The House of Hanover is a European royal house with roots tracing back to the 17th century. Its members, known as Hanoverians, ruled Hanover, Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire at various times during the 17th to 20th centuries. Originating as a cadet branch of the House of Welf in 1635, also known then as the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Hanoverians ascended to prominence with Hanover's elevation to an Electorate in 1692. In 1714 George I, prince-elector of Hanover and a descendant of King James VI and I, assumed the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, marking the beginning of Hanoverian rule over the British Empire. At the end of his line, Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the throne of the United Kingdom passed to her eldest son Edward VII, a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, through his father Albert, Prince Consort. The last reigning members of the House of Hanover lost the Duchy of Brunswick in 1918 when Germany became a republic and abolished royalty and nobility.
The Principality of Calenberg was a dynastic division of the Welf Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg established in 1432. Calenberg was ruled by the House of Hanover from 1635 onwards; the princes received the ninth electoral dignity of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. Their territory became the nucleus of the Electorate of Hanover, ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1714 onwards. The principality received its name from Calenberg Castle, a residence of the Brunswick dukes.
The House of Welf is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meuse-Moselle area was closely related to the imperial family of the Carolingians.
George V was the last king of Hanover, reigning from 18 November 1851 to 20 September 1866. The only child of King Ernest Augustus and Queen Frederica, he succeeded his father in 1851. George's reign was ended by the Austro-Prussian War, after which Prussia annexed Hanover.
Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, was the eldest child and only son of George V of Hanover and his wife, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg. Ernest Augustus was deprived of the throne of Hanover upon its annexation by Prussia in 1866 and later the Duchy of Brunswick in 1884. Ernest Augustus was deprived of his British peerages and honours for having sided with Germany in World War I.
Ernst August von Hanover is the head of the House of Hanover, members of which reigned in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1901, the Kingdom of Hanover from 1814 to 1866, and the Duchy of Brunswick from 1913 to 1918. As the husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, he is the brother-in-law of Albert II, Prince of Monaco.
Hanover is a territory that was at various times a principality within the Holy Roman Empire, an Electorate within the same, an independent Kingdom, and a subordinate Province within the Kingdom of Prussia. The territory was named after its capital, the city of Hanover, which was the principal town of the region from 1636. In contemporary usage, the name is used only for the city. Most of the historical territory of Hanover forms the greater part of the German state of Lower Saxony but excludes certain areas.
The Duchy of Brunswick was a historical German state that ceased to exist in 1918. Its capital was the city of Brunswick. It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the course of the 19th-century history of Germany, the duchy was part of the German Confederation, the North German Confederation and from 1871 the German Empire. It was disestablished after the end of World War I, its territory incorporated into the Weimar Republic as the Free State of Brunswick.
Ernst August, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, Prince of Hanover was head of the House of Hanover from 1953 until his death in 1987. From his birth until the German Revolution of 1918–1919 he was the heir apparent to the Duchy of Brunswick, a state of the German Empire.
Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia was the only daughter and youngest child of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. Through her father, Victoria Louise was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
William, Duke of Brunswick, was ruling duke of the Duchy of Brunswick from 1830 until his death.
Ernst August, Hereditary Prince of Hanover is a German financier and the eldest child of Ernst August, Prince of Hanover, and his first wife Chantal Hochuli. Due to his father's second marriage, he is also the stepson of Caroline, Princess of Hanover, a Monegasque Princess and the sister of Albert II of Monaco.
Prince Ludwig Rudolph of Hanover, of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg was a member of the House of Hanover and a music producer.
The Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was a subdivision of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, whose history was characterised by numerous divisions and reunifications. It had an area of 3,828 square kilometres in the mid 17th century. Various dynastic lines of the House of Welf ruled Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. As a result of the Congress of Vienna, its successor state, the Duchy of Brunswick, was created in 1815.
Clara Elisabeth, Countess von Platen-Hallermund, was a German noblewoman, most notable as the mistress of Ernest Augustus and for her involvement in the Königsmarck affair.
Prince Christian of Hanover is a German prince in pretense, the younger son of Ernst August Prinz von Hanover, and his first wife, Chantal Hochuli.
Wilhelm Heinrich Michael Louis Ferdinand Friedrich Franz Wladimir Prinz von Preussen was a descendant of the Hohenzollern dynasty which ruled Germany until the end of World War I. His great-grandfather Wilhelm II was the German Emperor and King of Prussia until 1918. Although Kaiser Wilhelm died in exile and his family was stripped of much of its wealth and recognition of its rank and titles by the German Republic, Michael spent nearly all of his life in Germany.
Herrenhausen Palace is a former royal summer residence of the House of Hanover in the Herrenhausen district of the German city of Hanover. It is the centrepiece of Herrenhausen Gardens. Sophia of Hanover oversaw the development of the estate in the late 1600s.
Hubertihaus is a hunting lodge near the Almsee, south of the village of Grünau im Almtal in Austria. It is owned by the House of Hanover and cannot be visited.
Cumberland Castle is a former royal palace in Gmunden, Austria. After the House of Hanover lost the throne of the Kingdom of Hanover, they went to Austria into exile. Gmunden became their exile seat, where they constructed Cumberland castle in 1882. The palace is designed in a Tudor revival style. The royal family lived here until the 1930s. After the Second World War, the castle became a state nursing home and is now owned by the State of Upper Austria
