Duke of Brunswick

“ The grandfather of our George I., William, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, had seven sons, and all these were dukes, like their father. On the decease of the latter, they affected to discover that if the seven heirs, each with his little dukedom, were to marry, the greatness of the house would suffer alarming diminution. They accordingly determined that one alone of the brothers should form a legal matrimonial connection, and that the naming of the lucky re-founder of the dignity of Brunswick should be left to chance! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Perhaps the standards were thought to belong to the Duke of Brunswick, and not to the king, who had only hired them along with their defenders; or, perhaps, Riedesel was not careful of Burgoyne's honor.
After laying down their arms, the Brunswickers passed through the American camp, where the conquering army was drawn up to receive them. Not a regiment was properly uniformed, but every man was in the clothes he wore in the fields, at church, or at the ale-house. But they stood like soldiers, in good order, and with a military appearance very striking to the German officers. ”

“ As for the Duke of Brunswick, I do not care to know him. All I have got to do is to go to Amsterdam, where my credit is sufficiently good for anything. I am fond of the King of France; there’s not a better man in the kingdom. ”

“ The Duke of Brunswick will be amused by hearing that he has been wasting his cannon-shot on spectres."
"Ah, you English," he replied with a broad laugh, which made me still more doubt his nation, "are such matter-of-fact people, that you require substance in every thing. But what are the troops of France? Brave fellows enough, but not one of them has ever seen a shot fired in his life; even the few battalions which we had in America saw nothing but hedge-firing. The men before you have never seen more service than they could find in a cabaret, or hunting a highwayman. ”

“ All eyes are turned towards the King of Prussia, whose conduct still appears contradictory. I trust that by to-morrow we shall know something decisive. In the meantime his army is certainly collecting, and the Duke of Brunswick has accepted the command. Yet his other measures indicate much leaning towards France. ”

“ Yet in one point this might well be done did space permit; for no more careful account can anywhere be found than that he gives of the brilliant qualities which made the Duke of Brunswick's at that time one of the foremost names of Europe. On the whole, however, the Prussian writer deliberately decides that the dukes mind was just one of that class which fails under the test of very serious responsibility; and this verdict will hardly be disputed by any English reader. The events of his more famous campaign of 1792 shattered effectually such political and military reputation as he had won ”

“ But, unfortunately, they had not generals like Frederick to place at the head of their armies, and their military system was entirely obsolete. The Duke of Brunswick, who, in his youth, had shown much bravery in the Seven Years' War, but who had been most unfortunate in his invasion of France, in 1792, was now, in his seventy-second year, placed in chief command, to compete with Napoleon. Nothing could exceed the folly of his plan of the campaign. The whole force of Prussia, including its auxiliaries, amounted only to about one hundred and fifty thousand men. ”

“ Diseases, produced by the chalky water, want of clothing, and damp, had made great ravages in the army. The duke of Brunswick advised a retreat, contrary to the opinion of the king of Prussia and the emigrants, who wished to risk a battle, and get possession of Châlons. ”

“ Rumors of every sort excited popular imagination. It was said that priests who refused the oath were in hiding at the Tuileries, which was, moreover, full of arms and munitions. The Duke of Brunswick's manifesto exasperated national sentiment. It was read aloud in every street. The leaders neglected nothing likely to excite the populace, and prepared their last attack on the throne, their afterpiece of June 20, with as much audacity as skill. ”

“ I have a confused account from the Hague, of the Duke of Brunswick having gained a decisive advantage over the army that was Custine's. But it is not distinct enough to place much reliance upon it. [Pg 239]
Mudge is returned by the way of China with despatches from Vancouver. I have not yet seen them, but I understand, generally, that some difficulty arose about the restitution of Northa. It is not, however, of a nature to create any real embarrassment. He has brought a letter for poor Lady Camelford from her son, whom he tells me he left in great health and spirits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1827, in the hope of being appointed to a professorship at Munich, he was ready to disown his previous principles to please King Louis, but gained nothing by it. He offered at the same time to defend the wretched Duke of Brunswick, the diamond-Duke, in return for a Brunswick order ”

