Born in Hanover to its Elector Ernest Augustus and Electress Sophia, George inherited the titles and lands of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg from his father and uncles. Sophia, however, became heiress presumptive to the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701 as the nearest Protestant descendant of King James I. Her mother, Elizabeth of the Palatinate and Queen of Bohemia was the sister of King Charles I. A succession of European wars expanded his German domains during his lifetime and he was ratified as Prince-Elector of Hanover in 1708. After the deaths in 1714 of his mother and his second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain in quick succession, George ascended the British throne as Anne's closest living Protestant relative under the Act of Settlement 1701. Jacobites attempted, but failed, to depose George and replace him with James Francis Edward Stuart, Anne's Catholic half-brother.
As such, George placed a scaled-down version of the multiple-quartered Arms of Brunwick-Lüneburg (Hanover) in the fourth Quarter of Queen Anne's Great Britain Arms, replacing the repetition of the marshalled England/Scotland Arms. This Quarter is blazoned as follows:
Tierced per pale and per chevron, I Gules two lions passant guardant Or (for Brunswick), II Or a semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure (for Lüneburg), III Gules a horse courant Argent (for Westphalia), overall an escutcheon Gules charged with the crown of Charlemagne Or (for the dignity of Archtreasurer of the Holy Roman Empire).
All other aspects of the Realm's Arms remained the same for this new Dynasty until the reign of King George III as we have seen in this previous Blog.
In 1706 the Elector of Bavaria was deprived of his offices and titles for siding with France against the Empire in the War of the Spanish Succession. The following year, George was invested as an Imperial Field Marshal with command of the imperial army stationed along the Rhine. His tenure was not altogether successful, partly because he was deceived by the Duke of Marlborough into a diversionary attack, and partly because Emperor Joseph I appropriated the funds necessary for George's campaign for his own use. Despite this, the German princes thought he had acquitted himself well and in 1708 they formally confirmed George's position as a Prince-Elector.
George resigned as field marshal the following year, never to go on active service again and in 1710 he was granted the dignity of Arch-Treasurer, one of the high offices of the Empire, placing a gold representation of King Charlemagne's Crown on the plain red Inescutcheon. This established the pattern of the Head of Sate and, thereby the country, having the Shield with the Crown and the heir having the plain Shield.
The Brunswick Lion is the stuff of legend. Shortly after his death in 1195, the Welf Duke Henry the Lion of Brunswick became the subject of a folktale, the so-called Heinrichssage. Henry was supposed to have been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and witnessed a fight between a lion and a dragon. Henry sided with the lion and defeated the dragon. However, away from the saga, he had a bronze lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the courtyard of his castle Dankwarderode in his capital Brunswick in 1166. Henry was married to Matilda of England as his second wife, daughter of King Henry II. It is not implausible, in the fledgling years of heraldry, that Henry 'inherited' his Arms from his father-in-law, which at that stage were possibly still the attributed Arms of two Lions passant guardant of William the Conqueror. It would be his son, Richard the Lionheart (Henry's brother-in-law), who would adopt the third Lion and thereby create the famous "Arms of England".
The white Horse of Saxon Kent refers by tradition to the emblem of brothers Horsa and Hengist, said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion of Britain in the 5th Century, who according to legend landed in Kent in 449 under the banner of a rampant white horse and defeated the King Vortigern near Aylesford. Even their names refer to horse and stallion. Some historians maintain that Jutes migrating to Kent through the continent may have been associated with the Rhineland and South Saxony. The white Horse remains a key part of the heraldry of that corner of the world. A large number of pubs in the county also feature White Horse in their name, although elsewhere in the country this may come from the Hanoverians.
The Saxon Steed is allegedly a very old tribal symbol of Saxony in Germany and also of the House of Welf from which the Hanoverians were descended, appearing first in the late 14th Century. It became the symbol of Hanover and is now the symbol of Westphalia and Lower Saxony, which are all roughly in the same area of central Germany. (It is variously shown either jumping or rampant.)
