Hanover

Hanover was in personal union with Britain from 1714, when George I succeeded Queen Anne under the terms of the Act of Settlement, until 1837 when the Salic Law prevented Victoria from retaining Hanover and it passed to her uncle, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland.

The line of Brunswick-Lüneburg or Hanover had been chosen in 1701 because Sophia, electress of Hanover, was a granddaughter of James I, through her mother Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, and the nearest protestant heir. In 1692 Hanover had been granted electoral status within the Holy Roman empire and in 1705 it was reunited with the larger state of Celle, making it the leading second-line German power.

In 1714 it had a population of just over 500,000 and, with some 7,000 square miles, was rather bigger than Yorkshire. The chief town, Hanover, had about 10,000 inhabitants. In 1719, the acquisition of Bremen and Verden at the expense of Sweden gave the electorate access to the North Sea. George I had more authority as elector of Hanover than as king of England, but he did not rule Hanover autocratically. Most of the component territories had retained their assemblies, usually acting through committees, though executive power was firmly in the hands of the Privy Council, instructed by the Regierungsreglement promulgated by George before he left the country.

The connection with Hanover was regarded by most Britons with distaste or at best as a necessary evil. The Act of Settlement had indicated a marked distrust. The new monarch could not appoint Germans to any post in Britain, could not declare war to help Hanover without parliamentary consent, and could not even visit his native land without parliamentary approval. Though the last condition was soon dropped, as personally offensive to the sovereign, suspicion remained. Britons were afraid that the connection would mean continental entanglements and resented the evident pleasure their kings took in visiting their electorate. In December 1742, William Pitt gained great popularity by declaring that ‘this great, this powerful, this formidable kingdom is considered only as a province of a despicable electorate’.

But the main problem was strategic. Hanover was almost defenceless against French or Prussian attack and, if overrun, would have to be rescued at the end of the war by concessions elsewhere. In the War of the Austrian Succession, with France and Prussia in alliance, the situation was particularly tense. Britain put into the field the Pragmatic Army, under William, duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden. To avoid reproach, Hanoverian troops for the alliance were placed under Austrian command but paid for by British subsidies. With Prussia concerned mainly with Austria, and France bogged down in Holland, Hanover survived.

During the Seven Years War, Hanover's defence was easier, since Prussia had become a British ally. Indeed, the search for protection for Hanover had been an important factor in bringing about the reversal of alliances which preceded and precipitated the conflict. Cumberland, attacked in 1757 by superior French forces, was forced into the humiliating capitulation of Kloster-Zeven and Hanover occupied by the French. But the armistice was repudiated and the Army of Observation, under Ferdinand of Brunswick, succeeded in holding the French at bay, and even won a victory at Minden in 1759.

After 1760, British hostility to Hanover declined. The declaration by the new king, George III, that ‘born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain’ played the nationalist card to some effect, and the swarms of Scots who clustered around Bute gave the English new people to hate. George III never visited Hanover, though at moments of crisis he mused on retiring there.

It was not possible for Hanover to escape the maelstrom of the Napoleonic wars. It gained Osnabrück in 1803 in one of the many reorganizations of Germany, but was occupied first by Prussia, then in 1806 by the French. Napoleon took the northern parts into his swollen French empire, giving the rest to a new kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by his younger brother Jerome. At the peace settlement in 1814, Hanover was given the status of a kingdom and gained important territories, including East Friesland, Hildesheim, and Lingen. The reign of Ernest Augustus from 1837 was turbulent. But his son, the blind George V, took the side of Austria in the war of 1866 and paid the penalty. Hanover was annexed to the new German empire.

The connection with Britain for well over a century left few traces. There was little attempt to develop trade between the two countries and little contact between the inhabitants, save for diplomats and soldiers. Though the University of Göttingen, founded by George II in 1737, soon acquired a fine reputation, few Britons went there. Though the British complained more fiercely, it is arguable that the Hanoverians suffered more. They were dragged into British struggles and had to put up with an absentee ruler and a diminished court at Herrenhausen. As a consequence, they welcomed Cumberland with joy in 1837, and his equestrian statue with an inscription ‘Dem Landes Vater sein treues Volk’ still stands outside the main railway station at Hanover.

J. A. Cannon