Ernst August of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland
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3rd Duke of Cumberland
Prince Ernst August (II) of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland (1878-1919) and Crown Prince of Hanover (1851-1866), 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 desposed 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. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland had six children:
- Princess Marie Louise of Hanover and Cumberland (11 October 1879-31 January 1948; married Prince Maximilian of Baden 10 July 1867-6 November 1929), and had issue.
- Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover and Cumberland (28 October 1880-20 May 1912)
- Princess Alexandra of Hanover and Cumberland (29 September 1882-30 August 1963); married Friedrich Franz IV, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (9 April 1882-17 November 1945)
- Princess Olga of Hanover (11 July 1884-21 September 1958)
- Prince Christian of Hanover and Cumberland (4 July 1885-3 September 1901)
- Prince Ernst August (III) of Hanover and Cumberland (17 November 1887-30 January 1953) reigning Duke of Brunswick, 1913-18; married Princess Viktoria Louise of Prussia (13 September 1892-11 December 1980)
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-Wolfenbüttel, 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 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 or House of Hanover 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.
| Preceded by: George Frederick Alexander Charles Ernest Augustus | Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale | Followed by: Suspended |