Ernest Augustus of Hanover

1629 – 1698 · Generation XXVII · Elector of Hanover · House of Hanover

Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, was the first Elector of Hanover and the father of George I of Great Britain. Born at Herzberg Castle near Göttingen on 20 November 1629, he was the youngest son of George, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg, and had little prospect of ruling anything. On 30 September 1658 he married Sophia of the Palatinate, a granddaughter of James I of England. She had first been intended for his elder brother George William, who backed out of the match, and in return for being released George William ceded his claim to Lüneburg to Ernest Augustus.

Under the Peace of Westphalia the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück alternated between Catholic bishops and Protestant princes of his house, and in 1662 he became its Protestant prince-bishop, moving with Sophia to Iburg and later to the new palace at Osnabrück. As his brothers died one by one he gathered their lands, inheriting the Principality of Calenberg in 1679 and returning to Hanover in 1680.

In 1683, over the protests of his younger sons, he introduced primogeniture so that his lands would pass whole to his eldest son, a condition for the electoral rank he coveted. He fought for the emperor Leopold I in the Great Turkish War, and in 1692 Leopold made him the ninth prince-elector of the empire, though the Imperial Diet confirmed it only in 1708. He died at Herrenhausen in 1698, where he and Sophia had made one of Europe’s great baroque gardens, and was succeeded by his son George Louis. Sophia, as a granddaughter of James VI and I, was named heiress to the throne of England by the Act of Settlement of 1701, and through her the crown passed to their son, George I of Great Britain.

Place in the family

• Ernest Augustus of Hanover was a 4× great-grandfather of Queen Victoria.
• The archive records 95 of his descendants, across 13 generations.

One of 35 people of House of Hanover (from 1700) in this archive. Called from Germany by the Act of Settlement; the Georges, then Victoria.

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Partners

• Married Sophia of Hanover (1630 – 1714) in 1658 — one child together

Children

• King George I (1660 – 1727)

Life

• 1629 — Born
• 1658 — Married Sophia of Hanover
• 1698 — Died

Sources

1. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover · Wikipedia
2. Sophia of Hanover · Wikipedia