The Children of George III: Ernest

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.

1810, What a Year It Was Part 3: The Duke and the Valet

True crime fans, take note. This post is for you...and is probably the strangest of the events of 1810 we’ll be looking at. Ready?

George III’s fifth son Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, was one of the least popular of the king’s unpopular sons. Unlike most of his brothers who were on the plump side, Ernest took after his mother and was rail-thin; a saber cut down one side of his face, received when he fought the French in Holland at the Battle of Tournai, gave him a rather sinister appearance despite his handsome features. And unlike all his brothers, he was an avowed Tory and never dabbled in Whiggism or any liberal causes, being particularly opposed to Catholic Emancipation. He had an unpleasant reputation from his Army days as being a savage disciplinarian, and rumors about his personal life were rife.

But those rumors were nothing compared to the gossip that ricocheted around London after the wee hours of May 31, 1810--206 years ago this very day.

According to the Duke, he went to bed around one a.m. in his apartments at St. James Palace after attending a concert earlier in the evening. He stated that he was awakened by two blows to his head, then quickly received four other blows and a saber cut to his thigh as he tried to flee to the room of one of his valets, Neale, calling out that he had been murdered. Though a small lamp burned in his room, he said he saw no one.  The valet dashed to his master’s defense, waving a poker about, until he tripped over a sword—the Duke’s own, covered with a considerable amount of blood. While Neale tended to his master, the Duke requested that his other valet, Joseph Sellis, a native of Corsica, be summoned as well. When the servants went to Sellis’s room, they found the door was locked. After various backing and forthing involving doors that should have been locked but weren’t, Sellis’s room was finally gained—and Sellis himself found with his throat slit by a razor. There was no sign of a struggle.

Ew.

So what had actually happened?

The jury called to hear the incident's inquest found, on weighing the extensive testimony and physical evidence, that Sellis had attacked his master and then committed suicide. Based on the accounts given by all the servants, that was probably what happened, though we’ll never know what inspired the attack.

But public opinion whispered otherwise—remember how disliked the Duke was? It was rumored that the Duke had seduced Sellis’s wife, and murdered Sellis when the valet threatened to go public with his knowledge, then arranged matters to look as though he had been attacked instead. Other rumors postulated an affair between the Duke and Sellis, and that the Duke had murdered him when he threatened blackmail, while others favored the theory that Sellis had discovered an affair between the Duke and his other valet, and was murdered by the Duke in order to keep the affair secret. Some who accepted that Sellis had indeed attempted to murder his master suggested that he had done so in revenge for the Duke’s seduction of his wife. Others guessed that he was tired of the Duke’s constant stream of anti-Catholic jokes and mockery (Sellis was Catholic) and had simply had enough.

The Duke survived, though it took months for him to recover (his brain could actually be seen through one of the wounds in his head, and his thumb had nearly been severed by the sabre.) His reputation, however, never recovered, and he would go on to be accused of even worse things, such as being the father of his own sister’s illegitimate child and of scheming to bring about the death of his niece Victoria, who until she had children was all that stood between the Duke and the crown.

Makes the royal scandals of today look pretty tame, doesn’t it?

(Image "SELLIS/ The Italian Assassin Attempting to Murder H.R.H. The Duke of Cumberland" by George Cruikshank, from the Rosenbach Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia)