January 26, 1624: Birth of Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick-Lauenburg

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Elector of Hanover, Georg Wilhelm of Brunswick-Luneburg, George I of Great Britain, House of Brunswick, House of Hanover, Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Celle, Welf

Georg Wilhelm (January 26, 1624 – August 28, 1705) was the first Welf Duke of Lauenburg after its occupation in 1689. From 1648 to 1665, he was the ruler of the Principality of Calenberg as an appanage from his eldest brother, Christian Ludwig, Prince of Luneburg. When he inherited Luneburg on the latter’s death in 1665, he gave Calenberg to his younger brother, Johann Friedrich.

Nevertheless, he only kept the sub-division of Celle, giving the rest of Luneburg to their youngest brother Ernst August, whose son, George Ludwig (future King of Great Britain), inherited Saxe-Lauenburg and Celle from Georg Wilhelm. His only daughter, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, was George Ludwig’s wife.

Georg Wilhelm of Brunswick-Luneburg

Georg Wilhelm was born in Herzberg am Harz, the second son of Georg, Prince of Calenberg and Anne Eleonore of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Ludwig V, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Magdalene of Brandenburg

Georg Wilhelm had an elder brother, two younger brothers, and several sisters, including Queen Sophia Amalie of Denmark and Norway, consort of the King Frederik III of Denmark and Norway.

Succession

In 1648, when Georg Wilhelm’s elder brother, Christian Ludwig, Prince of Calenberg, inherited the Principality of Lüneburg from their paternal uncle, Friedrich IV, he gave Calenberg to Georg Wilhelm in appanage.

Seventeen years later, in 1665, Christian Ludwig himself died childless, and Georg Wilhelm inherited Luneburg as well. He then gave Calenberg to his next brother, Johann Friedrich.

The renunciation of claim to Luneburg had in fact happened seven years previously, in 1658. In exchange for being freed from the obligation to marry Princess Sophia of the Palatinate, Georg Wilhelm ceded his claim on inheriting Lüneburg to his youngest brother Ernst August, settling for the smaller duchy of Celle and promising to remain unmarried so that he would produce no legitimate heir who might pose a challenge to his brother’s claim to Luneburg.

The absence of heirs would also mean that Celle would lapse back into Luneburg; Celle was only supposed to give Georg Wilhelm an income for his lifetime. After reaching this agreement, Georg Wilhelm’s youngest brother, Ernst August, married Sophia of the Palatinate
and became the Duke of Hanover.

Sophia of the Palatinate was the daughter of Elector Friedrich V of the Palatinate, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, and Elizabeth (Stuart) of England and Scotland, daughter of King James I-VI of England and Scotland.

Marriage and issue

This renunciation left Georg Wilhelm free to marry whoever he wished, and indulge his desires to travel and socialize, without being encumbered by considerations of state.

In 1665, Georg Wilhelm entered into a morganatic marriage with his long-time mistress, Eleanor, Countess of Wilhelmsburg. In 1666, their only child and daughter, Sophia Dorothea, was born.

By 1676, it had become quite clear that among the four brothers (Georg Wilhelm and three others), only the youngest, Ernst August had produced any heirs male, and that the entire duchy of Luneburg was likely to be united under Ernst August’s eldest son Georg Ludwig.

Georg Wilhelm therefore wanted Georg Ludwig to marry his daughter Sophia, whose marriage prospects were otherwise not bright, given the circumstances of her birth. To Georg Wilhelm’s annoyance, Georg Ludwig and his parents refused the proposal on the grounds of status.

Sophia of the Palatinate

At this point (in 1676), to improve the status of Eleonore and their daughter, and in open violation of his promise, Georg Wilhelm legitimized his daughter and declared that his marriage to Eleonore, Countess of Wilhelmsburg was not morganatic but valid to both church and state.

This development greatly alarmed his relatives, as it threatened to hinder the contemplated union of the Lüneburg territories. Indeed, if Georg Wilhelm had had a son, a serious succession crisis could have arisen.

No son however was born, and in 1682, Georg Ludwig’s parents finally agreed to the proposed marriage as a way of avoiding uncertainty and dispute. Sophia Dorothea married Georg Ludwig in 1682. They had a son and heir the following year, named Georg August after his father and maternal grandfather: the future George II of Great Britain.

Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg

In 1689, Julius Franz, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, died leaving no son and no accepted heir male, but only two daughters, Anna Maria and Sibylle. The duchy had followed the Salic law since time immemorial, but Duke Julius Franz decided to nominate his elder daughter as his heir and proclaimed laws permitting female succession in his duchy. This self-serving innovation was not accepted by senior members of his dynasty (the other potential successors) and a succession crisis ensued.

Georg Wilhelm was one of the nearest and senior-most male-line claimants to the succession. Shortly after the death of the duke, Georg Wilhelm invaded the duchy with his troops and occupied it. The other claimants included the five Ascanian-ruled Principalities of Anhalt, Saxony, Saxe-Wittenberg, Sweden and Brandenburg, and also the neighbouring Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Danish duchy of Holstein, whose ruler was the King Christian V of Denmark.

