Brunswick-Lüneburg

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Image:Wappen Deutsches Reich - Herzogtum Braunschweig (Kleines).png
Arms of the Dukes of Brunswick and Lüneburg

Brunswick-Lunenburg (Braunschweig-Lüneburg) was a historical state within the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) during the late Early Modern era. As the name implies, the main cities of this state were Brunswick and Lüneburg. The first Hanoverian King of England, George I of Great Britain was Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg (Herzog Braunschweig und Lüneburg), and an elector of the Holy Roman Empire when the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701 which put his mother into the line of succession after Anne of Great Britain. His son and great grandson retained the position of elector until Napoleon abolished it in 1806. After the fall of Napoleon, George III regained his lands as King of Hanover.

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[edit] Duchy of Brunswick-Lunenburg

The state emerged from the inheritance of the first Saxon state of Henry the Lion in the late 12th century. Henry was deposed by the Emperor as Duke of Saxony, but retained various Lower Saxon lands which were inherited by his children as the Duchies of Brunswick and Lüneburg.

The first duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg was Otto the Child, who reigned from 1235 on. After 1267 the duchy was split into two partial states, the lines of Lüneburg and of Wolfenbüttel (which later became a multitude of partial states), but all of them were ruled by the Welf dynasty and maintained close relations. The centres of power moved in the meantime from Brunswick and Lüneburg to Celle and Wolfenbüttel.

While there is a total of about a dozen subdivisions that existed, some of them were only dynastic and were not recognised as states of the Empire. In the List of Reichstag participants (1792), the following four subdivisions of Brunswick-Lüneburg had respresentation:

By 1705, only two Dukes of Brunswick-Lunenburg survived, one ruling Calenberg, Celle, and other possessions, and the other ruling Wolfenbüttel. Coincidentally, in 1701 the Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg found himself in the line of succession for the British crown later confirmed in 1707, by the Act of Union, and inherited that creating a personal union of the two crowns in 20 October 1714. After the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Calenberg-Celle and its possessions were added to by the Congress of Vienna ending the Napoleonic war being born anew under the name of Kingdom of Hanover; Wolfenbüttel continued to exist under the name of Duchy of Brunswick.

[edit] From Lunenburg to Hanover

Main article: Hanover (state)

One of the dynastic lines was the that of the dukes of Lüneburg-Celle, who in 1635 acquired Calenberg for a junior member of the family who set up residence in the city of Hanover. His sons inherited Celle in 1648 and thereafter shared it and Calenberg between themselves; a closely related branch of the family ruled separately in Wolfenbüttel. The territories of Calenberg and Celle were made an Electorate by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1692 in expectation of the imminent inheritance of Celle by the Duke of Calenburg, though the actual dynastic union of the territories did not occur until 1705, and the Electorate was not officially approved by the Imperial Diet until 1708.

The resulting state was known under many different names (Brunswick-Lunenburg, Calenberg, Calenberg-Celle); its ruler was often known as the "Elector of Hanover". In 1814, after the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna enlarged the state into Kingdom of Hanover. From 1814 to 1837 it shared a ruler with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1866, it was annexed by Prussia following the Austro-Prussian War, and became the Prussian province of Hanover. Today the region is part of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany.

[edit] Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Main article: Duchy of Brunswick

The Wolfenbüttel line retained its independence, except for the period from 1807 to 1813, when both it and Hanover were merged into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 turned it into an independent country under the name Duchy of Brunswick.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the kingdom of Hanover (including Brunswick-Lüneburg) was ruled as personal union by the British crown from its creation under George III of the United Kingdom, the last elector of Hanover until the death of William IV in 1837.

At that point, the crown of Hanover went to Williams younger brother, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale under the Salic laws requiring the next male heir to inherit, whereas the British throne was inherited by his first cousin, Queen Victoria. Subsequently, the province was lost in 1866 by his son George V of Hanover during the Austro-Prussian War when it was annexed by Prussia. The Duchy of Brunswick remained independent and joined first the North German Confederation and in 1871 then the German Empire. Today both polities are part of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany.

[edit] Dukes of Brunswick and Lunenburg 1235-1428

[edit] See also

For later rulers see:

See further:

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Image:Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor (after 1400).svg Holy Roman Empire – Lower Saxon Circle (1500–1806)
Ecclesiastical princesBremen* | Halberstadt* | Hildesheim | Lübeck | Magdeburg* | Ratzeburg (until 1701) | Schwerin*
Image:Lower Saxon Circle-2005-10-15-en.png
Secular princesBremen† | Brunswick: Blankenburg (until 1731), Calenberg‡, Celle, Grubenhagen‡, Lüneburg‡, Wolfenbüttel | Holstein: Glückstadt, Gottorp | Mecklenburg: Güstrow (until 1695), Schwerin, Strelitz | Rantzau (until 1734) | Regenstein | Saxe-Lauenburg‡
Imperial citiesBremen | Goslar | Hamburg | Lübeck | Mühlhausen | Nordhausen
* until 1648     † from 1648     ‡ until 1705
de:Herzogtum Braunschweig-Lüneburg

fr:Brunswick-Lüneburg ko:브라운슈바이크 (지역) nl:Brunswijk (land) pl:Brunszwik-Lüneburg pt:Ducado de Brunswick-Lüneburg

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