Sunday 16 October 2005

Britain's Hanoverian Connection

The now concluded auction of the treasures of the House of Hanover by Prince Ernst August has brought that family into renewed public awareness.  Over the last ten days or so items said to be from the attics and cellars of the family�s Marienburg Palace have gone under the hammer, with the intention of the sale being to restore and preserve the palace for the future.  As of this writing the sale has brought in vastly more money than anticipated.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the massive sell-off caused a public tiff between Prince Ernst and his younger brother. 

A number of British royal treasures � including the tartan doublet George IV wore at his public entry into Edinburgh in 1822 � were sold off, along with treasures accumulated locally over the centuries.  The sale is supposed to have included items from every Hanoverian King of Great Britain from George I to William IV.  The details of the Hanoverian connection to the British Royal family are often rather hazy, at best, in contemporary minds.  So, I thought it might be helpful to use this month�s column for a brief overview. 

The House of Hanover is descended from the ancient line of Guelph, or Welf, that ruled in Brunswick back into the middle ages.  During the eleventh century Kunigunde, the daughter and heiress of Guelph II married Azzo of Este, and from them the current line has descended over the last millennium.  Azzo�s great-grandson, Henry the Proud, married a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Lothair, and their son was Henry the Lion.  Henry the Lion was, in turn, a major player in twelfth century politics and crusades.  He was married to a Plantagenet princess, Matilda, the daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.  One of their sons was the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, who figures in the emergence of the legends of the Holy Grail.  (I am convinced that Otto was the patron of Wolfram von Eschenbach, the author of Parzival.  See my column from January, 2005.)   Otto, however, had no children and the line descended via his younger brother, William the Elder. 

From the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries the line of descent meandered through various divisions and redistributions of territory in the area of Brunswick, Luneburg, Kalenberg, and Hanover.  But in 1658 Ernst August, the Elector of Hanover, married Sophia, the youngest daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.  And through this marriage the Hanoverians came to inherit the throne of Great Britain. 

Elizabeth of Bohemia � one of whose portraits was shown among the recent sale items � was the only daughter of James VI & I of Scotland and Great Britain.  She was the granddaughter of Mary Queen of Scots; and the elder sister of Charles I.  Born at the palace of Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1596, she was named for her godmother Queen Elizabeth of England.  This younger Elizabeth led an adventurous and rather unhappy life.   

When her father inherited the English throne in 1603 she headed south with the rest of the family.  Her London wedding to the Calvinist Prince Frederick, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, on St. Valentine�s Day, 1613, occurred just a few weeks after the funeral of her brother, Henry, Prince of Wales.  It was graced, nonetheless, with elaborate court masques and a poem by John Donne.  In 1619 Frederick and Elizabeth were chosen as King and Queen of Bohemia in an abortive election following the revolt that marked the beginning of the Thirty Years War.  They held on in Prague for only a few months before being driven out by the Hapsburgs, earning for Elizabeth the evocative title of �the Winter Queen.�  The growing family � ultimately having thirteen children � settled into exile in The Hague.  (Frederick�s mother was a daughter of William the Silent of the Netherlands.)  Frederick himself died, still dispossessed, in 1632.  Sophia, their daughter, was two years old when her father died. 

The Winter Queen lived on until 1662.  Those years saw the coming of the Civil War in Britain, the execution of Elizabeth�s brother Charles I, and finally the restoration of her nephew Charles I.  Her son Rupert became a particularly famous and rather glamorous Royalist general.  At the Restoration the aged Queen of Bohemia finally returned to live in Britain, and died at Leicester House in London in 1662. 

The tales of the Restoration era, the disastrous reign of James VII & II, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 are standard history.  The question of succession to the throne became serious when both of the Protestant daughters of the deposed king, Mary II and Anne, left no surviving children.  Childless Mary�s cousin/husband, William III, was the only other Protestant in the immediate family.  All the other legitimate descendants of Charles I (their half-brother the Old Pretender, and the descendants of their aunt Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans) were Catholic.  So, too, were all the surviving descendants of the Winter Queen, EXCEPT for her daughter Sophia.  And that is how the succession came to the House of Hanover. 

