Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover

Infobox Hanoverian Royalty|highness
name = Prince Ernest Augustus
title = Crown Prince of Hanover
Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale


succession = Duke of Cumberland
spouse = Princess Thyra of Denmark
issue = Marie Louise, Princess Maximilian of Baden
Prince George William
Alexandra, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Princess Olga
Prince Christian
Ernest Augustus III, Duke of Brunswick
full name = Ernest Augustus William Adolphus George Frederick
" _de. Ernst August Wilhelm Adolphus Georg Friedrich"
titles = "HRH" The Crown Prince of Hanover
"HRH" The Crown Prince of Hanover, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
"HRH" The Crown Prince of Hanover
"HRH" Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover and Cumberland
royal house = House of Hanover
father = George V of Hanover
mother = Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg
date of birth = birth date|1845|9|21|df=yes
place of birth = Hanover
date of death = death date and age|1923|11|14|1845|9|21|df=yes
place of death = Gmunden|

Crown Prince Ernst August II of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, (Ernest Augustus William Adolphus George Frederick; 21 September 1845–14 November 1923), was the eldest child and only son of George V of Hanover and his wife, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg. Ernst August had the misfortune of being deprived of the thrones of Hanover upon its annexation by Prussia in 1866 and later the Duchy of Brunswick in 1884. Although he was the senior male-line great grandson of George III, the Duke of Cumberland was deprived of his British peerages and honours for having sided with Germany in World War I.

Early life

Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was born at Hanover during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Ernest Augustus I. He became the Crown Prince of Hanover upon his father's ascension as George V in November 1851. William I of Prussia and his minister-president Otto von Bismarck deposed George V for having sided with the defeated Austria in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. During that war, the Crown Prince saw action at the Battle of Langensalza.

Exile

After the war, the exiled Hanoverian royal family took up residence in Hietzing, near Vienna, but spent a good deal of time in Paris. George V never abandoned his claim to the Hanoverian throne and maintained the Guelphic Legion at his own expense. The former Crown Prince travelled during this early period of exile. While visiting his second cousin Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) at Sandringham in 1875, he met Princess Thyra of Denmark (29 September 1853-26 February 1933), the youngest daughter of King Christian IX and a sister of the Princess of Wales (later Queen Alexandra).

uccession

When King George V died in Paris on 12 June 1878, Prince Ernst August succeeded him as Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale in the Peerage of Great Britain and Earl of Armagh in the Peerage of Ireland. Queen Victoria created him a Knight of the Garter on 1 August 1878.

Marriage

On 22 December 1878, he married Princess Thyra of Denmark at Copenhagen.

Duchy of Brunswick

Queen Victoria appointed the Duke of Cumberland a major general in the British Army in 1886 and promoted him to lieutenant general in 1892 and general in 1898. Although he was a British peer and a prince of Great Britain and Ireland, he continued to consider himself an exiled monarch of a German Principality, making his home in Gmunden, Upper Austria. He refused to disclaim his succession rights to Hanover. In 1884, the reigning Duke William of Brunswick, a distant cousin, died and the Duke of Cumberland was hereditary heir and first in line of succession to the Duchy. Bismarck, however, managed to exclude him from this inheritance, as he had also from his father's throne, declaring the throne vacant and putting the Duchy under Prussian administration.

Reconciliation

The Duke of Cumberland was partially reconciled with the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1913, when his surviving son, Prince Ernst August, married the only daughter of German Emperor William II, the grandson of the Prussian king who had deposed his father. He renounced his succession rights to the Brunswick duchy (which had belonged to the Guelph dynasty since 1235) on 24 October 1913. In exchange, the younger Ernst August became the reigning Duke of Brunswick on 1 November. William II created the elder Ernst August a Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle. The younger Duke Ernst August abdicated his throne along with the other German princes when the entire German nobility was disestablished by the successor German provisional Government which was established when the Emperor himself abdicated and fled Germany in exile to Holland, as part of the armistice terms of November 1918.

War

The outbreak of World War I created a breach between the British Royal Family and its Hanoverian cousins. On 13 May 1915, King George V of Great Britain ordered the removal of the Duke of Cumberland from the Roll of the Order of the Garter. Under the terms of the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, on 28 March 1919 his name was removed from the roll of Peers of Great Britain and of Ireland by Order of the King in Council for "bearing arms against Great Britain."

Later life

Prince Ernst August, the former Crown Prince of Hanover and former Duke of Cumberland, died of a stroke on his estate at Gmunden in November 1923.

Ancestry

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1=1. Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover
2=2. George V of Hanover
3=3. Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg
4=4. Ernest Augustus I of Hanover
5=5. Duchess Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
6=6. Joseph, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg
7=7. Amelia of Württemberg
8=8. George III of the United Kingdom
9=9. Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
10=10. Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
11=11. Princess Friederike Caroline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt|12=12. Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg
13=13. Duchess Charlotte Georgine of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
14=14. Duke Louis of Württemberg
15=15. Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg
16=16. Frederick, Prince of Wales
17=17. Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
18=18. Charles Louis Frederick, Duke of Mecklenburg-Mirow
19=19. Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen
20=20. Charles Louis Frederick, Duke of Mecklenburg-Mirow (= 18)
21=21. Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen (= 19)
22=22. Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt
23=23. Countess Maria Luise Albertine of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg
24=24. Ernest Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen
25=25. Princess Ernestine of Saxe-Weimar
26=26. Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (= 10)
27=27. Friederike Caroline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt (= 11)
28=28. Friedrich II Eugen, Duke of Württemberg
29=29. Margravine Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt
30=30. Charles Christian, Duke of Nassau-Weilburg
31=31. Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

*21 September 1845–18 November 1851: "His Royal Highness" Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover and Cumberland
*18 November 1851–12 June 1878: "His Royal Highness" The Crown Prince of Hanover
*12 June 1878–28 March 1919: "His Royal Highness" The Crown Prince of Hanover, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
*28 March 1919–14 November 1923: "His Royal Highness" The Crown Prince of Hanover

Arms

Until his father's death in 1878, Ernest Augustus' arms in right of the United Kingdom were those of his father (being the arms of the United Kingdom, differenced by a "label argent of three points, the centre point charged with a fleur-de-lys azure, and each of the other points charged with a cross gules; the whole further differenced by a label gules bearing a horse courant argent"), the whole a third time differenced by a "label gules bearing a horse courant argent". Upon his father's death, he inherited his arms. [ [http://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/cadency.htm Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family] ]

Issue

The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland had six children.

Notes