Duchy of Brunswick

“ See Brown, John.
Brunswick (404) , a N. German duchy, made up of eight detached parts, mostly in the upper basin of the Weser; is mountainous, and contains part of the Harz Mts.; climate and crops are those of N. Germany generally. Brunswick (101) , the capital, a busy commercial town, once a member of the Hanseatic League, and fell into comparative decay after the decay of the League, on the Oker, 140 m. SW. of Berlin; an irregularly built city, it has a cathedral, and manufactures textiles, leather, and sewing-machines. ”

“ He was so far in acknowledged sympathy with French hopes of reform, that when he gave an asylum in his duchy to the “comte de Lille” (Louis XVIII.) the revolutionary government made no protest. Indeed, earlier this year (1792) he had been offered supreme command of the French army. As the king of Prussia took the field with Brunswick’s army, the duke felt bound as a soldier to treat his wishes as actual orders. ”

“ Early in November Pitt and his colleagues received a refusal from the Duke, but now they sent through Malmesbury an offer to subsidize a corps of 20,000 or 30,000 Austrians in that quarter. These, along with the British, Hanoverian, and Hessian troops, when marshalled by Brunswick, might surely be trusted to stay the French advance. The crisis was momentous. Brunswick well understood that in reality the fate of North Germany was at stake; for the French, if masters of the Rhine and Ems valleys, could easily overrun the northern plain, including his own duchy. ”

“ The claim of the duke of Cambridge as the only male heir of full age was referred to the Bundesrat, but the duke refused to bring it before that body, and after a year the Brunswick government elected as regent Prince Albert of Hohenzollern, to hold office so long as the true heir was prevented from entering on his rights. On the death of Prince Albert in September 1906, the Brunswick diet petitioned the Bundesrat to allow the youngest son of the duke of Cumberland to succeed to the duchy on renouncing his personal claims to the crown of Hanover. ”

“ The greatest elevations are the Wurmberg (3230 ft.) , and the Achtermannshöhe (3100 ft.) , lying south of the Brocken. Brunswick belongs almost entirely to the basin of the river Weser, into which the Oker, the Aller and the Leine, having their sources in the Harz, discharge their waters. The climate is mild in the north, but in the hilly country raw and cold in winter, and in autumn and spring damp. The area of the duchy is 1424 sq. m., and of this total fully one-half is arable land, 10% meadow and pasture, and 33% under forest. The population in 1905 was 485,655. ”

“ Returning to Brunswick, where he was very unpopular, he soon quarrelled with his subjects both on political and religious questions, while his duchy was ravaged by Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth. ”

“ It was but yesterday that this prince, in the flower of life and fortune, went out to the field full of military ardour, and gloriously fell in battle, leading on his soldiers to the charge. He was the first of the noble warriors [Pg 60] who fell on the memorable field of Quatre Bras. But he has lived long enough who has lived to acquire glory: he dies a noble death who dies for his country. The Duke of Brunswick lived and died like a hero, and he has left his monument in the hearts of his people, by whom his fate will be long and deeply lamented ”

“ That during the one hundred and fifty-seven years the Brunswick family have reigned over the British Empire, the policy and conduct of the majority of the members of that family, and especially of the various reigning members, always saving and excepting her present Majesty, have been hostile to the welfare of the mass of the people. This will be sought to be proved at length by a sketch of the principal events in the reign of each monarch, from August 1st, 1714, to the present date. ”

“ Brunswick is an old and rather ugly town, with large and gloomy houses, an old church in full Gothic style, and a town hall even more Gothic. It is a great relief to find something really old after a succession of little capitals rebuilt without character or historical memory, with their tawdry modern ornamentation. I noticed a magnificent breed of 200 post horses and draught and military horses; they are splendid, strong and vigorous animals; I do not know whether the district produces them or if they are brought from Mecklenburg. ”

“ After the pleasant labour a sumptuous banquet followed, and the envoy and Duchess announced to the bridegroom at home that his bride would set out on the 11th, provided by that time intelligence was received of the sailing from England of the fleet which was to serve for a wedding escort across the sea.
The Duke of Brunswick was a man who, whenever he asserted that he was going to speak to you with perfect frankness, was really about to treat you with anything but candour. ”

“ I'll make a brigade give laws." Scotland has many reasons for loving the House of Brunswick. Lord Waldegrave, who strove hard to whitewash the Duke of Cumberland, says that "Frederick Prince of Wales gave too much credit to the most malignant and groundless accusations, by showing favor to every man who aspersed his brother's character."
In 1747, £456,733 was voted by Parliament for the payment of the King's debts. ”

“ On the 3rd of June, I went to see ten thousand troops reviewed by the Dukes of Wellington and Brunswick. Imagination cannot picture any thing finer than the ensemble of this scene. The splendid uniforms of the English, Scotch, and Hanoverians, contrasted strongly with the gloomy black of the Brunswick Hussars, whose veneration for the memory of their old Duke, could be only be equalled by their devotion to his son. The firm step of the Highlanders seemed irresistible; and as they moved in solid masses, they appeared prepared to sweep away every thing that opposed them. ”

“ Her present Majesty, Alexandrina Victoria, was born May 24th, 1819, and ascended the throne June 20th, 1837, as representing her father, the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George HI. On February 10th, 1840, it being the general etiquette for the Brunswick family to intermarry amongst themselves, she was married to her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, who received an allowance from the nation of £30,000, to compensate him for becoming the husband of his wife. The Queen, more sensible than others of the arduous position of a Prince Consort, wished her loyal husband to have £100,000 a year. ”

“ The Duke goes on to describe the King's policy as "both dishonorable and fatal;" and Henry Pelham, on the 8th of October, writes him back that "a partiality to Hanover is general, is what all men of business have found great obstructions from, ever since this family have been upon the throne." Yet these are amongst the most prominent of the public defenders of the House of Brunswick, and a family which reaped great place and profit from the connection.
Of the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Macaulay says: "No man was so unmercifully satirized. ”

“ The grave and serious demeanour of these people is as different from the savage scowl of the discontented peasant, murmuring beneath the burthen of taxation and ill-remunerated toil, as from the free, light-hearted, and careless laughter, both of which characterise the rural groups in the fertile fields of England. New Brunswick is the land of strangers; even the first settlers, the "sons of the soil," as they claim to be, have hardly yet forgot their exile, a trace of which character, be he prosperous as he may, still hovers over the emigrant. ”

“ For now that the house of Brunswick is firmly established upon the throne and that peace prevails in the land, it will become less easy for you every year to understand how men felt when Englishmen were in arms against Englishmen, and when he who should have been the shield and the protector of his subjects had no thought but to force upon them what they most abhorred and detested. ”

“ The people of Brunswick, very justly provoked, have turned the Duke [Footnote: This was the eccentric Duke who died a few years ago at Geneva, bequeathing his whole property to the city, who have erected a monument to him.] out of the town and burnt his palace. He escaped with ten Hussars. He deserves his fate. I believe he is mad. He is a complete vaurien.
When Parliament is prorogued, as to-day, the peers are without their robes. The Chancellor was in his legal dress. The Commons appear without a summons by their clerks, and the Chancellor merely desires the proclamation to be read. ”

“ Danish A, though of the 16th century, does not mention the ring.
(3.) A Flemish broadside, which may originally have been of the 15th century, relates the adventures of the Duke of Brunswick in sixty-five stanzas of four long lines: reprinted in von der Hagen's Germania, VIII, 359, and Hoffmann's Niederländische Volkslieder, No 2, p. 6; Coussemaker, No 47, p. 152; abridged and made over, in Willems, O. v. L., p. 251, No 107. The duke, going to war, tells his wife to marry again if he stays away seven years. She gives him half of her ring. ”

“ The tale of the Loyalists; their loyalty to high ideals of national duty—to fulfil which they underwent untold losses, privations and sufferings when they abandoned their homes and their all, and sought new homes and commenced a new life in a northern wilderness—is a story that appeals wherever patriotism is an honor and self-sacrifice a virtue. In this Province of New-Brunswick, settled mainly by families torn and rent by the American revolution and whose descendants are reaping the reward of their sacrifice, it is of peculiar interest. ”

“ I extract from some observations by my Mother on the Princess of Bayreuth’s Memoirs, a later portrait, from recollection, of the Dowager Duchess. ‘The Duchess of Brunswick was one of the most accomplished and brilliant women of her time. To a late period of life, beyond her eightieth year, she possessed an incomparable understanding, and the most amiable cheerfulness. Time had respected not only her faculties, but her exterior; and while it had worn her form to a sort of etherial transparency, had left her perfect symmetry, lively eyes, and an expressive delicate countenance. ”

“ The custom of calling people by colour-names from their personal appearance, or places after them, was clearly not peculiar to our own country. It is probable that the name Brunswick was derived from the brown complexion of its original inhabitants. The map published by Ripley, based on the official ethnological survey of Germany, shows that parts of the country near Brunswick have a higher percentage of brunettes than the districts further north. ”

“ FERDINAND, duke of Brunswick (1721–1792) , Prussian general field marshal, was the fourth son of Ferdinand Albert, duke of Brunswick, and was born at Wolfenbüttel on the 12th of January 1721. He was carefully educated with a view to a military career, and in his twentieth year he was made chief of a newly-raised Brunswick regiment in the Prussian service. He was present in the battles of Mollwitz and Chotusitz. ”

“ It is now submitted that Parliament possesses no Legislative right but what it derives from the people, and that the people are under no irrevocable contract or obligation to continue any member of the House of Brunswick on the throne. In order to show that this is not a solitary opinion, the following Parlimentary dicta are given:—
The Honorable Temple Luttrell, in a speech made in the House of Commons, on the 7th November, 1775, showed "that of thirty-three sovereigns since William the Conqueror, thirteen only have ascended the throne by divine hereditary right.... ”

“ To these reflections on this subject, it remains to be added, and ought for ever to be remembred; that resistance in the case of colonies against their mother country, is extremely different from the resistance of a people against their prince. A nation may change their King or race of Kings, and retain their antient form of government, be gainers by changing. Thus Great-Britain, under the illustrious house of Brunswick, a house that seems to flourish for the happiness of mankind, has found a felicity, unknown in the reigns of the Stuarts. ”

“ REMARKS. On the state of that part of ancient Nova-Scotia lying north of the Bay of Fundy, now in the Province of New-Brunswick, prior to the year 1754.
The French Government in defiance of former treaties continued to erect forts around the harbour of Saint John, and to send troops for the defence of this part of the country (considering it theirs) and to employ the natives to harass and murder the settlers in the district of Maine, thus for many years preventing the settlement of that part of the British dominions as far west as that district or province extended ”

“ One dynasty has no dislike to a strong prejudice in favour of a preceding dynasty, when the latter has ceased to be formidable. The propensity to adhere to royalty is looked upon as a good symptom; and the event generally answers the expectation. The favourite courtiers under the house of Brunswick have come of Jacobite families.
A century ago, according to a passage in Gay, Lincoln's Inn and the neighbourhood were dangerous places to walk through at night. ”

“ It would be as dangerous as it would be useless. You would only incur the enmity of the Duke of Brunswick, and you know how important it is for the sovereigns of Germany to maintain their friendship at a time when the foreign princes want to invade our land. ”

“ In New-Brunswick, a man with his axe and a few other simple tools, provides himself with a house and most of his implements of husbandry,—and while a European would consider himself as an outcast, he feels perfectly at home in the depth of the forest. In new countries likewise the mind acquires those ideas of self-importance and independence so peculier to Americans. ”