1 1 A NOVEli 



547 



Loili.iin- of Supplinbiirg. Ity tin- marriage of hi- 

 II.T in llemy the I'roud of Bavaria, the duchy 

 I to tin- Guelphs. Henry tin- Lion, win of 

 Henrj tin- I'roud, iliil much to advance the civilisa- 

 tion Hi lii-. subject-, by conferring; right* and privi 

 upon various towns which had advocated his 

 ; Inn, when lie fell under the ban of the 

 einj.ire, a period of anarchy and confusion succeeded, 

 winch at Iii>i threatened tin- ruin of the country. 

 When, however, in 1180 llenrv was deprived of the 

 duchv of Saxony, lie was allowed to retain his 

 hereoitarv lands of Brunswick and Liineburg. 

 From tliU time down to the 16th century the 

 liUtoiy of Hanover is inseparable from that of 

 Brunswick (<[.v.). 



The history of Hanover as a modern state begins 

 with the foundation of the line of Brunswick-Liirie- 

 burg by William, who, in the partition which he and 

 Mcr brother Henry (founder of the Brunswick 

 house, extinct in 1884) made of the dominions of 

 their father, Ernest I., obtained in 1509 the duchies 

 of Liinel in i u and Celle ( Zell ). William died in 1592, 

 leaving seven sons, of whom four successively ruled 

 over the land. Of the seven only one ( George ) mar- 

 ried. 1 1 i> eldest son, Cliristian Lewis, in accordance 

 with a family compact, took (1648) as his portion 

 of the inheritance Liineburg, Grubenhagen, Diep- 

 hol/., and Hova, with Celle for his residence ; while 

 his next brother, George William, obtained Kalen- 

 berg and Gottingen, with Hanover for his residence. 

 Thus originated the lines of Celle and Hanover. 

 Christian Lewis set himself the task of raising his 

 country from the miseries it had endured in the 

 Thirty Years' War. After his death in 1665 his 

 brother George William exchanged his own duchy 

 for that of Celle, leaving Hanover to a younger 

 brot her, John Frederick. George William, as Duke 

 of Celle, deserves notice for his warlike and active 

 administration : he sent auxiliaries to Venice to 

 aid the republic against the Turks ; co-operated 

 with the Duke of Brunswick to reduce his insurgent 

 capital ; entered into an alliance with the emperor 

 against France and Sweden ; sent an army into 

 Hungary to resist the Turks ; and in 1688 lent 

 troops and money to William of Orange against 

 James II. of England. John Frederick of Hanover 

 entertained a great admiration for the French, and 

 aped the magnificence of the court of Versailles. 

 Be was succeeded by his brother, Ernest Augustus 

 (another son of George), in 1679. Thus the Han- 

 overian territories were again irnited under one 

 head, in George Lewis, son of Ernest Augustus, 

 who succeeded to the duchy of Hanover in 1698, 

 and to that of Celle in 1705. The mother of George 

 Lewis was Sophia, daughter of Frederick V. of the 

 Palatinate and of Elizabeth, daughter of James I. 

 of England. In 1714 George Lewis became king of 

 England as George I. His father, Ernest Augustus, 

 had in 1692 been invested with the dignity of the 

 newly-created ninth electorate. 



Under George Lewis as king of England and 

 second elector of Hanover or Brunswick-Luneburg, 

 a brighter epoch opened to the Hanoverians ; they 

 were relieved from the burden of maintaining the 

 ducal court and household, and the revenues of the 

 crown were thenceforth appropriated to the general 

 purposes of the state. The government was left in 

 the hands of a viceroy and the confidential council. 