However, only Georg Wilhelm and Christian V of Denmark (whose mother, Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Calenberg, was Georg Wilhelm’s own sister) engaged militarily on this question. An accord was soon reached between them, and on 9 October 1693 they agreed (in the Hamburg Comparison, or Hamburger Vergleich) that Georg Wilhelm – who now de facto held most of Saxe-Lauenburg – would retain the duchy in a personal union.

Meanwhile, the Emperor Leopold I, who had no direct claim on the duchy, occupied the Land of Hadeln, a Saxe-Lauenburgian exclave, and held it in imperial custody. Apart from that, Leopold did not attempt to use force in Saxe-Lauenburg.

In 1728, his son the Emperor Charles VI finally legitimised the de facto takeover and enfeoffed Georg Wilhelm’s grandson and second successor, George II of Great Britain (who was also Elector of Hanover) with the duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, but Hadeln remained in imperial custody until 1731, when it was also ceded to Georg II August. Georg Wilhelm died in Wienhausen, aged 81.

November 9, 1683: Birth of King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover. Part I.

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Act of Settlement of 1701, Act of Union 1707, Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, House of Hanover, Imperial Elector of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland

George II (George Augustus; November 9, 1683 – October 25, 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.

George Augustus was born in the city of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire, followed by his sister, Sophia Dorothea, three years later. Their parents, George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg (later King George I of Great Britain), and Sophia Dorothea of Celle, both committed adultery. In 1694 the marriage was dissolved on the pretext that Sophia had abandoned her husband. She was confined to Ahlden House and denied access to her two children, who probably never saw their mother again.

George Augustus spoke only French, the language of diplomacy and the court, until the age of four, after which he was taught German by one of his tutors, Johann Hilmar Holstein. In addition to French and German, he also learnt English and Italian, and studied genealogy, military history, and battle tactics with particular diligence.

George Augustus as Prince of Wales

George Augustus’s second cousin once removed, Queen Anne, ascended the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1702. She had no surviving children, and by the Act of Settlement 1701, the English Parliament designated Anne’s closest Protestant blood relatives, George’s grandmother Sophia of the Rhine and her descendants, as Anne’s heirs in England and Ireland.

Consequently, after his grandmother and father, George was third in line to succeed Anne in two of her three realms. He was naturalized as an English subject in 1705 by the Sophia Naturalization Act, and in 1706 he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Duke and Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton, and Baron Tewkesbury in the Peerage of England. England and Scotland united in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and jointly accepted the succession as laid down by the English Act of Settlement.

Marriage

Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach by Godfrey Kneller, 1716

George’s father did not want his son to enter into a loveless arranged marriage as he had and wanted him to have the opportunity of meeting his bride before any formal arrangements were made. Negotiations from 1702 for the hand of Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, Dowager Duchess and regent of Holstein-Gottorp, came to nothing. the eldest child of Charles XI of Sweden and Ulrike Eleonore of Denmark. Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden,was heir presumptive to the Swedish throne until her death in 1708.

In June 1705, under the false name “Monsieur de Busch”, George visited the Brandenburg-Ansbach court at its summer residence in Triesdorf to investigate incognito a marriage prospect: Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the former ward of his aunt Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia. She was married to Friedrich I, King in Prussia.

Caroline was born on March 1, 1683 at Ansbach, the daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach. Her father was the ruler of one of the smallest German states; he died of smallpox at the age of 32, when Caroline was three years old.

The Brandenburg-Ansbach family belonged to a branch of the House of Hohenzollern and was the ruler of a small German state, the Principality of Ansbach. Since Caroline was orphaned at a young age she moved to the enlightened court of her guardians, King Friedrich I and Queen Sophia Charlotte in Prussia. At the Prussian court, her previously limited education was widened, and she adopted the liberal outlook possessed by Sophia Charlotte, who became her good friend and whose views influenced Caroline all her life.

The English envoy to Hanover, Edmund Poley, reported that George was so taken by “the good her character that he had of her that he would not think of anybody else”. A marriage contract was concluded by the end of July. On September 2, 1705 Caroline arrived in Hanover for her wedding, which was held the same evening in the chapel at Herrenhausen.

George Augustus his fathe, the new King George I of Great Britain, sailed for England from The Hague on September 16, 1714 and arrived at Greenwich two days later. The following day, they formally entered London in a ceremonial procession. George Augustus given the title of Prince of Wales.

Caroline followed her husband to Britain in October with their daughters, while thier eldest son, Frederick Louis, remained in Hanover to be brought up by private tutors. London was like nothing George Augustus had seen before; it was 50 times larger than Hanover, and the crowd was estimated at up to one and a half million spectators. George Augustus courted popularity with voluble expressions of praise for the English, and claimed that he had no drop of blood that was not English.

In the first years of his father’s reign as king, George Augustus associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party in 1720.

King George I died on June 22, 1727 during one of his visits to Hanover, and George Augustis succeeded him as King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover at the age of 43. The new king decided not to travel to the Holy Roman Empire for his father’s funeral, which far from bringing criticism led to praise from the English who considered it proof of his fondness for England.

George II suppressed his father’s will because it attempted to split the Hanoverian succession between George II’s future grandsons rather than vest all the domains (both British and Hanoverian) in a single person. Both British and Hanoverian ministers considered the will unlawful, as George I did not have the legal power to determine the succession personally. Critics supposed that George II hid the will to avoid paying out his father’s legacies.

