the British sovereign's approval when they marry, in accordance with the Royal Marriages Act 1772. In 1999, prior to the wedding of Ernst August, Prince of Hanover (b. 1954) to Princess Caroline of Monaco, the couple received an official blessing from the reigning British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

[edit] References

House of Hanover
Born: 17 November 1887
Died: 30 January 1953
Preceded by
Ernst August		 * NOT REIGNING *
King of Hanover
(1923-1953)		 Succeeded by
Ernest Augustus
Preceded by
Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin		 Duke of Brunswick
1913-1918		 Succeeded by
Duchy abolished
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