January 9, 1907: Death of Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, Queen of Hanover

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Ernestine Duchies, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, Georg V of Hanover, George III of the United Kingdom and Hanover, Last Queen of Hanover, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg (April 14, 1818 –
January 9, 1907).

Marie was born at Hildburghausen, as Princess Marie of Saxe-Hildburghausen, the eldest daughter of Joseph, the Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen and Duchess Amelia of Württemberg.

In 1825, Friedrich IV, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, died without an heir. His death led to inheritance disputes among the other lines of the Ernestine family.

On November 12, 1826 the decision, from the arbitration of the supreme head of the family, King Friedrich August I of Saxony, resulted in the extensive rearrangement of the Ernestine duchies.

Saxe-Hildburghausen lost the Districts of Königsberg and Sonnefeld to the new Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the rest of its territories to the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen. But the last Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Friedrich, became the new Duke of Saxe-Altenburg.

Oil painting of “Marie, Queen of Hanover and Crown Prince Ernst August” by court painter Carl Oesterley, c. 1846

In 1826, the family moved to Altenburg as a result of a transfer of territories and Marie took the title Princess of Saxe-Altenburg in place of her previous title.

Marriage

On February 18, 1843, Marie married, in Hanover, Georg, Crown Prince of Hanover. Crown Prince Georg was grandson of King George III of the United Kingdom, King of Hanover and Queen Charlotte (Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz). Crown Prince Georg was also a first cousin to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Marie and Georg had three children: Prince Ernst Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover and Duke of Cumberland, Princess Frederica, and Princess Marie.

Queen of Hanover

The Crown Prince, blind since his youth, and his wife became King and Queen of Hanover upon the death of his father, Ernst August, King of Hanover, on 18 November 18, 1851.

Between 1858 and 1867 Georg V had Marienburg Castle built as a birthday present to his wife, named after her. However, he was expelled from his kingdom in 1866 as a result of his support for Austria in the Austro-Prussian War, and on September 20, 1866, the Kingdom was annexed by Prussia.

Nevertheless, Georg never abdicated; he emigrated to Vienna, Austria, while Marie and her daughters remained at Herrenhausen Palace, then moving to Marienburg Castle, which was still under construction, in September 1867.

Marie succeeded in having the Hanoverian crown jewels and other precious items smuggled abroad, before finally leaving for Austria herself. There, the family moved into a villa in Gmunden near Salzburg, which they rented and later acquired.

On September 18, 1872, Queen Marie was godmother to Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein. Princess Marie Louise was the youngest daughter of Princess Helena of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg; Queen Victoria & Prince Albert’s third daughter and fifth child.

Georg V died in 1878 in Paris where he had attempted to re-establish his Guelphic Legion, a military unit aimed at a re-conquest of his kingdom. Also being a British Prince, Georg was buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Queen Marie died, some twenty-eight years after her husband, on January 9, 1907, in The Queen’s Villa (Königinvilla) at Gmunden, where she was later buried in a mausoleum that her eldest son had built next to his residence, Cumberland Castle.

Royal Numbering ~ The Kingdom of Hanover.

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Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Elector Ernst-August of Hanover, Elector of Hanover, Georg V of Hanover, George I of Great Britain, Kingdom of Hanover, Royal numbering

From the Emperor’s Desk: After yesterday’s brief history Of the Kingdom of Hanover, I wanted to address how the monarchs of Hanover are numbered. This is an expansion of a portion of a larger article on numbering German monarchs in general I posted back in May of 2012.

Coat of Arms of Prince Ernst-August of Hanover (b.1954)

One of the places where there is a discrepancy in numbering of monarchs is the Electorate and Kingdom of Hanover. Prior to its elevation as a kingdom, Hanover was an Imperial Electorate within the Holy Roman Empire ruled by a cadet line of the House of Guelph that ruled the various Brunswick duchies.

