Ernest Augustus II of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
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Ernst August
3rd Duke of Cumberland |
Crown Prince Ernst August II of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, (Ernst August Wilhelm Adolf Georg Friedrich) (
21 September 1845-
14 November 1923), was the eldest child and only son of
King George V of Hanover and his wife, Princess 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
King George III, the Duke of Cumberland was deprived of his British peerages and honours for having sided with
Germany in
World War I.
His Royal Highness General Prince Ernest Augustus William Adolphus George Frederick, KG, Crown Prince of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, and Earl of Armagh, was born at
Hanover during the reign of his paternal grandfather,
King Ernst August I. He became the
Crown Prince of Hanover upon his father's ascension as King George V in November 1851.
King Wilhelm 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.
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).
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.
On
22 December, he married Princess Thyra at
Copenhagen.
Queen Victoria appointed the Duke of Cumberland a major general in the
British Army in 1886 and promoted him to lieutentant 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 German monarch, making his home in
Gmunden, Austria. He refused to disclaim his succession rights to Hanover. In 1884, the reigning
Duke Wilhelm of Brunswick, a distant cousin, died and the Duke of Cumberland claimed to succeed to the territory. Bismarck, however, managed to exclude him from his cousin's duchy, as he had from his father's throne.
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
the German Emperor Wilhelm 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-d'Este dynasty since 1235) on
24 October 1913. In exchange, the younger Ernst August became the reigning Duke of Brunswick on
1 November. Wilhelm 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 in November 1918.
The outbreak of
World War I created a breach between the
British Royal Family and its Hanoverian cousins. On
23 March 1919,
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."
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.
Styles
*
1845-1851:
His Royal Highness Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover and Cumberland and Teviotdale
*
1851-1878:
His Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Hanover
*
1878-1923:
His Royal Highness The Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland had six children.
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