George II was crowned at Westminster Abbey on October 22, 1727. George Frideric Handel was commissioned to write four new anthems for the coronation, including Zadok the Priest.

Title of Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh

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Double Titles, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, George III of Great Britain, Highness, House of Hanover, Merged With the Crown, Peerage of Great Britain, Royal Highness, William Frederick, William Henry

Last week I did a post on the history of the title of Duke of Edinburgh. In this post id like to discuss the one time the title was created jointly with the title Duke of Gloucester.

The double title of Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh was a British title in the Peerage of Great Britain; the sole creation carried with it the subsidiary title, of Earl of Connaught.

After the last holder of the title, the future King George III, became king and the title merged with the Crown, King George III created bestowed upon his brother, Prince William Henry.

There had been Dukedoms of Gloucester and of Edinburgh individually but their extinction gave the opportunity for them to be created together.

The dukedom of Gloucester and Edinburgh was a royal dukedom when the duke was entitled to the style “His Royal Highness”, as Prince William Henry was, but his son, Prince William Frederick, held the styke of “His Highness” and was only granted the style “Royal Highness” upon his marriage in 1816 to his first cousin, Princess Mary, daughter of King George III and Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Prince William Henry

Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, (November 25, 1743 – 25 August 25, 1805), was a grandson of King George II and a younger brother of King George III of the United Kingdom.

Prince William Henry was born at Leicester House, Westminster. His parents were Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II and Caroline of Ansbach, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, then Princess of Wales.

His father died in 1751, leaving the Prince’s elder brother, Prince George, heir-apparent to the throne. He succeeded as King George III of Great Britain and Ireland on October 25, 1760. George had inherited the title Duke of Edinburgh from his father but that title (along with his other titled) merged with the crown giving the King the opportunity to recreate the title anew.

King George III created his brother Prince William Henry with the double titled Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught on November 19, 1764. He had been made a Knight of the Garter on May 26, 1762, and invested on September 22 of that year.

After the Union of Great Britain, the Hanoverian kings liked to grant double titles (one from one constituent country, one from another) to emphasise unity

In 1764 he began to court Maria Walpole, the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave, an illegitimate granddaughter of Sir Robert Walpole.

That same year he and Maria married in secret in his home on Pall Mall. This marriage only became known to the King after the passing of the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

The Duke and Maria lived at St Leonard’s Hill in Clewer, near Windsor and had three children, all of whom were styled Highness from birth and used the territorial designation of Gloucester in conjunction with their princely styles, as great-grandchildren in the male line of George II.

The Duke and Maria’s first child, Princess Sophia of Gloucester (1773 – 1844), was born in 1773. Princess Caroline of Gloucester (1774 – 1775) followed just over a year later and was christened privately on 22 July 1774.

However, Princess Caroline died aged just nine months following a smallpox inoculation, intended to protect her from the disease.

The Duke and Maria had a third and final child in 1776, Prince William Frederick (1776 – 1834).

The Duke died at Gloucester House in London in 1805 and was succeeded as duke by his son William Frederick.

Prince William Frederick

Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, (January 15, 1776 – November 30, 1834) was a great-grandson of King George II of Great Britain and Ireland in the male line and a nephew and son-in-law of King George III of the United Kingdom.

Prince William was born on January 15, 1776 at Palazzo Teodoli in via del Corso, Rome. His father was Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the third son of the Prince of Wales. His mother, Maria, was the illegitimate daughter of Edward Walpole and granddaughter of Robert Walpole. As a great-grandson of George II he held the title of Prince of Great Britain with the style His Highness, not His Royal Highness, at birth.

He was admitted to the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in 1787, and granted his MA in 1790. He set up his London home at 31 Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair. On August 25, 1805, Prince William’s father died, and he inherited the titles Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught.

From 1811 until his death he was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He was offered the position of king of Sweden in 1812 by some members of the Swedish nobility, but the British government would not allow it.

On July 22, 1816, he married Princess Mary, his first cousin and the fourth daughter of George III. The marriage took place at St. James’s Palace, London. On that day, The Prince Regent granted the Duke the style of His Royal Highness by Order in Council.

The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester lived at Bagshot Park in Surrey. They had no children together; they had married when both were 40. The Duke had been encouraged to stay single, so that there might be a suitable groom for Princess Charlotte of Wales, the heiress to the throne, even if no foreign match proved suitable; she had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg ten weeks earlier.

Later life

He was active in many walks of life but politics, however, was not among them; he entered the House of Lords rarely, and he voted on few of the great issues of his time. He did advocate the abolition of slavery, and he supported Caroline of Brunswick and the Duke of Sussex against George IV.

He kept more state than the King; he never permitted a gentleman to be seated in his presence (which King George did as an exceptional favour) and expected to be served coffee by the ladies of any party he attended, and that they would stand while he drank it. The general estimate of his capacity is given by his nickname, “Silly Billy”; he was also called “Slice of Gloucester” and “Cheese”, a reference to Gloucester cheese.

Because of the unequal character of his parents’ marriage, he was excluded from the House of Hanover, being considered only a British prince. For instance, he and his sister were not listed in the genealogical listing of the electoral house of Hanover in the Königlicher Groß-Britannischer und Kurfürstlicher Braunschweig-Lüneburgscher Staats-Kalender.

