April 18, 1917: Birth of Princess Frederica of Hanover, Queen of the Hellenes. Part I.

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Brunswick-Lüneburg, Ernst August of Brunswick, Frederica of Hanover, George II of the Hellenes, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Paul I of the Hellenes, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Queen of the Hellenes, Sofia of Spain, Titles Deprivation Act 1917, Victoria Louise of Prussia

Frederica of Hanover (18, April 1917 – February 6, 1981) was Queen consort of the Hellenes from 1947 until 1964 as the wife of King Paul, thereafter Queen mother during the reign of her son, King Constantine II.

Born Her Royal Highness Friederica, Princess of Hanover, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, and Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg on April 18, 1917 in Blankenburg am Harz, in the German Duchy of Brunswick, she was the only daughter and third child of Ernst August, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, and his wife Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, herself the only daughter of the German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Her Royal Highness Friederica, Princess of Hanover, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, and Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Both her father and maternal grandfather abdicated their thrones in November 1918 following Germany’s defeat in World War I, and her paternal grandfather, Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, was stripped of his British Royal Dukedom the following year, for having sided with Germany in World War I.

Her paternal grandfather, Ernest Augustus of Hanover and Duke of Cumberland was the most senior male-line descendant of George I, II, and III, the Duke of Cumberland of Great Britain and was the last Hanoverian Prince to hold a British royal title and the Order of the Garter.

Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale

In 1914 the title of a Prince of Great Britain and Ireland was additionally granted to the members of the house by King George V. These peerages and titles however were suspended under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917.

However, the title Royal Prince of Great Britain and Ireland had been entered into the family’s German passports, together with the German titles, in 1914. After the German Revolution of 1918–19, with the abolishment of nobility’s privileges, titles officially became parts of the last name. So, curiously, the British prince’s title is still part of the family’s last name in their German passports, while it is no longer mentioned in their British documents.

On 29 August 1931, Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick, as head of the House of Hanover, declared the formal resumption, for himself and his dynastic descendants, of use of his former British princely title as a secondary title of pretense, which style, “Royal Prince of Great Britain and Ireland”, his grandson, the current head of the house, also called Ernst August, continues to claim.

Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick: Father

In 1934, Adolf Hitler, in his ambition to link the British and German royal houses, asked for Frederica’s parents to arrange for the marriage of their seventeen-year-old daughter to Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales.

In her memoirs, Frederica’s mother described that she and her husband were “shattered” and such a possibility “had never entered our minds”. Victoria Louise herself had once been considered as a potential bride for the very same person prior to her marriage. Moreover, the age difference was too great (the Prince of Wales was twenty-three years Frederica’s senior), and her parents were unwilling to “put any such pressure” on their daughter.

Victoria Louise of Prussia: Mother

To her family, she was known as Freddie.

Marriage

Prince Paul of Greece proposed to her during the summer of 1936, while he was in Berlin attending the 1936 Summer Olympics. Paul was a son of King Constantine I and Frederica’s great aunt Sophia of Prussia, sister of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Accordingly, they were maternal first cousins once removed. They were also paternal second cousins as great-grandchildren of Christian IX of Denmark. Their engagement was announced officially on September 28, 1937, and Britain’s King George VI gave his consent pursuant to the Royal Marriages Act 1772 on December 26, 1937.

HM Queen Frederica of the Hellenes

They married in Athens on January 9, 1938. Frederica became Hereditary Princess of the Hellenes, her husband being heir presumptive to his childless elder brother, King George II.

During the early part of their marriage, they resided at a villa in Psychiko in the suburbs of Athens. Ten months after their marriage, their first child, the future Queen Sofia of Spain, was born on November 2, 1938. On June 2, 1940, Frederica gave birth to the future King Constantine II.

War and Exile

At the peak of World War II, in April 1941, the Greek Royal Family was evacuated to Crete in a Sunderland flying boat. Shortly afterwards, the German forces attacked Crete. Frederica and her family were evacuated again, setting up a government-in-exile office in London.

In exile, King George II and the rest of the Greek Royal Family settled in South Africa. Here Frederica’s last child, Princess Irene, was born on May 11, 1942. The South African leader, General Jan Smuts, served as her godfather. The family eventually settled in Egypt in February 1944.

After the war, the 1946 Greek referendum restored King George II to the throne. The Hereditary Prince and Princess returned to their villa in Psychiko.

11. Crown of the Kingdom of Hanover.

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Act of Settlement 1701, Crown of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Electorate of Hanover, Ernst August of Hanover, George I of Great Britain, House of Guelph, King George III of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of Hanover, Titles Deprivation Act 1917, United Kingdom of Great Britain, World War I

From the Emperor’s Desk: In researching the background on the Crown of the Kingdom of Hanover for my countdown of my favorite crowns, I came up with…nothing! So instead I’ll give a short synopsis of the Kingdom of Hanover itself.

