House of Hanover

Country	Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Hanover
Ancestral house	Este → Welf Stuart
Titles	Empress of India King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King of Great Britain King of Ireland King of Hanover Elector of Brunswick-Lueneburg Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg Duke of Brunswick etc., etc., etc.
Current head	Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover
Founding	1635 - George of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Dissolution	United Kingdom: 1901 - Death of Victoria of the United Kingdom ends the British branch in the agnatic line; semi-Salic law ends personal union of Hanover with the United Kingdom in 1837, upon death of her uncle. Hanover: 1866 - George V of Hanover lost the territory to Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War Brunswick: 1918 - Ernest Augustus of Brunswick forced to abdicate after German defeat in World War I

The House of Hanover (the Hanoverians) is a deposed German royal dynasty which has ruled the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (German: Braunschweig-Lüneburg), the Kingdom of Hanover, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It succeeded the House of Stuart as monarchs of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714 and held that office until the death of Victoria in 1901. They are sometimes referred to as the House of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Hanover line. The House of Hanover is a younger branch of the House of Welf, which in turn is the senior branch of the House of Este.

Queen Victoria was the granddaughter of George III, and was an ancestor of most major European royal houses. She arranged marriages for her children and grandchildren across the continent, tying Europe together; this earned her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover; her son King Edward VII belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father, Prince Albert. Under semi-Salic law, Victoria could not inherit the German kingdom and duchies unless the entire male line became extinct; those possessions passed to the next eligible male heir, her uncle Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale—the fifth son of George III.

The current head of the House of Hanover is Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover.

History[link]

George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, is considered the first member of the House of Hanover. When the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg was divided in 1635, George inherited the principalities of Calenberg and Göttingen, and in 1636 he moved his residence to Hanover. His son, Duke Ernest Augustus, was elevated to prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. Ernest Augustus's wife, Sophia of the Palatinate, was declared heiress of the throne of Great Britain (then England and Scotland) by the Act of Settlement of 1701, which decreed Roman Catholics could not accede to the throne. Sophia was at that time the senior eligible Protestant descendant of James I of England.

Hanover Monarchs: Great Britain and the United Kingdom[link]

Ernest Augustus and Sophia's son, George I became the first British monarch of the House of Hanover.^[1]:13 The dynasty provided six British monarchs:

Of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland:

• George I (r.1714–27) (Georg Ludwig = George Louis)
• George II (r.1727–60) (Georg August = George Augustus)
• George III (r.1760–1820)^[2]

Of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland:

• George III (r.1760–1820)
• George IV (r.1820–30)
• William IV (r.1830–37)
• Victoria (r.1837–1901).

George I, George II, and George III also served as electors and dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, informally, Electors of Hanover (cf. personal union). From 1814, when Hanover became a kingdom, the British monarch was also King of Hanover.

In 1837, however, the personal union of the thrones of the United Kingdom and Hanover ended. Succession to the Hanoverian throne was regulated by semi-Salic law, which gave priority to all male lines before female lines, so that it passed not to Queen Victoria but to her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland.^[1]:13,14 In 1901, when Queen Victoria died, her son and heir Edward VII became the first British Monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Edward taking his family name from that of his father, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.^[1]:14

Kings of Hanover after the breakup of the personal union[link]

After the death of William IV in 1837, the following kings of Hanover continued the dynasty:

• Ernest Augustus I (r. 1837–1851)
• George V (r. 1851–1866, deposed)

The Kingdom of Hanover came to an end in 1866 when it was annexed by Prussia. The 1866 rift between the House of Hanover and the House of Hohenzollern was settled only by the 1913 marriage of Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick.

Duchy of Brunswick[link]

In 1884, the senior branch of the House of Welf became extinct. By semi-Salic law, the House of Hanover would have acceded to the Duchy of Brunswick, but there had been strong Prussian pressure against having George V of Hanover or his son, the Duke of Cumberland, succeed to a member state of the German Empire, at least without strong conditions, including swearing to the German constitution. By a law of 1879, the Duchy of Brunswick established a temporary council of regency to take over at the Duke's death, and if necessary appoint a regent.

The Duke of Cumberland proclaimed himself Duke of Brunswick at the Duke's death, and lengthy negotiations ensued, but were never resolved. Prince Albert of Prussia was appointed regent; after his death in 1906, Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg succeeded him. The Duke of Cumberland's eldest son died in a car accident in 1912; the father renounced Brunswick in favor of his youngest son Ernest Augustus, who married the Kaiser's daughter, swore allegiance to the German Empire, and was allowed to ascend the throne of the Duchy in November 1913. He was a major-general during the First World War; but he was overthrown as Duke of Brunswick in 1918. His father was also deprived of his British titles in 1919, for "bearing arms against Great Britain".

Claimants[link]

The later heads of the House of Hanover have been:

• George V (1866–1878)
• Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover (1878–1923)
• Ernest Augustus III, Duke of Brunswick (1923–1953), son of the previous
• Ernest Augustus IV, Prince of Hanover (1953–1987)
• Ernest Augustus V, Prince of Hanover (1987–present)
  • Ernest Augustus, Hereditary Prince of Hanover (heir apparent)

see Line of succession to the Hanoverian Throne

The family has been resident in Austria since 1866; it has held courtesy titles since 1919.

List of members[link]

See List of members of the House of Hanover.

Patrilineal descent[link]

Patrilineal descent, descent from father to son, is the principle behind membership in royal houses, as it can be traced back through the generations, which means that the historically accurate royal house of monarchs of the House of Hanover was the House of Lucca (or Obertenghi, or Este, or Welf).

This is the descent of the primary male heir. For the complete expanded family tree, see List of members of the House of Hanover. Descent before Oberto I is from fabpedigree.com^[3] and may be inaccurate.

1. Richbald of Lucca, 700–761
2. Boniface I, Count of Lucca, 725–785
3. Boniface II, Count of Lucca, d. 823
4. Boniface III, Count of Lucca, d. 842
5. Adalbert I, Margrave of Tuscany, d. 891
6. Adalbert II, Margrave of Tuscany, d. 915
7. Gui de Lucca, d, 929
8. Adalbert III, Margrave of Tuscany, d. 955
9. Oberto I, 912–975
10. Oberto Obizzo, 940–1017
11. Albert Azzo I, Margrave of Milan, 970–1029
12. Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan, d. 1097
13. Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, 1037–1101
14. Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, 1074–1126
15. Henry X, Duke of Bavaria, 1108–1139
16. Henry the Lion, 1129–1195
17. William of Winchester, Lord of Lunenburg, 1184–1213
18. Otto I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1204–1252
19. Albert I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1236–1279
20. Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1268–1318
21. Magnus the Pious, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1304–1369
22. Magnus II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1328–1373
23. Bernard I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1362–1434
24. Frederick II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1408–1478
25. Otto IV, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1439–1471
26. Heinrich, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1468–1532
27. Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1497–1546
28. William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1535–1592
29. George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1582–1641
30. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, 1629–1698
31. George I of Great Britain, 1660–1727
32. George II of Great Britain, 1683–1760
33. Frederick, Prince of Wales, 1707–1751
34. George III of the United Kingdom, 1738–1820
35. Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, 1771–1851
36. George V of Hanover, 1819–1878
37. Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, 1845–1923
38. Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, 1887–1953
39. Ernest Augustus IV, Prince of Hanover, 1914–1987
40. Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover, b. 1954
41. Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover, b. 1983

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Fraser, Flora. Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III. Knopf, 2005.
• Plumb, J. H. The First Four Georges. Revised ed. Hamlyn, 1974.
• Redman, Alvin. The House of Hanover. Coward-McCann, 1960.
• Van der Kiste, John. George III’s Children. Sutton Publishing, 1992.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: House of Hanover

• History of Hanover
• List of British monarchs
• Line of succession to the Hanoverian throne

External links[link]

Listen to this article (info/dl)

This audio file was created from a revision of the "House of Hanover" article dated 2005-05-04, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)

More spoken articles

• (German) Official website of the House of Welf
• Royal Family of Great Britain including the Houses of Hanover, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Windsor.
• Chronology of the House of Hanover
• Genealogy of the House of Hanover
• Succession laws in the House of Welf

David Starkey
David Starkey in the early 1980s, while teaching at the London School of Economics.
Born	David Starkey (1945-01-03) 3 January 1945 (age 67) Kendal, Westmorland, England
Occupation	Historian, television personality
Language	English
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Partner(s)	James Brown

David Starkey, CBE, FSA (born 3 January 1945) is a British constitutional historian, and a radio and television presenter.

He was born the only child of Quaker parents, and attended Kendal Grammar School before entering Cambridge through a scholarship. There he specialised in Tudor history, writing a thesis on King Henry VIII's household. From Cambridge he moved to the London School of Economics, where he taught history until 1998.

Starkey is a well known radio and television personality, first appearing on the latter in 1977. While a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 4 debate programme The Moral Maze, his acerbic tongue earned him the sobriquet of "rudest man in Britain";^[1] his frequent appearances on Question Time have been received with criticism and applause. Starkey has presented several history documentaries. In 2002 he signed a £2 million contract with Channel 4 for 25 hours of programming. Recently, he was a contributor on the Channel 4 series, Jamie's Dream School. An accomplished author, Starkey has written several books on the Tudors.

He was appointed CBE in 2007, is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and an ardent supporter of equality between heterosexuals and homosexuals. He is openly gay and lives with his long-time partner in the south of England.

Early years and education[link]

David Starkey was born on 3 January 1945 in Kendal.^[2] He is the only child of Robert Starkey and Elsie Lyon, Quakers who had married 10 years previously in Bolton, at a Friends meeting house. Robert, the son of a cotton spinner, was a foreman in a washing-machine factory, while Elsie followed in her father's footsteps and became a cotton weaver, and later a cleaner.^[3][4] Starkey is equivocal about his mother, describing her as both "wonderful", in that she helped develop his ambition, and "monstrous", intellectually frustrated and living through her son.^[3] "She was a wonderful but also very frightening parent. Finally, she was a Pygmalion. She wanted a creature, she wanted something she had made."^[1] Her dominance contrasted sharply to his father, who was "poetic, reflective, rather solitary. The classic weak father, if you like. He wasn't a weak man, but as a father he was weak."^[1] Their relationship was "distant", but improved after his mother's death in 1977.^[1]

Starkey was born with two club feet. One was fixed early, while the other had to be operated on several times.^[5] He also suffered from polio.^[6] He suffered a nervous breakdown aged 13, and was taken by his mother to a boarding house in Southport, where he spent several months recovering.^[6] Starkey blamed the episode on the unfamiliar experience of being in a "highly competitive environment".^[5]

He excelled during his time at Kendal Grammar School, winning debating prizes and appearing in school plays.^[8][9] Although he showed an early inclination toward science, he chose instead to study history.^[7] A scholarship enabled his entry into Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge,^[10] where he gained a first, a PhD and a Fellowship.^[3] Starkey was fascinated by King Henry VIII, and his thesis centred around the Tudor monarch's inner household. His doctoral supervisor was Professor Geoffrey Elton, an expert in Tudor studies. Starkey claimed that with age his mentor became "tetchy" and "arrogant". In 1983, when Elton was awarded a knighthood, Starkey derided one of his essays, Cromwell Redivivus. The professor responded by writing an "absolutely shocking" review of a collection of essays Starkey had edited. Starkey later expressed his remorse over the spat: "I regret that the thing happened at all."^[10]

Career[link]

Bored at Cambridge^[5] and attracted to London's gay scene, in 1972 Starkey moved to the London School of Economics.^[3] He claimed to be an "excessively enthusiastic advocate of promiscuity",^[9] liberating himself from his mother's intensity; she strongly disapproved of his homosexuality.^[1][9] A 30-year career as a teacher ended in 1998, when, blaming boredom and modern academic life, he gave it up.^[5]

Starkey entered the wider public consciousness in 1992 on the BBC Radio 4 debate programme The Moral Maze,^[8] where he debated morality with fellow panellists Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Dr Roger Scruton and journalist Janet Daley. He soon acquired a reputation for abrasiveness; he explained in 2007 that his personality possesses "a tendency towards showmanship... towards self-indulgence and explosion and repartee and occasional silliness and going over the top."^[9] The Daily Mail gave him the sobriquet of "the rudest man in Britain", although Starkey claims that his character was part of a "convenient image".^[1] He once attacked the Archdeacon of York George Austin over "his fatness, his smugness, and his pomposity",^[5] but after a nine-year stint on the programme, he left, citing his boredom with being "Dr Rude" and its move to an evening slot.^[3][5][9] From 1995 he also spent three years at Talk Radio UK, presenting Starkey on Saturday, later Starkey on Sunday. An interview with Denis Healey proved to be one of his most embarrassing moments: "I mistakenly thought that he had become an amiable old buffer who would engage in amusing conversation, and he tore me limb from limb. I laugh about it now, but I didn't feel like laughing about it at the time."^[11]

Starkey is well known for his historical analyses of Henry VIII and his court

His first television appearance was in 1977, on Granada Television's Behave Yourself, with Russell Harty.^[5] He was a prosecution witness in the 1984 ITV programme The Trial of Richard III,^[12] whose jury acquitted the king on the grounds of insufficient evidence.^[13] His television documentaries on The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were ratings successes.^[8] In 2002 he signed a £2 million contract with Channel 4 to produce 25 hours of television, including Monarchy, a chronicle of the history of English kings and queens from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms onward.^[5][8] He presented the 2009 series Henry: Mind of a Tyrant, which Independent reviewer Brian Viner called "highly fascinating",^[14] although AA Gill was less complimentary, calling it "Hello! history", and its presenter "a top-down historian, a nostalgic snob of the sort that collects souvenir egg cups".^[15] In an interview about the series for the Radio Times, Starkey complained that too many historians had focussed not on Henry, but his wives. Referring to a "feminised history", he said: "so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience."^[16] This prompted historian Lucy Worsley to label his comments as misogynistic.^[17] More recently, he taught five history lessons in Channel 4's Jamie's Dream School,^[18] after which he criticised the state education system.^[19]

The core of history is narrative and biography. And the way history has been presented in the curriculum for the last 25 years is very different. The importance of knowledge has been downgraded. Instead the argument has been that it's all about skills. Supposedly, what you are trying to do with children is inculcate them with the analytical skills of the historian. Now this seems to me to be the most goddamn awful way to approach any subject, and also the most dangerous, and one, of course, that panders to all sorts of easy assumptions - ‘oh we've got the internet, we don't need knowledge anymore because it's so easy to look things up'. Oh no it isn't. In order to think, you actually need the information in your mind.

—David Starkey^[7]

He presented the 2011 documentary William and Kate: Romance and the Royals, about which The Independent reviewer Amol Rajan was equivocal,^[20] although the Telegraph's Benji Wilson claimed he could tell that Starkey "felt that there was something a little tacky about the whole enterprise".^[21]

Starkey was in 1994 elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.^[22] He has worked as curator on several exhibitions, including a 2003 exhibit on Elizabeth I, following which he had lunch with her namesake, Elizabeth II. Several years later he told a reporter that the monarch had no interest in her predecessors, other than those who followed her great grandfather. "I don't think she's at all comfortable with anybody - I would hesitate to use the word intellectual - but it's useful. I think she's got elements a bit like Goebbels in her attitude to culture - you remember: 'every time I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver.' I think the queen reaches for her mask."^[23] His remarks were criticised by royal biographer Penny Junor and royal historian Robert Lacey.^[24]

Politics[link]

By his own admission, Starkey was raised in an austere and frugal environment of near-poverty, with his parents often unemployed for long periods of time; an environment which, he later stated, taught him "the value of money".^[25] "I suppose my politics remained essentially in the middle-of the-road Labour left until the end of the 1970s".^[25] Starkey blames the Callaghan administration for "blow[ing] the nation's finances".^[25] He bemoaned the Tories when they were in opposition, criticising Michael Howard in particular: "I knew Michael Howard was going to be a disaster as soon as he opposed top-up fees, either out of sentimentality or calculated expediency so that it might get him a bit of the student vote...Instead of backing Tony Blair, causing revolution in the Labour Party, the Conservatives have been whoring after strange gods, coming up with increasingly strange policies."^[26] He likened Gordon Brown to the fictional Kenneth Widmerpool, continuing, "It seems to me that with Brown there is a complete sense of humour and charm bypass."^[7] Starkey prefers radical changes to the UK's constitution in line with the federal system used by the USA, although in an interview with Iain Dale he expressed his support for the monarchy, the queen, and Prince Charles.^[7] In the run-up to the UK Alternative Vote referendum, he was a signatory on a letter to The Times, which urged people to vote against the proposals.^[27]

A supporter of the Tory campaign for homosexual equality (Torche),^{[nb 1][29]} during one of many appearances on the BBC's Question Time he attacked Jeffrey Archer over his views on the age of homosexual consent.^[30] In 2009, Mike Russell, then the Scottish government minister for culture and external affairs, called on him to apologise for his declaration on the programme that Scotland, Ireland and Wales are "feeble little countries".^[31][32]

It was a joke! The question was did I think the English should treat St George's Day the same way the Scots and all the rest of them treat their saints' days - St Andrew, St Patrick and my answer was no. That would mean we would become a feeble little nation like them and we're showing every sign of doing just that. H.G. Wells has this wonderful phrase - "the English are the only nation without national dress". It is a glory that we don't have such a thing.