Prince Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Prince-Elector of Hanover

In 1692 Emperor Leopold I installed Prince Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg as Prince-Elector of Hanover as a reward for his service to the Emperor during the Great Turkish War, also known as the War of the Holy League. In 1698 Elector Ernst-August was succeeded by his eldest son who became Elector Georg-Ludwig of Hanover.

In 1701 The Act of Settlement was passed in the Parliament of England that settle the succession to the English and Irish crowns on Protestants only. The next Protestant in line to the throne after William III and his heir, Anne, was the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a granddaughter of James VI-I of England, Scotland and Ireland and the wife of Elector Ernst-August.

Elector Georg-Ludwig’s mother, the Electress Sophia, died on May 28, 1714 at the age of 83. She had collapsed in the gardens at Herrenhausen after rushing to shelter from a shower of rain. Georg-Ludwig, Elector of Hanover and was now Queen Anne’s heir presumptive.

On August 1, 1714 came the death of Queen Anne of Great Britain, and in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Settelment of 1701 in England and Scotland and by virtue of Article II of the Treaty of Union, which defined the succession to the throne of Great Britain, Elector Georg-Ludwig became King George of Great Britain.

George I, King of Great Britain, Prince-Elector of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

During his reign King George was not known as King George I. Under the British tradition of numbering their monarchs, a monarch will not get a ordinal number until there is another monarch with the same name. That is why you do not see Queen Victoria being called Queen Victoria I. When and if there is a Queen Victoria II, only then will the first Queen Victoria become known as Queen Victoria I. The same goes with king’s Stephen, John and Queen Anne.

In Hanover and Great Britain the numbering for these King-Electors was the same. In 1727 King-Elector George was succeeded by his son as George II (and George obtained the ordinal “I”) and in 1760 George II’s grandson succeeded him as George III.

In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire came to an end and Hanover became part of the Kingdom of Westphalia, a puppet state founded by Napoleon. After the defeat of Napoleon the Congress of Vienna restored George III to his Hanoverian territories and elevated Hanover to a Kingdom, since the title Imperial Elector was now obsolete given the fact there was no longer a Holy Roman Emperor to elect.

With Hanover now a kingdom, instead of starting a new numbering sequence for the Kings of Hanover, George III still retained his ordinal number in Hanover as well as Great Britain. In 1820 George III was succeeded by his son who became George IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Hanover. In 1830 George IV was succeeded by his brother William IV who was known as King Wilhelm of Hanover.

George III, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, King of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Since succession to the crown of Hanover was governed by the Salic Law which barred women from inheriting the throne, the personal union between the United Kingdom and Hanover ended in 1837 with the death of William IV. William IV was succeeded in the United by his niece, Victoria, who reigned in Britain until 1901 and gave her name to the entire era.

In Hanover the crown of Hanover went to another brother of William IV, Prince Ernest-Augustus, Duke of Cumberland…..and became King Ernst-August (1837-1851) without an ordinal.

This is where it gets tricky. In my view the new Hanoverian King should have been been called Ernst-August II because the dynasty of Hanover began with Elector Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1692. There are two ways to view this situation. Since the first Ernst-August was only an Elector in 1692 and never a King he doesn’t revive an ordinal.

Ernst-August, King of Hanover

His son and successor, King George I, was the first Hanoverian Elector to hold the royal title of King, although he was a King of Great Britain and not a King of Hanover. So it appears that the royal numbering of Hanover follows those with the title of King regardless if the person was not a King of Hanover. Technically George’s I, II and III (until 1814) were Electors of Hanover and not Kings.

Grave of King Georg V of Hanover

That is the inconsistency. It ignores the Elector Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. It seems only the name George gets an ordinal number in Hanover. This is exemplified with the accession of Crown Prince Georg of Hanover, son and heir of King Ernst-August, who became King of Hanover as King Georg V (1851-1866). Again, this means the royal numbering of Hanover follows those with the title of King regardless if the person was not a King of Hanover.

It is a minor quibble but an interesting one!