Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-01-09

The advanced age of theprescnt Duke
of Brunswick, who being bachelor has
no heir apparent, has induced his minis
ters to declare that the right Of success
sion belongs to the house of Hanover.
This is only the formal announcement
Of the existing fact, that the King Of
Hanover is the prcsumptiye heir of the
Brunswick throne. But a question
fraught with difficulty will perhaps arise
on the death of the Duke August Lud-
wig, and the accession of George of Han
over to his sovereignty. Hanover was
absorbed by Prussia in 1866 and George
has no royal habitatiOn or name. Shall
Prussia also absorb the heritage which
will descend to him from his remote
Brunswick cousin? Or shall the blind
old eX-King, now a wanderer among
sympathetic anti-Prussian courts, eXilcd
from his little capital, acquire unmOlested
his new realm? The matter is not, per-
haps, one of grave political import to
Europe, as Prussia in any case will be
pretty sure to control Brunswick, Whetb-
er she formally anneXeS it or not; but
readers of history cannot help being in
terested in the fate of dukedom, which
has so long played part in the worlds
events. Brunswick was a sovereignty
seven centuries ago, OthO the Young,
of Guelph, the prOgenitOrOf the German
branch of the family whose surname the
Queen of England bears, reigned there
as long ago as 1885. If Brunswick has
never itself risen to be a kingdom, it has
furnished other nations with many a
king, queen and elector. Its sovereign
family has mingled itself with the lofti-
est royal blood of Europe; and amid
countless ramificatiOns, has reigned, in
the persons of collaterals or direct de
scendants, on almost every throne west
of the Caucasus.
BY the marriage of the Duke Ernest
August of Notwithstanding, who
was also Elector of Hanover, with So
phia, granddaughter of James |. of Eng
land, his son George acquired a title to
the English crown; Sophia was the
daughter of the unhappy Electress Eliza
beth, the sister of Charles l. Brunswick
furnished two queens, both named Sophia
DorOthea, to the royal house of Prussia; !;
one of them was the mother of Frederick
the Great From Brunswick came a
third Sophia Dorothea, the wretched
consort of George l., of England, who,
for her supposed relations with Count
! konigsberg, was imprisoned for life in a
/ German castle, and never saw the island
realm over which her husband was after
wards called to rule Yet another un-
fortunate Queen did Brunswick furnish
to England Caroline, the detested wife
of the heartless George ", who at
tempted to force herself upon the coro-
nation ceremonies at Westminster, was
tired for her misdemeanors by the House
of Lords, and finally died, it is thought,
of the prosecutions to which her odious
old spouse subjected her. The Bruins
wick Dukes seem to have been until lat
terly warlike race, enterprising in war
and brave in action. Throughout the
! Seven Years War, and the wars of the
French Revolution and of Napoleon,
there was almost always an Ernest,
August, or Friedrich of Brunswick in
the field. There was a Ferdinand OF
/ Brunswick at the taking of Prague, 8
Carl of Brunswick commanding at Jena,
and a Friedrich Wilhelm OF Brunswick,
who fell mortally wounded at Quatre-
Bras. Of the more recent sovereigns
the last Duke before his present High
ness, was he who fled from throne anc