Sophia Dorothea of Celle
Little can be said of Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle (15th September 1666 – 13th November 1726), the wife of future King George I, as they were divorced in 1694, long before George came to Great Britain. Sophia and George's fathers were brothers and the union between first cousins was an arranged marriage of state, instigated for financial reasons by his mother, Electress Sophia of Hanover, who evidently didn't like either of them. She is best remembered for her alleged affair with Philip Christoph von Königsmarck which led to her being imprisoned in the Castle of Ahlden for the last thirty years of her life. Whilst one can imagine that her Coat of Arms as Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg would be a double-up of very similar Arms, Sophia Dorothea was never Queen of Great Britain, she never had a Coat of Arms as a British Royal. |
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, Queen Consort of Prussia
Sophia Dorothea (26th March [O.S. 16th March] 1687 – 28th June 1757) was the only daughter of George Louis and Sophia Dorothea of Celle. She was detested by her elder brother, King George II of Great Britain. After the divorce and imprisonment of her mother, she was raised in Hanover under the supervision of her paternal grandmother, the Electress Sophia. She married her cousin, Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia, heir apparent to the Prussian throne, on 28th November 1706. They had met as children when Frederick William had spent some time in Hanover under the care of their mutual grandmother, the Electress Sophia, and though Sophia Dorothea disliked him, Frederick William had reportedly felt an attraction to her early on. Sophia Dorothea and Frederick William differed from each other in every aspect and the marriage suffered as a result. Having said that, they had 14 children, the most famous of whom was Frederick who was their third son but the first to survive infancy. He would go on to succeed his father as King of Prussia and become known as Frederick the Great. |
Sophia Dorothea died in 1757, soon after Frederick returned from his first campaign during the Seven Years' War.
There is likewise no record of her Coat of Arms readily available, either as a Princess of Hanover, Great Britain or even as Queen Consort of Prussia.
PS To add to the confusion of names, not only was Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Prussia's paternal grandmother the Electress Sophia and her mother Sophia Dorothea of Celle, her mother-in-law was Sophia Charlotte of... Hanover and none other than her paternal aunt, sister of her father, George Louis!
Ernest Augustus, Duke of York and Albany
The first five years of his life were spent in Osnabrück, as one of his father's titles was Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, until his father became Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and the family moved to Hanover. After their father's death, George inherited all the lands and titles, including the Electorate. Their father, as part of the conditions he had to fulfil to acquire an Electorate, had adopted primogeniture. This effectively stopped the splitting up of land into evermore fragmented kingdoms and princedoms, thus disinheriting younger sons. Unlike his four elder brothers, Ernest Augustus did not oppose this change. Thus, when George became King and moved to London, Ernest Augustus took on the mantle of the senior head of the family in Brunswick-Lüneburg. In this capacity, he became regent in all but name, and took on the duty of care for George's seven-year-old grandson, Frederick Lewis, the future Prince of Wales. (Frederick Lewis was left in Germany as a diplomatic move, to reassure the populace and any ambitious neighbouring states of the family's continuing commitment to its German lands.)
The death of Charles Joseph, Elector of Trier, in 1715, meant that it was the turn of a Protestant to become Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück under the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia. This position as a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and ruler of an independent principality was shared between Catholics and Lutherans and was usually a held by member of the House of Welf whenever the turn came to Protestants. George's next brother Maximilian William of Brunswick-Luneburg had become a Catholic, so he nominated Ernest Augustus to be elected by the Osnabrück cathedral chapter. The position was not just an honorific, and so Ernest Augustus had to divide his time between Schloss Osnabrück and the court at Herrenhausen in Hanover.
Ernest Augustus did visit England and on 29th June 1716, he was created Duke of York, Albany and Earl of Ulster. On 30th April 1718 (OS), he was created a Knight of the Garter together with his grand-nephew Frederick Lewis.
He died a year after his brother King George had died on a visit to Osnabrück. As Ernest Augustus never married, his titles became extinct.
As a British Prince and brother of the King, Ernest Augustus was assigned a three-pointed Label in 1716, each Point bearing three red Hearts. This is the first time that Hearts appeared on a British Royal Label of cadency and they are believed to have come from the background of the Quarter in the Hanoverian Arms that represents Lüneburg.
In keeping with a Warrant of King Charles II of 9th February 1661, Ernest Augustus's Arms carried a Coronet composed of Crosses and Fleurs-de-Lys. This counted for "brothers of Our Successors Kings of England" as well as sons.
Additionally, Ernest Augustus, as sovereign Prince-Bishop ecclesiastical principality of Osnabrück within the Holy Roman Empire, carried an Inescutcheon in the Hanoverian Quarter. This was white with a red, six-spoked Wheel. This should not be confused with the city of Osnabrück where the Wheel is black. When it was the Protestant Prince's turn again to be Prince-Bishop (in 1764) another Duke of York and Albany was chosen. This time it was Frederick, second son of King George III and his write-up can be seen in a previous Blog. |