The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-20 00:00:00

THE LATE KING OP HANOVER.

In Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (whoa*
death was announced in our impression of yesterday), died
the last of the many eon, of George the Third.
The contrast between his calm and peaceful and honoured
death-bed, and her stormy, feverish, violent life-time, will
Strike all who remember that the popular Ernest, King of
Hanover, was the execrated Ernest, Duke of Cumberland.
It is not a conteot merely between the period of active man-
hood and the retreat of decayed old age. To the last the
deceased was in action, to the last vehement, vigorous, and
obstinate ; and it would seem to be very certain, so far as
his impulses and instincts had to do with the alteration,
that the King of Hanover was still and always the Duke of
Cumberland. Whether or not the fourteen years of king-
ship will compensate fur the twenty years during which the
Duke of Cumberland was a prominent figure in English
polities may remain a question ; but, at least, it will be ciear
that that would be a niialeading estimate of the man and
of his character, which did not in some degree
balance his recent against Ws early history. In his
career there were peculiar incidents which precluded a just
view while be was a resident and an actor among ourselves.
The Duke of Cumberland, as a politician, (lid and said
many things which, had lie only been an ordinary peer,
would have made him unpopular, but which, because he
was a member of the royal family, at one time being within
sight of the throne, made him conspicuously an object of
hate with the Euglish people. But all that ho ever said
and did in political warfare would be insullicieut to accomit
for the resolute and almost savage detestation which fur
years followed his name. It was his misfortune that, whe-
ther with or without reason, his private life was as oir
noxious to the people as his public life, and that the repu-
tation of the man aggravated the notoriety of the politician.
That defective disposition which made him intolerant as a
peer of parliament, induced him as a member of society not
only not to be virtuous, but to refuse even the homage which
vice pays to virtue. The mermen of the times, the exam•
plea iu hi. family, and the absence of that responsibility
popular upiuioa which, other checks Ming waiting, com-
pels courts to observe the laws respected by .objects, may
explain, and in some sense excuse, the bold profligacy
which distinguished the hot youth of the Duke of
Cumberland. He and the public were at enmity from the
first ; and to the last he ...earned to give or take quarter.
lie plunged into the anti-catholic strife between 1820 arid
Pitt with an energy which iudicatcd a craving fur un-
popularity, and the discretion which malign) the (batistes
of his brothers to the Reform Bill was never resorted to by
him. lie knew that the people hated him: and he made
no disguise of the Met that he hated them. " 1 would not
walk to that wield,* to gain all the popularity in the
world," was hi. passionate exclamation in the House of Lords,
and it was not a mere boast—it VIM true. When all others
gave way, after 1832, he remained the same, tad continued
to intrude the doctrines which he had learned from Sid-
mouth and Castlereagh. His consietnut abhorrence of
popular power was not the consequence of royal birth. lie
exceeded his father and the most tory of his brothers in the
maudeatution of criminal prejudices. His religious intoler-
ance was nut the trailitienal intolerance of George the
Third. hi polities he was nut the atattanme, but the vin-
dictive partisan ; and, in religion, he was simply guided, as
his eunnexiim with the Orange lodges by a factious
anxiety for Pocialdieturhance. That such a man, after such
• career in England, could become the comparatively mode.
pate and tolerably constitutianal sovereign which he proved
himself to be in Germany, is extraordinary enough. Put the
Mast was a change, not in him, but in the country. Ile
Is reported to have said in 1818, in commenting upon some
complimentary references to him, that it would have been
strange if he, educated in au English parliarueut, could not
be more constitutional than other Gentian kings. His,
however, forgot that, when he *wended his throne, and
before be had become Hanoverian he paid slight respect to
national institutions. lie only became a goad king when
he discovered that his people would not mei:nerdy hate
him.
Ernest Augustus was the fifth son of George the Third.
He was born on the dth June, 1771. Ile spent the years
of his infancy and boyhood in the then nuincenta royal