 Bremen and Verden were obtained in this reign by 

 purchase from Sweden (1719). George II., who 

 succeeded in 1727, like his father spared the 

 revenues of Hanover at the expense of those of 

 England. In his character of elector, he espoused 

 the cause of Maria Theresa in the Austrian war of 

 succession ; but in the Seven Years' War Hanover 

 sided with Prussia against Austria and France, and 

 suffered severely, especially by the capitulation of 

 Closter-Seven (1757). This king founded the 



university of Gottingen in 1734-37. The peace 

 whirh pri-vailed during the first thirty year* of the 

 reign of George HI., who succeeded on tin; di-ath 

 of his grandfather in 1700, and who alone of the 

 four Georges never visited lii-< German dominions, 

 pmved a veritable godsend to Hanover, which alao 

 profited by the increased English and American 

 tiade. In 1793 Hanoverian tump- took part in the 

 wars against the. French Republic, the expenses 

 of their maintenance being defray ed by England. 

 Hut in 1801 Prussia, refusing to acknowledge the 

 neutrality of Hanover, threw troops into the 

 electorate, and maintained her military occupancy 

 for a year. In 1803, when war was renewed 

 between England and France, an army under 

 Mortier intimidated the Hanoverians to such an 

 extent that, without striking a blow, they pledged 

 themselves to abstain from serving against France, 

 to disband their army, to give up their aims 

 and horses to the enemy, and to submit to receive 

 a French corps of occupation 30,000 strong. 

 In 1807 Napoleon appropriated a portion of the 

 electorate to complete the newly-formed kingdom 

 of Westphalia, which in 1810 received the whole 

 of the Hanoverian territory. On the successful 

 termination of the war of liberation, Hanover was 

 created a kingdom in 1815. In 1S19 a new consti- 

 tution was granted, which made provision for the 

 election of two representative chambers ; but it only 

 lasted until 1833. Nevertheless, the general dis- 

 affection and distrust bad risen to the highest 

 pitch when William IV. ascended the throne ; 

 and in 1831 the prime-minister, Count Munster, 

 who had long been obnoxious to the mass of the 

 people, was dismissed, and the Duke of Cam- 

 bridge, eon of George III., who had since 1816 

 acted as governor-general, was invested with the 

 title of viceroy. George IV. was of course also 

 king of Hanover ; but on the death of William IV. 

 in 1837 Hanover was separated from England and 



S'ven to the next male heir, Ernest Augustus, 

 nke of Cumberland, the fifth son of George III. 

 ( 1771-1851 ). This prince initiated a policy in all 

 respects reactionary ; but in 1848 he did so far yield 

 to the storm as to just save his throne by the un- 

 willing concession of liberal reforms. A famous 

 incident in the struggle was the protest and expul- 

 sion in 1837 of seven Gottingen professors (see 

 GOTTINGEN ). His son, the blind George V. ( 1819- 

 78), who succeeded in 1851, held very extreme views 

 in regard to the kingly power ana the claims of 

 the aristocracy, and for fifteen years he struggled 

 against the will of the people 'in defence of his 

 absolutist ideas. In 1806 Hanover took part with 

 Austria, and at Langensalza (27th June) the army, 

 after a successful defence, was surrounded and 

 capitulated ; Hanover was then occupied by 

 Prussia, and finally annexed. George V. until his 

 death, and since then his son, Ernest Augustus, 

 Duke of Cumberland (b. 1845), still maintaining 

 their claim to the Hanoverian throne, were com- 

 pelled to live in banishment. The incorporation 

 with Prussia was viewed with anything but general 

 favour ; Professor Ewald, for instance, to the day 

 of his death, being a staunch adherent of the exiled 

 house. In 1868 the so-called ]\'flfcnfonds ( ' Guelph- 

 fund ' ) the private property of the king of Hanover 

 was sequestrated by Prussia, and has sulse- 

 quently been managed by a commission. Prince 

 Bismarck's enemies were wont to affirm that this 

 fund called by them Stftffieiufbiuh ('Keptile- 

 fund') was largely used for bnbing newspapers 

 to support the government policy. 



See Gtmeinde-lexiicon fur die Prarim Hannover ( BerL 

 1887); and works by J. Meyer (1880), Grotefend (1867). 

 and Medingf 1881-84). 



Hanover (Ger. Hannover), formerly capital 

 of the kingdom, now chief town of the province of 