He was also not invited to sign the family compact of the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1831, which means that he was not considered an agnate of the royal (electoral) house in Germany.

The Duke died on November 30 1834 at Bagshot Park, and was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. He left no heir.

With his death the double title of Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh became extinct and in the future these titles would be created separately.

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Fight over Crown Jewels between Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her uncle King Ernst-August of Hanover.

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Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz., Crown Jewels, Duke of Cumberland, Elector of Hanover, House of Hanover, King Ernst-August of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain, King George III of the United Kingdom, King of Great Britain, Kingdom of Hanover, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

From the Emperor’s Desk: After Queen Victoria came there was an ongoing struggle between her and her uncle King Ernst-August of Hanover over which Crown Jewels belonged to the Queen and which belonged to the King of Hanover.

Below is an article that originally appeared in the Times of London, Dec 23, 1857 Concerning the matter.

Coronation portrait of Queen Victoria

“The Crown Jewels”

We find the following in a letter from Hanover, of December 19:

“The hearts of the King and Royal Family of this country have been much rejoiced by intelligence which has just reached them through the Hanoverian Minister at the Court of St. James’s, that the long dispute between the King of Hanover and the Queen of England respecting the right to certain jewels of enormous value, in the possession of the Sovereign of England, and forming no inconsiderable portion of what have been hitherto called the British Crown jewels, has been decided in favour of Hanover.

“Many of your readers are no doubt aware that when the kingdom of Hanover was severed from the United Kingdom by the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne, a claim was made by the late King of Hanover, formerly the Duke of Cumberland, to nearly the whole of the jewels usually worn on State occasions by the English Sovereign, on the ground that part of them, which had been taken over to England by George I, belonged inalienably to the Crown of Hanover; and that the remainder had been purchased by George III out of his privy purse, and had been left him by his Queen Charlotte to the Royal Family of Hanover.

“As the jewels thus claimed are supposed to be worth considerably more than 1,000,000 pounds, a single stone having cost nearly 20,000 pounds, they were not to be relinquished without a struggle; and I am assured that every possible expedient was resorted to in England to baffle the claimant. 

King Ernst-August of Hanover

“Ultimately, in the lifetime of the late King, the importunity of the Hanoverian Minister in London drove the English Ministry of the day to consent that the rights of the two Sovereigns abroad should be submitted to a commission composed of three English judges; but the proceedings of the commission were so ingeniously protracted that all the commissioners died without arriving at any decision; and until Lord Clarendon received the seals of the British foreign office all the efforts of the Court of Hanover to obtain a fresh commission were vain. Lord Clarendon, however, seems to have perceived that such attempts to stifle inquiry were unworthy of his country, for he consented that a fresh commission should be issued to three English judges of the highest eminence, who, after investigation, found the Hanoverian claim to be indisputably just, and reported in its favour.

“The Court here consequently is in high glee this Christmas at the prospect of removing the Crown and regalia, so jealously guarded in the Tower of London, almost bodily to Hanover.” — Globe

***

Note: Queen Victoria subsequently returned only a few items to her Hanoverian cousins, including Queen Charlotte’s small diamond nuptial crown and a few other diamond pieces.

Life of George I, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover. Part III.

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Act of Settlement 1701, Act of Union 1707, George Augustus, George I of Great Britain, House of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain, Kingdom of Great Britain, Queen Anne of Great Britain

Part III

Accession to the British Throne.

Though both England and Scotland recognised Anne as their queen, only the English Parliament had settled on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, as the heir presumptive. The Parliament of Scotland (the Estates) had not formally settled the succession question for the Scottish throne. In 1703, the Estates passed a bill declaring that their selection for Queen Anne’s successor would not be the same individual as the successor to the English throne, unless England granted full freedom of trade to Scottish merchants in England and its colonies.

Georg-Ludwig, Elector of Hanover

At first Royal Assent was withheld, but the following year Anne capitulated to the wishes of the Estates and assent was granted to the bill, which became the Act of Security 1704. In response the English Parliament passed measures that threatened to restrict Anglo-Scottish trade and cripple the Scottish economy if the Estates did not agree to the Hanoverian succession.

Eventually, in 1707, both Parliaments agreed on an Act of Union, which united England and Scotland into a single political entity, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and established the rules of succession as laid down by the Act of Settlement 1701. The union created the largest free trade area in 18th-century Europe.

Whig politicians believed Parliament had the right to determine the succession, and to bestow it on the nearest Protestant relative of the Queen, while many Tories were more inclined to believe in the hereditary right of the Catholic Stuarts, who were nearer relations. In 1710, George announced that he would succeed in Britain by hereditary right, as the right had been removed from the Stuarts, and he retained it. “This declaration was meant to scotch any Whig interpretation that parliament had given him the kingdom [and] … convince the Tories that he was no usurper.”

George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

George’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. George was now Queen Anne’s heir presumptive. He swiftly revised the membership of the Regency Council that would take power after Anne’s death, as it was known that Anne’s health was failing and politicians in Britain were jostling for power.

Queen Anne suffered a stroke, which left her unable to speak, and she died on August 1, 1714. The list of regents was opened, the members sworn in, and George was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland. Partly due to contrary winds, which kept him in The Hague awaiting passage, he did not arrive in Britain until September 18.