nursery at Kew. At Kew he received the rudiments of his
education, with the Dukes of Sussex and Cam-
bridge, from the royal tutors, one of whom,
Dr. Hughes, has left en opinion upon record
that Prince Ernest was the cleverest of the princes and,
generally, as compared with other boys, WAS as excellent
Lain scholar. At the age when other than home-instruc-
tion becomes essential, it was resolved to send the young
princes to the Haney...ay of Gottingen. Hanover was then
part of England, and the lame of Gottingen was at its
height • arid aa German leanings still governed the court,
notwithstanding the personal English predilections of the
king, the choice of an Alma Mater for the younger sons
was very natural if not very judicious. 'the three bro-
thers were entered at Gottingen iu 1786, and they there
learned is state, insisting on the royal ruud to knowledge, for
the usual number of years, enduring, no doubt, all the studi-
ous rigidity of a German university without enjoying any of
the cuiupensatury frolics, for, ofeouree, princes were precluded
by etiquette from the Knelpe, the duel, and akittlea.
Each prince was accompanied by a "governor," a "pre-
ceptor," and a "gentlenzau." A house was appropriated
to thew and their " table " was maintained at the rate of
six hundred crowns a week. 'they were taught German
by Meyer' Latin by aerie, religion by Less, and morality by
?crier; and each professor received, nut the ordinary fees,
but • thousand dollen per annum. Anecdotes are still
current in Gottingen story-books of the miseries which the
solemn prufernors hal to go through in Valuing the princes;
aad as whipping-boys were obsolete, they no doubt sutfered
mach. Prince Ernest left Gottingen in 1790, and selected
the army fur a career—the only career pusable for a cadet
prince in those days, aud practically inciting, then, since
war was raging over Europe. He served in the 9th
Hanoverian Light Dragoons, and, in three years, with the
usual luck of the suns of kiwi., he became colonel of the
same regiment. Nature had Betel hint for a soldier, and
his birth =de him ardent fur the anti-republican war
against France in which he took part. There is no special
mention of any particular engagement in which ho partici-
pated, except one in 1794 at Tourney, where he appears to
have commanded a brigade of cavalry, and where he was
severely wounded in the left eye. In consequent* of this
wound he returned to England ; but in a short time after-
wards he was again in Germany, and again tightly!. A bio-
grapher says that he took part in the sortie from Nuneguen,
and afterwards commanded (vicarially) the rear-guard of
the British force in the discreditable retreat through
Holland. He was next left in command of the
" line of demarcation "is Westphalia until 1733, when,
peace being made between Prussia and France, the army
retired into Hanover. From 1796 to 1799 we Mud the
prince at his father's court in England. In 1799 he was
created Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, in the peer-
age of Great Britain. and Earl of Armagh, in the peerage
of Ireland; parliament endowing him, to commence with,
with 12,0001. a year. From this time to the close of the
war in 1813 he was almost constantly and responsibly
engages! as a soldier, his residence in England being only at
those brief intervals allowed to Europe by the hollow
truces of Bonaparte and l'itt. Six continuous years he
did stay at home . • and in that period he held the nominal
command of the Severn and `South-West Districts, spend-
ing his time, however, in the metropolis, and assiduously
damaging his fair fame. He was not a great oelcer in
foreign service, but it was allowed that he was an ave-
rage subordinate, and in a dash led dragoons very well.
Bosse test, it was evident, was placed in him at
times when the commander-in-chief, the Duke of York.
could not afford to pay fraternal compliments. He was
appointed to command the British cavalry in the ripe-
dittou to the Helder; and cis honour was not tarnished,
because, the expedition proving a blunder, his dragoons were
not disembarked. When the English were not bodily in the
field, the Duke of Cumberland joined the Prussians. He
was in the Prussian ranks at the battle of Lcipeic. He
does nut appear to have been in the Peninsula or to have
served at all under Wellington. After the battle of Leip-
sic he was allotted high command in the forces which re-
took Hanover. The final defeat of Bonaparte gave peace
to the world ; and from 1811 to 1837 the Duke of Cumber-
Iliad was a restless civilian. He was, however, • add-
marshal—crested in 1813.