Sophia is said to have been a lively young woman, but � for those days � she waited a long time to wed (ca. age 28).  She had been courted briefly by her exiled cousin Charles II, but she quickly discouraged his attentions.  She did not like his lusty ways and youthful clumsiness.  Several other royal suitors briefly came and went before Duke William of Brunswick came a-courting.  But after becoming engaged, the Duke decided he preferred to remain single and continue to pursue a life of unfettered pleasure in Venice.  So, he renegotiated the engagement with his younger brother, Ernst August of Hanover, as the substitute bridegroom.  Sophia was actually delighted with the younger man.  She had fancied him all along, and their marriage became a real love match.  Their first son, the future George I of Great Britain, was born in the year of Charles II�s restoration.  Later on, Sophia just missed becoming Queen of the newly formed United Kingdom herself.   She died of a stroke in 1714, shortly before Queen Anne, and just after receiving a rude letter from the Queen in London.  Son George got the crown instead.

The Hanoverian succession on the British throne then goes as follows: 

George I, reigned 1714-1727, son of the Electress Sophia.

George II, reigned 1727-1760, son of George I.

George III, reigned 1760 -1820, son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and grandson of George II.

George IV, reigned 1820-1830, eldest son of George III.

William IV, reigned 1830-1837, second son of George III.

Victoria, reigned 1837-1901, daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, who was the third son of George III. 

Victoria was the last Hanoverian monarch of Great Britain, after which the dynasty shifted to Prince Albert�s house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which then morphed into the House of Windsor.  (See last month�s column.)  But she did not rule Hanover.  Hanover did not allow succession by or through the female line.  So, upon the death of William IV, Hanover was inherited by Victoria�s uncle, Ernst August, Duke of Cumberland.   The current House of Hanover descends directly from him. 

The Duke of Cumberland became �King� Ernst August I when he inherited Hanover.  In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, and the end of the Holy Roman Empire, several of the old Imperial Electorates had become Kingdoms.  They later got brought into the new Prussian-based German Empire created by Bismarck and ruled by the Hohenzollerns, but they remained kingdoms until they were swept away at the end of World War I.  Since 1837 the Kings and Princes of Hanover have succeeded in the following order: 

Ernst August I, reigned 1837-1851, fourth son of George III.  An authoritarian curmudgeon, he nearly lost the throne in the 1848 revolutions and was forced to grant a constitution to Hanover.  He retained his British title as Duke of Cumberland, and he and his successors retained the title of Prince of the United Kingdom.

George V, 1851-1866, the son of Ernst August I.  He was blind.  After allying himself with Austria, he was deposed and exiled by the Hohenzollerns in 1866 and replaced by his son.  He is actually buried at Windsor, as is his cousin George V of Great Britain.

Ernst August II, reigned 1866-1918.  He was deprived of his British title as Duke of Cumberland in 1917, and deposed as King in 1918.  He died in 1923.

Ernst August III, Duke of Brunswick and Prince of Hanover.  He died in 1953.  He married Victoria Louise, the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II and great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Ernst August IV, Prince of Hanover.  He died in 1988.  He established his claim to be a British subject through a ruling in the House of Lords in 1956.

Ernst August V, the current Prince of Hanover.  He was born in 1954.  Previously married to Chantal Hochuli, he is currently married to Princess Caroline of Monaco, who is heiress presumptive to her brother Albert II.  His children are: 

First marriage: 

Ernst August, born 1983, heir to the Hanover title.

Christian, born 1985. 

Second marriage: 

Alexandra, born 1999.  She is currently fifth in the succession of Monaco after her mother and half-siblings. 

A thousand years on, the current German aristocracy retains a degree of social standing and influence in their traditional lands, along with at least some of their properties and fortunes.  But their status is now totally honorary.  In a way Ernst August V has notched himself up a bit by marrying an actual heiress presumptive, even if hers is the tiniest of principalities.  He also seems to have maintained a somewhat affable relationship with the current Windsors, as photos from various royal occasions indicate.  The main question is to what degree he remains his own worst enemy, with a penchant for violent outbursts and an admitted drink problem.  Like many of the old houses of Europe, the future for Hanover is rather murky at best.  The just-concluded sell-off is just one more indicator of their changing fortunes.  At least they got a good return.

Yours aye,

- Ken Cuthbertson