George was crowned at Westminster Abbey on October 20. The accession of George of Hanover was not widely popular. His coronation was accompanied by rioting in over twenty towns in England.

George mainly lived in Great Britain after 1714, though he visited his home in Hanover in 1716, 1719, 1720, 1723 and 1725; in total George spent about one fifth of his reign as king in Germany. A clause in the Act of Settlement that forbade the British monarch from leaving the country without Parliament’s permission was unanimously repealed in 1716. During all but the first of the king’s absences power was vested in a Regency Council rather than in his son, George Augustus, Prince of Wales.

This date in History: July 22, 1706: Treaty of Union is signed.

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Act of Union, Articles of Union, East India Company, House of Hanover, king James I-VI of England and Scotland, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Great Britain, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Scotland, Parliament, Queen Anne of England, Queen Anne of Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Treaty of Union

The Treaty of Union is the name usually now given to the agreement which led to the creation of the new state of Great Britain, stating that England (which already included Wales) and Scotland were to be “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”, At the time it was more often referred to as the Articles of Union.

James I-VI, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, last monarch of the Tudor dynasty, died without issue on March 24, 1603, and the throne fell at once (and uncontroversially) to her first cousin twice removed, James VI of Scotland, a member of House of Stuart and the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots. By the Union of the Crowns in 1603 he assumed the throne of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland as King James I. This personal union lessened the constant English fears of Scottish cooperation with France in a feared French invasion of England.

After this personal union, the new monarch, James I and VI, sought to unite the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England into a state which he referred to as “Great Britain”. Nevertheless, Acts of Parliament attempting to unite the two countries failed in 1606, in 1667, and in 1689.

By 1698 the main impetus for uniting the two realms was economics. While remaining separate kingdoms the two nations were often in trade wars with one another as both states vied for supremacy in trading with other foreign states. This competition created friction between the two states. England was also under pressure from the London-based East India Company, which was anxious to maintain its monopoly over English foreign trade. The East India Company threatened legal action towards the Scots on the grounds that the Scots had no authority from the king to raise funds outside the king’s realm.

Deeper political integration had been a key policy of Queen Anne ever since she had acceded to the thrones of the three kingdoms in 1702. Under the aegis of the Queen and her ministers in both kingdoms, in 1705 the parliaments of England and Scotland agreed to participate in fresh negotiations for a treaty of union.

Treaty negotiations

It was agreed that England and Scotland would each appoint thirty-one commissioners to conduct the negotiations. The Scottish Parliament then began to arrange an election of the commissioners to negotiate on behalf of Scotland, but in September 1705, the leader of the Country Party, the Duke of Hamilton, who had previously attempted to obstruct the negotiation of a treaty, proposed that the Scottish commissioners should be nominated by the Queen, and this was agreed. In practice, the Scottish commissioners were nominated on the advice of the Duke of Queensberry and the Duke of Argyll.

Negotiations between the English and Scottish commissioners began on 16 April 1706 at the Cockpit-in-Court in London. The sessions opened with speeches from William Cowper, the English Lord Keeper, and from Lord Seafield, the Scottish Lord Chancellor, each describing the significance of the task. The commissioners did not carry out their negotiations face to face, but in separate rooms. They communicated their proposals and counter-proposals to each other in writing, and there was a blackout on news from the negotiations. Each side had its own particular concerns. Within a few days, England gained a guarantee that the Hanoverian dynasty would succeed Queen Anne to the Scottish crown, and Scotland received a guarantee of access to colonial markets, in the hope that they would be placed on an equal footing in terms of trade.

Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (1702-1707), Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. (1707-1714)

After the negotiations ended on July 22, 1706, acts of parliament were drafted by both Parliaments to implement the agreed Articles of Union. The Scottish proponents of union believed that failure to agree to the Articles would result in the imposition of a union under less favourable terms, and English troops were stationed just south of the Scottish border and also in northern Ireland as an “encouragement”. Months of fierce debate in both capital cities and throughout both kingdoms followed. In Scotland, the debate on occasion dissolved into civil disorder, most notably by the notorious ‘Edinburgh Mob’. The prospect of a union of the kingdoms was deeply unpopular among the Scottish population at large, and talk of an uprising was widespread. However, the Treaty was signed and the documents were rushed south with a large military escort.

The Kingdom of Great Britain was born on May 1, 1707, shortly after the parliaments of Scotland and England had ratified the Treaty of Union by each approving Acts of Union combining the two parliaments and the powers of the two crowns. Scotland’s crown, sceptre, and sword of state remained at Edinburgh Castle. Queen Anne (already Queen of both England and Scotland) formally became the first occupant of the unified throne of Great Britain, with Scotland sending forty-five Members to the new House of Commons of Great Britain, as well as representative peers to the House of Lords.

Although there were 25 articles to the Treaty, I will post the first two which are relevant to the Crown and the Succession.

Article 1 states “That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain.”

Article 2 provided for the succession of the House of Hanover, and for Protestant succession as set out in the English Act of Settlement of 1701.

65th Birthday of The Prince of Hanover.

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Ernst August of Hanover, German Empire, House of Hanover, Kingdom of Hanover, Kings and Queens of Great Britain, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Titles Deprivation Act 1917

Today is the 65th birthday of HRH Prince Ernst August of Hanover.