In ISL. he married, first in Strelits and afterwards in
Landon, the Princess Frederica, of the Mecklenburg Stre-
ik/ House, and twice • widow—first (by divorce) of •
Prince Louis of Prussia, and secondly (by death) of a Prince
of Solon Braunfels. Royal necessities or political stipula-
tions do not seem to have had anything to do with this
alliance. It was of no consequence to the English throne,
as it then appeared, whether the Duke of Cumberland
married or not ; and not only was it a marriage of choice on
the Duke's part, but it was a marriage in direct opposition
to the wishes of his mother, the Queen. The
bride was the niece of the Queen, bet abs WM
never presented at court until the Regent's tire;
and the reason of this was understood to he the old Queen's
displeaaure with the lady, in consequence of her previously
projected lOW 'nage with the Duke of Cambridge having
been broken off. It was three years after his marriage,
which was said on the whole not to have been en =farm.
nate one (and, at any rate, the duchess was renowned r a
beautiful woman), before the duke induced pallimesat
grant him an additional allowaaos. A bill badlatan Wes&

in, the first year altar the marriage, to increase Isis allow-1
ante to 18,0001. a year; but his unpopularity was against
him, and on the second reading the bill was thrown out.
In 1818, when allowances were being made for
the Dukes of Clarence and Cambridge, •claim was put in
for the Dukc of Cumberland; but the proposal again failed,
in consequence of too much (10,0004. a-year additional)
having been asked for the Duke of Clarence. In 1819,
however, the persistent duke succeeded ; and in a general

Perambli, consequent upon the report of :select committee,
he obtained the coveted income. ThM wu increased after

wards, as the royal brothers died off, to 21,0001. a-year, and
that stint the Duke of Cumberland continued to receive,

even after he had a.cended the Hanoverian throne. By so
much the English public gains by his death.
The life of the Duke of Cumberland from 1820
to 1830 presents few points of seizable interest. It
is sufficient to say, that in regard to all the questions which
then agitated the country, he seized with avidity the unpo-
pular side. Ile was an earnest ally of George IV. against
Queen Caroline. Ile cheered the Duke of ork when the

Duke of York made the memorable declaration against
catholic emancipation. He was a virulent opponent of the
Corporation and Teat Act. He voted and protested in the
House of Lords against the two Reform Bi!ls, and would
have been an unscrupulous agent, had King William
listened to the advice of his family and resisted the demands
of the people. The Duke of Cumberland was never one of
the family, and never trusted by either of his elder
brothers, or his private influence might at seasons have been
dangerous. With George the Fourth he was always at
understood enmity, and the selection of the Duke of Cam•
bridge as viceroy in Hanover was not calculated to render
him better friends with William IV. The importance of
the Duke of Cumberland increased, however, year after
year, nearer and nearer u he approached the throne; and
utterly as he was without influence as a politician, simply
because the character of his mind unfitted him for impress-
ing his convictions, which were only passions, upon others,
his conduct and predilections could never bo over-
looked. One by one, those who stood between
him and the English crown were dying off, as it
were by a fatality: and when King William was on the
throne, his Queen childless, a young princess only pre-
ceded the hpted Duke of Cumberland. The chance of his

succession Zisregardedwith the most intense avervion by
the whole country : and the proceedings of his royal high-
ness, in the latter put of King William's reign. were well
calculated to increase the odium which his life had invited.