—David Starkey^[7]

More recently, he described Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond as a "Caledonian Hitler" who thinks that "the English, like the Jews, are everywhere".^[33] Appearing on Any Questions? in 2010, he told Labour politician Caroline Flint she had "prattled on".^[34] His comments in August 2011 on the BBC's Newsnight programme, made during a discussion about the 2011 England riots, precipitated support and condemnation from several notable commentators. Starkey claimed that "the whites have become black", and that "a particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion".^[35] Labour leader Ed Miliband called his comments "racist, frankly",^[35] although author Toby Young, blogging in the Telegraph, rejected such criticism, claiming that Starkey was talking not about black culture in general, but "a 'particular form' of black culture".^[36] Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Starkey argued his views had been distorted, that he referred only to a "particular sort" of 'Black' culture, and that "black educationalists" Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh supported the substance of his Newsnight comments.^{[nb 2][37]} The broadcast regulator Ofcom said that Starkey's comments were part of "a serious and measured discussion", and took no action.^[38] More recently, during the 2011 Conservative Party Conference, he spoke at a fringe meeting, declaring London Mayor Boris Johnson as a "jester-despot", and Prime Minister David Cameron as having "absolutely no strategy" for running the country. He urged the party to re-engage with the working class rather than the "Guardian-reading middle class".^[39]

Personal life[link]

Starkey lives with his partner, James Brown, a publisher and book designer. The couple have two homes: a house in Highbury and a manor house in Kent.^[9] Starkey was appointed CBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list, for services to history.^[40] He is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society^[41] and a visiting professor of the University of Kent.^[42]

Work[link]

Books

• This Land of England (1985) (with David Souden)
• The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (1986)
• Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration (1986) (Editor with Christopher Coleman)
• The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (1987)
• Rivals in Power: the Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties (1990)
• Henry VIII: A European Court in England (1991)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: The Transcript, Volume 1 (1998) (with Philip Ward and Alistair Hawkyard)
• Elizabeth: Apprenticeship (2000) (published in North America as Elizabeth: The struggle for the throne)
• The Stuart Courts - Foreword (2000) (Edited by Eveline Cruickshanks)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: Essays and Illustrations, Volume 2, (2002) (with Philip Ward and Alistair Hawkyard)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: Essays and Illustrations, Volume 3, (2002) (with Philip Ward and Alistair Hawkyard)
• The Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (2003)
• Elizabeth I: The Exhibition Catalogue (2003)
• The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives - Introduction and Preface (2004) (James P. Carley)
• The Monarchy of England: The Beginnings (2004)
• Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity (2006)
• Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007 - Introduction (2007) (Edited by Sarah McCarthy, Bernard Nurse, and David Gaimster)
• Henry: Virtuous Prince (2008)
• Introduction to Henry VIII; Man & Monarch (Susan Doran, ed. published by the British Library, 2009)
• Crown and Country (Harper Press, 2010) (A compilation of The Monarchy of England: The Beginnings, Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity and some new material)
• Introduction to Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 - England's Most Brutal Battle by George Goodwin (2011)

Television

• Henry VIII (1998, revised 2001)
• Elizabeth (2000)
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII (2001)
• Edward and Mary: The Unknown Tudors (2002)
• David Starkey: Reinventing the Royals (2002)
• Monarchy by David Starkey (2004–2007)
• The Tudors (2007–2010) technical advisor
• Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant (2009)
• Kate and William: Romance and the Royals (2011)

Applications

• Kings and Queens by David Starkey for iPhone and iPad (2011)

References[link]

Footnotes

Notes

Further reading[link]

• Billen, Andrew (20 September 2007), The lure of David Starkey, entertainment.timesonline.co.uk, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article2490155.ece, retrieved 28 September 2007 

External links[link]

• David Starkey at the Internet Movie Database