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'Brunswick-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-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.

Contents

Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg

From Lüneburg to Hanover

Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Dukes of Brunswick and Lüneburg 1235-1428

See also

External links

Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg

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:

★ Calenberg

★ Grubenhagen

★ Lüneburg-Celle

★ Wolfenbüttel
By 1705, only two Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg survived, one ruling Calenberg, Celle, and other possessions, and the other ruling Wolfenbüttel. Coincidentally, in 1701 the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg 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.

From Lüneburg to Hanover

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-Lüneburg, Calenberg, Calenberg-Celle, and Hanover), but the office became known as The ''Elector of Hanover''. In 1806 Napoleon I abolished the electorates, though the Elector of Hanover, the British crown head George III maintained diplomatic offices throughout the war. During the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, under the Congress of Vienna the nation state of 'Kingdom of Hanover' came into being with George III of the United Kingdom also becoming the first King of Hanover, the two polities being held in a personal union. His descendents held the crown of Hanover until the state was annexed by Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, where it became part of the province of Hanover. Today the region is part of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany.

Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

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 ) 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.

Dukes of Brunswick and Lüneburg 1235-1428

★ 1235 - 1252: Otto I

★ 1252 - 1267: Joint rule of Albert I and John

★ 1267 – First territorial division of Brunswick-Lüneburg

★ 1267 - 1279: Albert I

★ 1279 - 1291: Henry I, William I, and Albert II jointly

★ 1291 - 1292: William I

★ 1292 - 1318: Albert II

★ 1318 - 1344: Otto the Mild

★ 1345 - 1369: Magnus I

★ 1369 - 1373: Magnus II

★ 1373 - 1400: Frederick

★ 1400 - 1409: Bernard and Henry the Mild jointly

★ 1409 - 1428: Bernard

See also

For later rulers see:

★ Lüneburg-Celle

★ Calenberg

★ Hanover

★ Duchy of Brunswick (Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel)
See further:

★ Grubenhagen

★ Principality of Göttingen

★ Brunswick-Bevern

★ House of Hanover

★ House of Welf

External links

★ Map of Lower Saxony 1789