The report of Mr. Iluine's select committee on the
" Orange conspiracy" is still within the recollection of most
of our readers,, and although the dispassionate consideration
of time has led to a very general conviction that the Duke
of Cumberland was ignorant of half the mad nonsense and
treason which were talked in secret and written in cipher, in

Isis name, and as if with his s.inction and concurrence, it
is still impossible to avoid believing that his own solemn
denial of all knowledge of the transactions of the illegal
society, of which he was the chief, was, in the spirit in
which the repudiation was to be taken, untrue, and that,
from first to lied, his conduct was unworthy and unwise.
Harsher words it would be indecorous now to use; but

such words give but a faint idea of the hurricane
of public indignation which followed the parliamentary ex-
posure of the extraordinary conspiracy to which the Duke
of Cumberland, contrary to all the laws which should
have governed him as a prince of the blood, and as a citi-
zen, had lent hie name. In this instance he reached the
climax of his evil reputation ; and his wonted audacity, in
the face of the popular sentence, availed him little, for the
condemnation was sanctioned and engrossed by a formal
parliamentary resolution. At one time, it will be remem-
bered, there was a very decided inclination in the House of
Commons, during the development of the insane conspiracy,
to send the Duke of Cumberland, the Bishop of Salisbury,
(who was the chaplain to the association), Lord Kenyon,
Col. /*airman, and others, before the Central Criminal
Court, to take their trials fur a criminal offence: and had
the documents been forthcoming which were supposed to
be in existence, and of the full purport of which the duke
had probably not been aware, the results might have been
even more serims than they were. As it was, the Duke of
Cumberland escaped with an indirect censure from the
House of Commons He withdrew from the society;
the society was suppressed; and Orangeism, in its dan-
gerous shape, became a matter of history. The
friends of the duke represented him as a victim
to the fanatical Colonel Fairman ; and in this there was
no doubt a great deal of truth. Bat the people made ne
excuse. They cried out at the Duke as a conspirator
against his brother and against the Princess Victoria ; and'
pus !loyal Highness would never have dissuaded them to
the contrary. lie and the people were glad to part Co
pany in 1837.
In a memoir, however brief, of the deceased king, it would
be impossible to pass over without some notice the remarkable
incident, so fruitful of scandal and libel, of the suicide
of trellis, ono of the valets of the Duke of Cumberland, in
1810. The case was a very plain one, and political and per-
soul animosities only mull have complicated it. A certain
amount of mystery has always hung, and always will hang,
about the antecedent circumstances which drove Scllis
the attempt upon the life of the duke, and to his sub's.
orient suicide; and any attempt to trace the tangled narrative
would be here quite out of place. But Sellis, the only person
who could supply the facts, ass dead; and libellous jailer.
emcee were drats•u, and slander never wearied of attacking the
Duke. In 183.1 the calumny was brought before the
public in a tangible form. His Royal Highness met it
boldly, acting, it was understood, on the advice of his
friend and counsel on the occasion, Sir C. Wetherell.
Phillips, the publisher of the book conveying the accu-
sation, was prosecuted for libel ; and the jury fond
him guilty. This verdict was a sufficient answer for the
Duke's purposes, even had the verdict of the corutier'a jury,
which, in 1810, had sat on the body of Sepia, not been a sal.
ficient vindication. The foreman of that coroner's jury was
the celebrated (and we are glad to say still living)
Francis Place, the "radical tailor ; " and the fact of Mr.
Pince's known political hostility to the Duke materially
strengthened the weight of the opinion which ho gave, on
the trial for libel, that the inquest had been carefully and
searchingly conducted, and that its conclusions had been is
strict conformity with the evidence. After 1833 little was
heard of the Seth,. tragedy . • but much matter was still left,
arising out of other episodes in the Duke's career, le
supply his enemies with cruel and destructive weapons of
annoyance. Those were days when in a political battle
there were no rules of war. No names were too foul to
launch at the unpopular duke: and the synonym whiled'
O'Connell invented was quarrelled with less than most of
that unscrupulous abuser's felicitous nick-names. The
Duke of Cumberland was a favourite object of vituperation
with others than the great agitator. Lord Brougham
spoke of his royal highness, in the House of Lords, and he
' his presence, as "illustrious by courtesy; " and the once
Sir John Hubhoese used language towards the same per-
nonage of which the taciturn Lord Broughton would be
now sincerely ashamed.
At the meeting of princes, peers, and counsellors, on the
death of King William, the first person who took and
signed the oath of allegiance to the new Queen was "Ernest,
King of Hanover ;" and the joy of the people at her
Majesty's accession was doubtlesa incalculably enhanced at
the intimation afforded by that si..nature that her Majesty's
uncle was about to depart from the counay. At first the
Hanoverian, who had got accustomed to a sleepy contest
with the jog-trot government of the viceroy Hake of Cam-
bridge, had no reason to be satisfied with the advent of
king. Ile was at once vigorously mischievous. Imme-
diately after his arrival he prorogued the Assembly
of Estates. His next step was to announce in his let-
Aars patent his intention of setting aside the consti-
tution, and in a month more he dissolved the estates, and
semalled, unconstitutionally, the constitution. There wee
easement. The Gottingen professors refused obedience ;
Shedeets applauded the professors ; but the King was
and the professors were banished or imprisoned, and
Ma elradrate were put down. The question was, however,
met mum* Hanoverian, but German ; and the diet inter-
lined, encoring the old constitution, and thus after
=immesh between the King and his parliament,
tie way for his Majesty to grant with
;PW pew ia 1840 nearly all that the estates, not
very eissems• bed wested. Since 1840 the king and his
subplots lora less es pod terms. As German kings go,
he km been a geed king; and in 1848, when the roar of
reveletions was over Europe, he evinced a tact and discre-
tram of which few believed him capable, and, by
lie timely momessie• kept out of his dominions
thee iseeme sd dimpuess sentiment and dreamy
lodides Tido* were se disastrous to so many other
Mewed leads in Ganairay. He called Herr Stiffie, the
mid long-imprisoned deputy for Osnabruck, to his
seundle ; he promised the enfranchisement of the press ;
smile talked vague nothings, which were wiser than open
*idea, in reference to " German unity." The latter
idea he mover entertained, and his triumph was in the eon-
fuaian which other monarchs produced by their timid
encampment of it. But there is no reason to doubt that
he menst, as far u they were practicable, all the other
reforms demanded from him ; and his language,
at wee of firmness and conciliation, certainly in-
duced
his people to put confidence in him. Do-
moony he Hewer was at no time of a very eager duerip-
ties, est lime lid has received no e 7 esthetic aid from
without. Eke licame libma with which he
bad le deg. the wit advimd, was earl enabled to
maardri Ass hes sis b. h Pod
and satienel restille, is the news the day. Had he
not, during 1849 and 1850, laid a solid foundation of point-
rarity, be would never have been able to carry, in 1851, his
coosinereial armesseions to Preemie.
The mileshited prompotty, i. reesst mars, of the kingdom
of Henewe, bee led meek tee" with the Hanoverian popu-
larity of this deems& king. The German railway system
has bees to Essmerefe, the capital, what the English railway
'mum bee less te Rugby. Nam 1840 the city has nearly
doubled in vies: wed in a pemperme city, more especially in
a Iww•towt Owiwwia city, them is little political discon-
tent, if the gelded ems= be at all bearable. The king-
dom of Meow loos pegraphical advantages which
rendered the railway eyes= a species of re-crea-
tion
to it; and its capital and its ports, reacting
their thriving influences rape seek other, hays latterly
disseminated a grand beim' lords and peed; fatal to
those sWwedel mamba whirl la insets ad In other
poetises of Gonmany paralysed the gormosoa. Xing Ernest
sad peeeporiky were concurrent ; end tits km wee diligently
made te wpm attributable to Me hems,. Hence the
of essidsratiom with whisk always the Rans
verbless weld meek ef, and perheps blame, maw
else ILheig." They weld nee see the austere end
emCiermer meenee of his .net-sod they would
net intim the WE mei wiry lrgWk hastene with which he
asimeeriedged Mau samara • mail oreeskas. His
menses were very diewent hum these of big easy, smiling
prodeemear; bet ills iabablissai of the espial very quickly
reeemmed it *NIL He did net meddle is all matters
with the olidowoos ori the 'linens meld slink kuXsea:
his paederast dirmadwiners arcandiede an the
affairs militery eaters. reserve saved