Hanover (German province)

Hanover , Ger. Hannover, former independent kingdom and former province of Germany; Lower Saxony, NW Germany. Very irregular in outline, Hanover stretched from the Dutch border and the North Sea in the northwest to the Harz Mts. in the southeast. The name Hanover originally applied only to the city, becoming the name of a state in 1815. Most of the territory was included in the duchy of Brunswick, which the house of the Guelphs retained after 1180. In the repeated subdivisions of Brunswick among the various branches of the family, the branch of Brunswick-Lüneburg (and its offshoots, the duchies of Lüneburg, Celle, and Lüneburg-Calenberg) emerged as the most powerful. The dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg played an important part in the Thirty Years War (1618-48) on the Protestant side, and in 1692 Duke Ernest Augustus of Calenberg was raised to the rank of elector. His lands became known as the electorate of Hanover. The marriage of Ernest Augustus to Sophia , granddaughter of James I of England, brought (1714) the English throne to his son, Elector George Louis ( George I of England). Personal union of Great Britain and Hanover continued under the house of Hanover (see separate article). Napoleon I gave the electorate to Prussia in 1805, but in 1807 he assigned part of Hanover to the kingdom of Westphalia under his brother Jérôme Bonaparte, the remainder being divided in 1810 between France and Westphalia. In 1813, Great Britain regained possession, and in 1815 the Congress of Vienna raised Hanover to a kingdom, with membership in the German Confederation . At the accession (1837) of Queen Victoria in England, Hanover was separated from the British crown because of the Salic law of succession. Ernest Augustus , son of George III, became king of Hanover and began his reign by rescinding the liberal Hanoverian constitution of 1833, thus evoking the well-known protest of the seven professors at Göttingen ; the Revolution of 1848 forced him to grant a liberal constitution. His son, George V , succeeded him in 1851. George V refused to support Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and, as a consequence, lost his kingdom, which was made a Prussian (from 1871 a German) province. After World War II the province was incorporated into Lower Saxony .

Hanover (Hannover) Former kingdom and province of Germany. In 1692, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneberg, was created Elector of Hanover; his lands were known thereafter as Hanover. His son succeeded to the British throne as George I in 1714. Divided during the Napoleonic era, Hanover was reconstituted as a kingdom in 1815. Allied with Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), it was annexed by Prussia after Austria's defeat. After World War II it became part of the state of Lower Saxony.

Hanover a former state and province in northern Germany. It was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire 1692–1806, ruled by the Guelph dynasty, and from 1866 until 1945 was a province of Prussia. In 1714 the Elector of Hanover succeeded to the British throne as George I, and from then until the accession of Victoria (1837) the same monarch ruled both Britain and Hanover.

With the accession of Victoria (1837) to the British throne, however, Hanover passed to her uncle, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (1771–1851). The British royal house from 1714 to the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 was known as the House of Hanover, and its members as the Hanoverians.

The heraldic badge of Hanover, a white horse, was formerly represented in the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom.