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Ernest Augustus I (5 June 1771 – 18 November 1851) was King of Hanover from 20 June 1837 until his death. He was the fifth son and eighth child of George III, who eleven years before Ernest's birth had inherited the thrones of two kingdoms, Great Britain and Ireland, and also that of the Electorate of Hanover, still part of the Holy Roman Empire. As a fifth son, initially Ernest seemed unlikely to become a monarch, but Semi-Salic Law, which barred women from the succession if there was a male descendent, applied to the succession in Hanover, and none of his elder brothers had any legitimate sons. Therefore, when in 1837 his niece, Victoria, became Queen of Britain and Ireland, ending the personal union between the British Isles and Hanover that had existed since 1714, Ernest became King of Hanover, which had been raised to a kingdom after the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Ernest was born in England but was sent to Hanover in his adolescence for his education and military training. While serving with Hanoverian forces in Wallonia against Revolutionary France, he received a disfiguring facial wound. In 1799, he was created Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale. Although his marriage in 1815 to the twice-widowed Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz met with the disapproval of his mother, Queen Charlotte, it proved a happy one. By 1817, King George III had only one legitimate grandchild, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and when she died in childbirth, Ernest was the senior son to be both married and not estranged from his wife. This gave him some prospect of succeeding to the British throne. However, both of his unmarried older brothers quickly married, and King George's fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, fathered the eventual British heir, Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, later Queen Victoria. Ernest was an active member of the House of Lords, where he maintained an extremely conservative voting record. There were persistent allegations (reportedly spread by his political foes) that he had murdered his valet and had fathered a son by his sister, Princess Sophia. Before Victoria succeeded to the British throne, it was rumoured that Ernest intended to murder her and take the throne himself. When King William IV died on 20 June 1837, Ernest ascended the Hanoverian throne. Becoming Hanover's first ruler to reside in the state since George I, he had a generally successful fourteen-year reign but excited controversy when he dismissed the Göttingen Seven (including the two Brothers Grimm) from their professorial positions for agitating against his policies. == Early life (1771–1799) == Ernest Augustus, the fifth son of King George III and Queen Charlotte, was born at Buckingham House, now part of Buckingham Palace, on 5 June 1771. After leaving the nursery, he lived with his two younger brothers, Prince Adolphus (later Duke of Cambridge) and Prince Augustus (later Duke of Sussex), and a tutor in a house on Kew Green, near his parents' residence at Kew Palace. At the age of fifteen, he and his two younger brothers were sent to the University of Göttingen, located in his father's domain of Hanover. Though the King never left the United Kingdom in his life, he sent his younger sons to Germany in their adolescence. According to the historian John Van der Kiste, this was done to limit the influence Ernest's eldest brother George, Prince of Wales, who was leading an extravagant lifestyle, would have over his younger brothers. Prince Ernest proved an apt student, and after being tutored privately for a year, while learning German, he attended lectures at the University. Though King George ordered that the princes' household be run along military lines, and that they follow the university's rules, the merchants of the Electorate proved willing to extend credit to the princes, and all three fell into debt. In 1790, Ernest asked his father for permission to train with Prussian forces. Instead, in January 1791, he and Prince Adolphus were sent to Hanover to receive military training under the supervision of Field Marshal Wilhelm von Freytag. Before leaving Göttingen, Ernest penned a formal letter of thanks to the university, and wrote to his father, "I should be one of the most ungrateful of men if ever I was forgetful of all I owe to Göttingen & its professors." Ernest learned cavalry drill and tactics under Captain von Linsingen of the Queen's Light Dragoons, and proved to be an excellent horseman as well as a good shot. After only two months of training, Freytag was so impressed by the Prince's progress that he gave him a place in the cavalry as captain. Ernest was supposed to receive infantry training, but the King, also impressed by his son's prowess, allowed him to remain with the cavalry. In March 1792, the King commissioned Prince Ernest Augustus as a colonel into the 9th Hanoverian Light Dragoons. The Prince served in the Low Countries in the War of the First Coalition, under his elder brother Frederick, Duke of York, then commander of the combined British, Hanoverian, and Austrian forces. Seeing action near the Walloon town of Tournai in August 1793, he sustained a sabre wound to the head, which resulted in a disfiguring scar. During the Battle of Tourcoing in northern France on 18 May 1794 his left arm was injured by a cannonball which passed close by him. In the days after the battle, the sight in his left eye faded. In June, he was sent to Britain to convalesce, his first stay there since 1786. Ernest resumed his duties in early November, by now promoted to major-general. He hoped his new rank would bring him a corps or brigade command, but none was forthcoming as the Allied armies retreated slowly through the Netherlands towards Germany. By February 1795, they had reached Hanover. Ernest remained in Hanover over the next year, holding several unimportant postings. He had requested a return home to seek treatment for his eye, but it was not until early 1796 that the King agreed and allowed Ernest to return to Britain. There, Prince Ernest consulted a notable eye doctor, Wathen Waller, but Waller apparently found his condition inoperable, as no operation took place. Once back in Britain, Ernest repeatedly sought to be allowed to join the British forces on the Continent, even threatening to join the Yeomanry as a private, but both the King and the Duke of York refused. Ernest did not want to rejoin the Hanoverian forces, as they were not then involved in the fighting. In addition, Freytag was seriously ill, and Ernest was unwilling to serve under his likely successor, Count von Wallmoden. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ernest Augustus I of Hanover」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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