The Crown of the Kingdom of Hanover.

The Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Hanover (known formally as the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg), and joined 38 other sovereign states in the German Confederation in June of 1815.

The kingdom was ruled by the House of Hanover, a cadet branch of the House of Guelph (Welf), And held in personal union with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland since 1714. Since its monarch resided in London, a viceroy (usually a younger member of the British Royal Family) handled the administration of the Kingdom of Hanover.

The Crown of the Kingdom of Hanover and Hereditary Prince Ernst-August of Hanover.

History

The territory of Hanover had earlier been a principality within the Holy Roman Empire before being elevated into an Imperial Electorate in 1708, when Hanover was formed by union of the dynastic divisions of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, excepting the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

The founder of the dynasty was Prince Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, (November 20, 1629 – January 23, 1698). youngest son of Georg, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Prince of Calenberg, and Anne-Eleonore of Hesse-Darmstadt.

On September 30, 1658, Ernst-August married Sophia of the Palatinate of the Rhine in Heidelberg. She was the daughter of Friedrich V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine and Princess Elizabeth of England, and granddaughter of King James VI-I of England, Scotland and Ireland. Sophia had been betrothed to Ernst-August’s older brother, Georg-Wilhelm who did not want her. When she married Ernst-August instead, releasing Georg-Wilhelm from this obligation, Georg-Wilhelm then ceded to Ernst-August his claim to the Duchy of Lüneburg.

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

As the fourth son, Ernst-August had little chance of succeeding his father as ruler. Therefore, the couple had to live in the Leineschloss at the Hanover court of Ernest-August’s eldest brother Christian-Ludwig.

Christian-Ludwig died childless in 1665, leaving the Duchy of Lüneburg to the second brother, Georg-Wilhelm, who had ceded his right to Ernst-August, who thus succeeded. Georg-Wilhelm kept the district of Celle for himself.

In 1679, Ernst-August inherited the Principality of Calenberg from the third brother Johann-Friedrich. In 1680 the family moved back to Hanover. In 1683, against the protestations of his five younger sons, Ernst-August instituted primogeniture, so that his territory would not be further subdivided after his death, and also as a pre-condition for obtaining the coveted electorship.

Ernst-August participated on the side of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, in the Great Turkish War; also known as the War of the Holy League which was a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League which consisted of the Habsburg Monarchy, Poland-Lithuania, Venice and Russia. In 1692, Ernst-August was appointed Prince-Elector by the Emperor, thus raising the House of Hanover to electoral dignity; however, the electorship did not come into effect until 1708. He was nonetheless recognized as Elector of Hanover, the very first. Ernst-August died in 1698 at Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover. He was succeeded as ruler by his eldest son, Georg-Ludwig.

Georg-Ludwig, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Elector 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. After her the crowns would descend only to her non-Roman Catholic heirs, bypassing the Catholic descendants of James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The Act of Settlement was, in many ways, the major cause of the union of Scotland with England and Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Parliament of Scotland was not happy with the Act of Settlement and, in response, passed the Act of Security in 1704, through which Scotland reserved the right to choose its own successor to Queen Anne. Stemming from this, the Parliament of England decided that, to ensure the stability and future prosperity of Great Britain, full union of the two parliaments and nations was essential before Anne’s death.

It used a combination of exclusionary legislation (the Alien Act 1705), politics, and bribery to achieve this within three years under the Act of Union 1707 which united England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. By virtue of Article II of the Treaty of Union, which defined the succession to the throne of Great Britain, the Act of Settlement became part of Scots Law as well.

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.

George I, King of Great Britain.

On the death of Queen Anne in August of 1714, Georg-Ludwig ascended the throne of Great Britain as George I, and the Electorate of Hanover was joined in a personal union with Great Britain. In 1803, Hanover was conquered by the French and Prussian armies in the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaties of Tilsit in 1807 joined it to territories from Prussia and created the Kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by Napoleon’s youngest brother Jérôme Bonaparte. French control lasted until October 1813 when the territory was overrun by Russian Cossacks. The Battle of Leipzig shortly thereafter spelled the definitive end of the Napoleonic client states, and the electorate was restored to the House of Hanover.

The terms of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 not only restored Hanover, but elevated it to an independent kingdom with its Prince-Elector, George III of Great Britain, as King of Hanover. The new kingdom was also greatly expanded, becoming the fourth-largest state in the German Confederation (behind Prussia, Austria and Bavaria) and the second-largest in north Germany.

Under George III’s six-year reign, he never visited the Kingdom. Actually, he never left Great Britain at all during his lifetime. Having succumbed to dementia prior to the elevation of Hanover, it is unlikely he ever understood that he had gained an additional kingship nor did he take any role in its governance.

