It’s been a while since we’ve
met another one of George III’s numerous brood. As it happens, we’ve already
met this particular son. But I’m getting ahead of myself...
The king’s fifth son and
eighth child, Ernest Augustus, was born on June 5, 1771 at Buckingham House.
His childhood seems to have been uneventful; it was spent growing up at Kew with his
numerous siblings and sharing a household with his two younger brothers,
Augustus and Adolphus. Ernest was a handsome, boisterous boy; unlike most of
his brothers, he would never become corpulent, but remained lean his whole
life.
At fifteen and still with his
two younger brothers in tow, Ernest was sent to study at the University of
Göttingen in Hanover, and received his earliest military training there as
well. By 1792 he was commissioned as a cavalry colonel, being an excellent
horseman and shot, and went on to fight against the French in several battles
over the next few years, receiving a saber wound to his head (that would
eventually result in a loss of vision in one eye) and other wounds. Though he
would continue to serve in the military for another twenty years, returning to
the continent and eventually attaining the rank of field marshal, his battle
days were past.
However, his interest in
politics was just beginning. When his father awarded him the title of Duke of
Cumberland and Teviotdale in 1799, he took his seat in the House of Lords and
actually got involved. A dedicated Tory unlike his brothers Prinny and the Duke
of York, he voted against bills for Catholic Emancipation and other liberal
legislation and became a leader of the conservative end of his party. Also
unlike his brothers, he was circumspect in his personal habits, which may have
backfired on him as he acquired a reputation as a sinister figure who preferred
to enjoy his vices privately. Rumors likely circulated by political opponents
whirled around him, reaching their apex in the scandal around the death of his valet, Joseph Sellis.
The army and politics kept him
sufficiently busy until 1813, when he became smitten by a cousin, Princess
Frederica of Meckenburg-Strelitz. Though she was already married, the marriage
was not a success and discussion of a divorce was underway when the princess’s
husband died unexpectedly—a fact which became more grist for the rumor mill
after Ernest and she married in 1815. Since Queen Charlotte did not approve of
the marriage and would not receive her daughter-in-law, the couple eventually
moved to Germany and had a son.
Over the next decade and a
half, lurid rumors of murder and assault continued to circulate around Ernest,
many of them probably politically motivated as he continued to involve himself
in politics, being especially active in questions involving Ireland during the
1820s. The issue of the line of succession to the throne was an especially
fraught one; after Prinny’s death in 1830, Ernest was next in line for the
throne after young princess Victoria, and rumors that her life was in danger from
her wicked uncle were rife even after she came to throne; only the births of
her first children put those rumors to rest.
On the death of his older brother
William IV Ernest became the king of Hanover, since Victoria as a female could
not inherit the Hanoverian throne. He left England within the month to take up
residence in his new kingdom, where he ruled according to his highly
conservative bent (though he did eventually approve a more liberal constitution
for Hanover.) He wasn’t very popular, but wasn’t unpopular either, and was
appreciated for the fact that he kept Hanover out of the reaching grasp of
Prussian expansionism. He died in 1851, at the age of 80.
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