King George V of Hanover

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2012

King George V of Hanover, Credit – Wikipedia

Kingdom of Hanover: In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became King George I of Great Britain due to the extinction of the Protestant Stuart line. He remained Elector of Hanover as did his successors King George II and King George III. In 1814, under the terms of the Congress of Vienna, the Electorate of Hanover was raised to the Kingdom of Hanover and King George III also became King of Hanover.

George III’s sons George IV and William IV succeeded him as King of the United Kingdom and King of Hanover. However, because the Kingdom of Hanover followed the Salic Law which did not allow female succession, Queen Victoria who succeeded her uncle William IV as Queen of the United Kingdom, could not become Queen of Hanover. Therefore, Queen Victoria’s paternal eldest surviving uncle Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland became King of Hanover.

King George V, Ernest Augustus’ son, was the last King of Hanover. Hanover backed the losing side in the Austro-Prussian War and was conquered by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 and became a Prussian province. Since then, the senior heir of the House of Hanover has been the pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of Hanover. Today the former Kingdom of Hanover is in the German state of Lower Saxony.

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The last King of Hanover was born Prince George of Cumberland on May 27, 1819, in a hotel in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, now in Brandenburg, Germany.  His parents were Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the fifth son of King George III, and Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.  Prince George was born amidst the race for an heir to the British throne in the third generation.  The death of Princess Charlotte of Wales in childbirth in 1817 left King George III without any legitimate grandchildren.  Prince George was born three days after the eventual heir, Alexandrina Victoria (Queen Victoria), who was ahead of her cousin in the succession by being the child of King George III’s fourth son.  After Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne in 1837, Prince George remained second in the line of succession after his father until Queen Victoria’s first child was born.  Today his descendant Prince Ernst August of Hanover is the senior male-line descendant of King George III and the Head of the House of Hanover.

While George had no full siblings, he did have half-siblings from his mother’s first two marriages:

From his mother’s first marriage to Prince Ludwig of Prussia, George had three half-siblings:

From his mother’s second marriage to Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Solms-Braunfels, George had six half-siblings:

  • Princess Caroline of Solms-Braunfels (born and died 1799)
  • Prince Wilhelm of Solms-Braunfels (1801–1868), married Countess Maria Anna Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau, had nine children
  • Princess Sophie of Solms-Braunfels (born and died 1803)
  • Princess Auguste Luise of Solms-Braunfels (1804–1865), married Prince Albert of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, had four children
  • Prince Friedrich of Solms-Braunfels (1807–1867), married Baroness Louise of Landsberg-Velen, had one child
  • Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels (1812–1875), married (1) morganatically Louise Beyrich, had three children  (2) Princess Sophie of Loewenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, had five children

Prince George was christened George Frederick Alexander Charles Ernest Augustus on July 8, 1819, at a hotel in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia with what might be a record number of godparents:

Prince George spent his childhood in England and Prussia. In 1828, an accident with a swinging set of keys resulted in the loss of some vision.  By 1835, George was completely blind.  In 1837, upon the accession of Queen Victoria, George’s father became King of Hanover.  Up until the point, Hanoverian kings of the United Kingdom were also Electors or Kings of Hanover.  However, Hanover followed the Salic Law which did not allow female succession.  Ernest Augustus, as the eldest surviving son of King George III, became King of Hanover and his son George became the Crown Prince.

In 1839, Crown Prince George met Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg at Schloss Monbrillant, a summer palace of the Hanovers.  George and Marie were married on February 18, 1843, and had three children:

George and his family; Credit – Wikipedia

George succeeded his father as King of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, as well as Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, in the Peerage of Great Britain, and Earl of Armagh, in the Peerage of Ireland, on November 18, 1851. King George V of Hanover reigned for only 15 years, being exiled from Hanover in 1866 as a result of his support for Austria in the Austro-Prussian War.  On September 20, 1866, Hanover was annexed by Prussia.  George never abdicated from the throne of Hanover and he and his wife Marie lived in exile in Gmunden, Austria and in Paris, France where George died on June 12, 1878, at the age of 59.  A funeral service was held at the Lutheran Church in the Rue Chacat in Paris and then King George’s remains were transported to England and buried in the Royal Tomb House under St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

An artist’s view inside the Royal Tomb House at St. George’s Chapel. Caskets were placed on the shelves along the sides. The bench in the middle was used as a temporary place for caskets waiting to be buried elsewhere.

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