Ernst August was born in Hanover, the eldest son of Ernst August, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick (1914–1987) and his first wife, Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1925–1980). He was christened, Ernst August Albert Paul Otto Rupprecht Oskar Berthold Friedrich-Ferdinand Christian-Ludwig.

Prince Ernst August and Princess Caroline

As the senior male-line descendant of George III of the United Kingdom, Ernst August is head of the House of Hanover, the surviving junior branch of the medieval House of Welf, which itself is the older branch of the House of Este, a dynasty whose earliest known members lived in Lombardy in the late 9th/early 10th century and which, in its younger branch, ruled Ferrara (1240–1597) and the Duchy of Modena-Reggio (1288–1796) in Italy.

The title of Prince of Great Britain and Ireland was recognised ad personam for Ernst August’s father and his father’s siblings by King George V of the United Kingdom on June 17, 1914. The hereditary Dukedom of Cumberland and Teviotdale and the Earldom of Armagh, borne in 1917 by his paternal great-grandfather, were suspended under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917.

George III, King of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover.

On August 29, 1931, Ernst August’s grandfather Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, as head of the House of Hanover, declared the formal resumption, for himself and his dynastic descendants, the use of his former British princely title “Prince/Princess of Great Britain and Ireland,” as a secondary title of pretense. Every member of the House of Hanover claims this title. The Crown of the United Kingdom does not recognize this claim. It is also noteworthy that the the title in pretense is “Prince/Princess of Great Britain and Ireland,” and not “Prince/Princess of the United Kingdom Great Britain and Ireland.” Ernst August’s grandfather chose the princely title the dynasty held when George I of Hanover became King of Great Britain in 1714, which was prior to the Act of Union in 1801 which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

As heir of the last Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale and Earl of Armagh, Ernst August has the right to petition under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 for the restoration of his ancestors’ suspended British peerages, but he has not done so.

Ernst August is also a great-grandson of the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II. His father’s sister was Frederica of Hanover (1917–1981), queen consort of the Hellenes, as wife of Pavlos I of the Hellenes and he is thus a first cousin of both ex-King Constantine II and his sister, Queen Sophia, whose husband is Juan Carlos I of Spain.

Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

Ernst August’s uncle, Prince George William of Hanover (1915–2006), married Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (1914–2001), a sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

The Prince has two sons with his first wife (Chantal Hochuli), a daughter with his second and current wife (Princess Caroline of Monaco) and a granddaughter.

Ernst August was photographed urinating on the Turkish Pavilion at the Expo 2000 event in Hanover, causing a diplomatic incident and a complaint from the Turkish embassy accusing him of insulting the Turkish people.

In 2004, Ernst August was convicted of aggravated assault and causing grievous bodily harm after supposedly beating a German man, Joe Brunnlehner, with a knuckleduster on the Kenyan island of Luma.

TRH The Prince and Princess of Hanover.

On Monday, April 3, 2005, Ernst August was admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. The next day, he fell into a deep coma, two days before the death of his father-in-law, Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. On Friday, April 8, 2005, hospital officials reported that he was no longer in a coma but remained in intensive care. A report the same day on BBC World described his condition as “serious but not irreversible.” After his release he was subsequently seen in public with his wife. In an interview he admitted at the time that his health crisis was caused by his hyperactive lifestyle and problems with alcohol.

His health deteriorated in subsequent years. He was hospitalized again in 2011, 2017 and 2018 for problems related to alcohol. This February 2019 he had another emergency surgery for pancreatitis. One week later, it was reported that he is suffering of throat cancer.

If Hanover and Germany were still a monarchy he would be King Ernst August V of Hanover.

Currently Ernst August is estranged from his wife and many family members.

The History of the titles of the Prince of Wales: Part VII

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Great Steward of Scotland, House of Hanover, House of Stewart, House of Stuart, James III of Scotland, king James I-VI of England and Scotland, Prince, Prince Charles, Prince of Scotland, Prince of Wales, Robert II of Scotland

Now that I’ve examined the origins and usage of the titles of Prince, Duke, Earl and Baron, I’ll now begin to address the the history behind the specific Dukedoms Earldoms etc that the Prince of Wales has. I’ll start with the lowest titles and work our way up. Today I start with Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

HRH Prince of Scotland and Great Steward of Scotland

Prince of Scotland

The title of Prince of Scotland originated in a time when Scotland was a kingdom separate from England. Prior to the House of Hanover which set in stone, or legislation, the usage of titles such as Prince wasn’t universally carried by male members of the Royal Family. Prince of Scotland was a title designated solely to the heir of the Scottish throne. Prior to the English and Scottish crowns being united under James VI of Scotland (James I of England and Ireland) the title Prince of Scotland was designed to be used in much the same way the title Prince of Wales was used to designate the heir-apparent to the English throne, although the Scottish heir-apparent was addressed only as Duke of Rothesay until that time.

Principality of Scotland

We tend to think of Scotland as a Kingdom rather than a Principality, so the natural question is, what is, or where is, the Principlality of Scotland? The designation “Principality of Scotland” implied (and implies) not Scotland as a whole but lands in western Scotland, in areas such as Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Kirkcudbrightshire appropriated as patrimony of the Sovereign’s eldest son for his maintenance. This is similar to the Duchy of Cornwall which was established to be a source of income for the English heir. The title of Prince of Scotland originated from a charter granting the Principality of Scotland to the future James I of Scotland, the then heir apparent, granted on December 10, 1404, by Robert III. During the reign of James III, permanency was enacted to the title.