George III, King of the United Kingdom, Elector of Hanover (1760-1813) and 1st King of Hanover (1814-1820)

Functional administration of Hanover was usually handled by a viceroy, which during the later years of George III’s reign and the reigns of kings George IV and William IV from 1816 to 1837, was Adolphus-Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, George III’s youngest surviving son.

King Ernst-August (I) of Hanover

When Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne in 1837, the 123-year personal union of Great Britain and Hanover ended. Salic law operated in Hanover, excluding accession to the throne by a female while any male of the dynasty survived; thus instead of Victoria, her uncle in the male-line of the House of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, now the eldest surviving son of George III, succeeded to the throne of the new kingdom as King Ernst-August of Hanover (1771-1851) Adolphus-Frederick the younger brother, and long-time Viceroy, returned to Britain as King Ernst-August was the first King of Hanover to actually reside in the kingdom.

King Georg V of Hanover

During the Austro-Prussian War (1866), Hanover attempted to maintain a neutral position, along with some other member states of the German Confederation. Hanover’s vote in favor of the mobilisation of Confederation troops against Prussia on June 14, 1866 prompted Prussia to declare war. The outcome of the war led to the dissolution of Hanover as an independent kingdom and it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, becoming the Prussian Province of Hanover. Along with the rest of Prussia, it became part of the German Empire in 1871.

After King Georg V of Hanover (1819-1878) fled his country in 1866, he raised forces loyal to him in the Netherlands, called the Guelphic Legion. They were eventually disbanded in 1870. Nevertheless, Georg refused to accept the Prussian takeover of his realm and claimed he was still the legitimate King of Hanover. His only son, Ernst-August, Crown Prince of Hanover (1845-1923), inherited this claim upon George’s death in 1878.

Ernst-August, Crown Prince of Hanover and Duke of Cumberland

Ernst-August, who was also the Duke of Cumberland in the peerage of the United Kingdom, was also first in line to the throne of the Duchy of Brunswick, whose rulers had been a junior branch of the House of Hanover. In 1884, that branch became extinct with the death of Duke Wilhelm of Brunswick, a distant cousin of Ernst-August.

Prince Albert of Prussia, Regent of Brunswick

However, since Ernst-August refused to renounce his claim to the annexed Kingdom of Hanover, the Bundesrat of the German Empire ruled that he would disturb the peace of the empire if he ascended the throne of Brunswick. As a result, Brunswick was ruled by a regency until 1913. The first regent was Prince Albert of Prussia (1837–1906) his wife Princess Marianne of the Netherlands. His father was a brother of King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia and of Wilhelm I, King of Prussia and German Emperor. Prince Albert of Prussia was regent of the Duchy of Brunswick from 1885 until his death in 1906.

The regency of Brunswick fell to Duke Johann-Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin the fifth child of Friedrich-Franz II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1823-1883) and his first wife Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz (1822–1862).

Duke Johann-Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin actually served as the regent of two states of the German Empire. Firstly from 1897 to 1901 he was regent of Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin for his nephew Friedrich-Franz IV, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and from 1907 to 1913 he was Regent of the Duchy of Brunswick.

Duke Johann-Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Regent of Brunswick

When Crown Prince Ernst-August’s son, also named Ernst-Agust-August married the German Emperor Wilhelm II’s daughter, Princess Viktoria-Luise of Prussia in 1913 and swore allegiance to the German Empire, Crown Prince Ernst-August, Duke of Cumberland, then renounced his claim to Brunswick in favor of his son, and the Bundesrat allowed the younger Ernest-August to take possession of Brunswick as it’s new reigning Duke as a kind of dowry compensation for Hanover. This also reconciled the House of Guelph and the House of Hohenzollern after the Prussian annexation of Hanover in 1866. Duke Ernst-August abdicated the Duchy of Brunswick in 1918 at the end of World War I when the German monarchy was abolished.

Duke Ernst-August and Duchess Viktoria-Luise of Brunswick.

Today the claimant to the defunct throne of Hanover is Ernst-August,(V) Prince of Hanover (born February 26, 1954) and is the grandson of Ernest-August, the last reigning Duke of Brunswick and his wife Princess Viktoria-Luise of Prussia.

Prince and Princess Ernst-August Hanover (formerly Princess Caroline Of Monaco).

Ernst-August, is the senior male-line descendant of George III of the United Kingdom, and is head of the House of Hanover. He is also the claimant to the defunct Duchy of Brunswick and the British Peerage of the Dukedom of Cumberland which was lost due to the passing of the Titles Deprivation Act of 1917 which authorised enemies of the United Kingdom during the First World War to be deprived of their British peerages and royal titles. His second marriage was to HSH Princess Caroline of Monaco.

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.