Historically there was a feudal aspect to the title. The Prince collected feudal duties and privileges for the principality while The Crown serves this role in the rest of Scotland. However, The Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, abolished most remaining feudal duties and privileges attached to the Principality, leaving the Prince’s status as mainly titular. Before the 2000 Act the Principality was entirely feued out to tenants and brought in a small income. All title deeds in Ayrshire and Renfrewshire required to be sealed with the Prince’s seal. Revenue gained from feudal dealings were counted as income for the Duchy of Cornwall, a more substantial estate held by the monarch’s child who is heir apparent.

Great Steward

The Great Stewardship of Scotland was granted to Walter Fitz Alan by David I, and came to the Sovereign with the accession of the last High Steward, Robert Stewart, 7th High Steward of Scotland, who inherited the throne, as King Robert II of Scotland (1371-1390). Robert II was a grandson of Robert I via his daughter Marjorie and Walter Stewart, 6th Great Steward of Scotland.

Since that date it has been enjoyed by the Sovereign’s eldest son. Thereafter the title of High Steward of Scotland has been held as a subsidiary title by the heir-apparent to the Scottish throne, then the heirs to both the Kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland and later the United Kingdom.

History of the titles of the Prince of Wales: Part III

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Dukes of Brunswick, House of Hanover, King George V of Great Britain, Letters Patent, Prince, Prince Albert Victor, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Princess Alexandra, Princess Maud, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

During the Victorian era as the Royal Family expanded even more, requiring even further official standards in controlling the title of Prince and Princess in descent from the sovereign. On January 1864 came the birth of Prince Albert-Victor of Wales the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) and grandson of the then reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. Within a few weeks after the birth of Albert-Victor, her fourth grandchild but first male-line grandson, Queen Victoria issued letters patent which formally confirmed the Hanoverian practice of granting children and male-line grandchildren of the Sovereign the style “His Royal Highness” with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess of the United Kingdom prefixed to their respective Christian names.

The 1864 Letters Patent did not address the future styling of any great-grandchildren of the Sovereign or even further descendants. The Practice up until 1864 within in the House of Hanover, as we have seen, for descendants beyond grandchildren in the male line from the Sovereign was to grant them the style “His/Her Highness” and Prince or Princess of the United Kingdom. Queen Victoria handled further needs of regulation of titles on a case by case basis.

HRH Prince Albert-Victor, Duke of Clarence & Avondale

One example was in 1898. Prince Edward (future Edward VIII), Prince Albert (future George VI) and Princess Mary (future Princess Royal) the children of Prince George, Duke of York, (the eldest living son of the Prince of Wales) and born in 1894, 95 & 97 respectively, were customarily granted the titled Prince/Princess with the style of “His/Her Highness” as great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria in the male line. Since these members of the Royal Family were in direct line of succession to the Crown Queen Victoria issued Letters Patent, dated May 28, 1898, granting the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales the style of Royal Highness.

On November 9, 1905 King Edward VII’s 64th Birthday created his eldest daughter, Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, with the title The Princess Royal, the highest honour bestowed on a female member of the royal family. On the same day the King declared that the two daughters of the Princess Royal, Alexandra and Maud, would be granted title of Princess and the style of Highness. Although they were not daughters of a royal duke, they were sometimes unofficially referred to with the territorial designation “of Fife.” Princess Maud and Alexandra, precedence immediately after all members of the royal family bearing the style of “Royal Highness”. Other than female members of the Royal Family that were Heiress Presumptive this is the only example of the title Prince/Princess being transferred through the female line. Princess Alexandra became Duchess of Fife in her own right and married her second cousin Prince Arthur of Connaught. Their only child would provide King George V opportunity to amend the 1864 Letters Patent.

HH Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife

HH Princess Maud, Countess of Southesk

Alastair Arthur, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (August 9, 1914 – April 26, 1943) was the only child of Prince Arthur of Connaught and Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife. He was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria through his father and also her great-great-grandson through his mother. Upon his birth as a great-grandson of a Sovereign he enjoyed the style of “Highness” and the title of Prince of the United Kingdom. However, this would be short lived.

Also in 1914 King George V had an opportunity to once again amend the 1864 Letters Patent regarding the children of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, a great-great-grandchild of George III. Letters Patent dated June 17, 1914 granted the title of prince and the style Highness to the children of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick as senior heir to the House of Hanover.

HG Alaister-Arthur, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathern

In 1917, with the United Kingdom in the midst of the Great War with the German Empire, and with anti-German sentiment in the air, George V issued a royal proclamation altering the name of the Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the House of Windsor and stripped members of the Royal Family of the usage of the German titles of Duke of Saxony, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the like.

This also prompted George V to issue new Letters Patent, dated November 20, 1917, which restructured of the royal styles and titles by restricting the titles of Prince or Princess and the style of Royal Highness to the children of the sovereign, the children of the sovereign’s sons, and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. This excluded Alastair-Arthur of Connaught who was a great-grandson of a former sovereign but was not the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. He became simply Alistair-Arthur Windsor until he succeeded his grandfather as Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, and Earl of Sussex, on 1942. However, Alistair-Arthur did not enjoy his titles long and died in 1943 at the age of 28 “on active service” in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in unusual circumstances.

The former reigning Duke of Brunswick, as head of the House of Hanover, refused to recognise the letters depriving himself and his children of the British and Irish princely styles and titles. Nothing further was said until 1931, when Ernest-Augustus, Duke of Brunswick (married to Augusta-Victoria, eldest daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II) issued a decree, in the capacity as the head of the House of Hanover and senior male-line descendant of George III of the United Kingdom, 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 title and style remains in use to this day by his descendants, including the current head of the House of Hanover, Ernst August, Prince of Hanover. The decree by the head of the House of Hanover is not legally recognised in the United Kingdom or Ireland, and the titles are used as titles of pretense.

The 1917 Letters Patent remains the law in regulating the style of His or Her Royal Highness and the title Prince/Princess of the United Kingdom. There have been amendments made since them most notably Letters Patent issued by Queen Elizabeth II on December 31, 2012, which gave the title Prince or Princess and style Royal Highness to all children of the Prince of Wales’s eldest son the Duke of Cambridge.

History of the Prince of Wales titles. Part II

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Font of All Honours, House of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, King George III of Great Britain, Kings and Queens of Great Britain, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Prince, Princess, Princess of Wales, Queen Victoria, titles

Since the time of the House of Tudor and through the times of the House of Stuart, when sons of the Sovereign were granted the courtesy title of Prince, questions of how far in the male line to extend the title was not an issue for grand children of the Sovereign in the male line hadn’t yet occurred. With the accession of King George I in 1714 and the Hanoverians, new situations arose.

First issue that George I faced in the need to regulate titles was with his siblings. Since they were not the sons of a British sovereign, they were German princes and sons of the Elector of Hanover, were they entitled to be prince or princess of Great Britain? King George I, as the “Font of All Honours” was able to grant peerage titles to his youngest brother, Ernest-Augustus. In 1716, Ernest-Augustus visited England where, on June 29, 1716, he was created Duke of York, Albany and Earl of Ulster. On April 30, 1718 (OS), he was created a Knight of the Garter together with his grand-nephew Frederick-Louis, later Prince of Wales. Another brother of George I, Prince Maximilian-William, converted to Catholicism, losing his place in the line of succession to the British throne and therefore didn’t receive any peerage titles. However, neither Ernest-Augustus or Maximilian-William were created Princes of Great Britain and remained Princes of Hanover and Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

George I came to the throne a grandfather, his eldest son, future George II, had several children. The children of the Prince of Wales were given the title of Princes and Princesses, and the style of “Highness”.  This arrangement was changed in 1737 when George II granted his grandchildren, all children of his eldest son, Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales the title Prince and Princess and their style was raised to “Royal Highness.” This occurrence was an exception and wouldn’t become formalized by letters patent until 1864 by Queen Victoria with the birth of Prince Albert-Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the future King Edward VII. 


George III’s reign also saw the first great-grandchildren of a sovereign in male line, Prince William-Frederick, 2nd duke of Gloucester and his sister, Sophia, were also nephew and niece of a sovereign. They were titled “Prince” and “Princess”, but were only styled “Highness. It is not absolutely clear, however, whether the title of Prince was due to being great-grandson of George II or nephew of George III. On July 22, 1816, Sophia’s brother Prince William-Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, married their cousin, Princess Mary, a daughter of George III. On their wedding day, the Prince Regent bestowed the style of Royal Highness on the Duke of Gloucester, Princess Mary was a Royal Highness by birth. The next day, the Duke of Gloucester’s sister Princess Sophia was also bestowed with this style, giving her equal rank with her brother.

Despite raising the Gloucesters to the style of Royal Highness, a tradition was emerging: all male-line descendants from the Sovereign were styled Prince/ss; children of the sovereign and the sovereign’s eldest son were Royal Highnesses, all others were Highnesses. The Letters Patent of 1864, which only deal directly with the style of Royal Highness, state the custom in the preamble: “Princes and Princesses of [the] Royal Family descended from and in lineal succession to the Crown as now established by law all bear the style and title of Highness”.

The statement does not say exactly who is a prince or princess.  But an opinion of the Lord Chancellor in July 1878 states that “there is not, in my opinion, any limit among those in Succession to the Throne within which the use of the style of Prince is to be confined, until some such limit is imposed by the Will of the Sovereign as the Fountain of all Honour”.  Queen Victoria cared enough about this opinion that, to put an end to controversies, she sent a copy to Garter King of Arms.


It is interesting to note that the Letters Patent of 1864 say “descended from and in lineal succession to the Crown”  It is impossible to state what the custom might have been for female-line descendants, since the habit of marrying daughters into foreign royal houses meant that no such descendants lived in Britain.  As of 1864, the first and only marriage of a prince or princess in Great Britain, had been that of the duke of Gloucester (great-grandson of George II) to the daughter of George III, in 1816. That marriage remained childless and if they had had children, those children would have been great-great grandchildren in the male line from the Sovereign and it would have been interesting to see what these children would have been styled.

It wouldn’t be until the early part of the 20th Century would the need once again arise to address what to call the great-grandchildren of a sovereign in male line. This time the results would be different. More on that in my next post.