“ And he also had heard it said, that in the Duke of Brunswick’s service all men grew rich in no long season. So he gat him unto the duke; and when that he had come unto him he spake unto him, saying: “Most gracious duke, do thou, with thy marvellous goodness, appoint me that I shall be a shepherd in thy service for some years; for I would fain have money, that in mine old age I may live; and for my service I desire no other recompence.” And the duke did grant the post unto him for ten years. Then was Owlglass an excellent shepherd ”

“ In 1267 these princes divided the duchy, Albert becoming duke of Brunswick, and John duke of Lüneburg. The dukes of Lüneburg increased the area of their duchy, and when the family died out in 1369 a stubborn contest took place for its possession. Claimed by Magnus II., duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, this prince was forced by the emperor Charles IV. to abandon his pretensions, but in 1388 his sons succeeded in incorporating Lüneburg with Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. ”

“ The commander-in-chief was the septuagenarian Duke of Brunswick, well known for his failure at Valmy in 1792 and his recent support to the policy of complaisance to France. His appointment aroused anger and consternation; and General Kalckreuth expressed to Gentz the general opinion when he said that the Duke was quite incompetent for such a command: "His character is not strong enough, his mediocrity, irresolution, and untrustworthiness would ruin the best undertaking." The Duke himself was aware of his incompetence. ”

“ His widow, Anne of England, became regent under the title of Governess, and the Duke of Brunswick was continued as commander-in-chief, an office conferred on him by William IV. when his own health was breaking. ”

“ The least the late friends of the princess could do was, to remain silent; but human beings can articulate sounds, and be oppositely communicative with their optical faculties. An individual, who accepts place amongst those whom he formerly professed to despise, renders himself an object of suspicion, if not of detestation.
For the present, we abstain from further remarks upon these two late principal friends of the persecuted Princess of Wales.
Upon hearing of the Duke of Brunswick's death, the king could do no less than solicit the duchess, his sister, to visit England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They tend to make an eternal rupture between the powers. The French have given out, that the Duke of Brunswick endeavored to negotiate some name and place for the captive king, amongst the murderers and proscribers of those who have lost their all for his cause. ”

“ 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 elder died childless, [1731, Michaelis, i. 132.] precisely a few months before the times we are now got to; reigning Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, ["Welf-BOOTHS" (Hunted Camp of the Welfs) , according to Etymology. "Brunswick," again, is BRAUN'S-Wick; "Braun" (Brown) being an old militant Welf in those parts, who built some lodge for himself, as a convenience there,—Year 880, say the uncertain old Books. Hubner, t. 149; Michaelis, &c.] all but certain Apanages, and does not concern us farther. ”

“ The Queen, it appears, has still chances left her, and your Majesty will probably have plenty of aspirants to her hand, from whom you may choose a new son-in-law! Duke Eric of Brunswick91 has sent a gentleman hither with credentials, Doctor Joachim Gotzen, to offer the Queen a share in his bed and board. He likewise offers his portion of the Duchy of Brunswick, such as it is, and 100,000 crowns which he has in France, and undertakes that, if he dies without children, his dominions and the rest of his property shall go to the House of Austria. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hong Kong 24 March 1869.
BRÜNNOW, Ernst Philipp Ivanovitch, Count de. b. Dresden 31 Aug. 1797; Russian envoy and minister in London 1840 to 8 Feb. 1854 and 4 Feb. 1861 to July 1874; raised to the rank of Count, April 1871. d. Darmstadt 11 April 1875. Illust. News of the World iii, (1859) , portrait.
BRUNSWICK and LUNEBURG, Karl Friedrich August Wilhelm Herzog von. b. Brunswick 30 Oct. 1804; lived at Vauxhall in London 1809–15; laid foundation stone of Vauxhall bridge 1814; entered on exercise of his authority as Duke of Brunswick 30 Oct. 1823; fled to England 7 Sep. ”

“ In the army, the normal schoolmasters can tell how this brave Brunswicker rendered education difficult, and drove out, one by one, many of the best teachers. Soldiers who think too much, make bad machines. It was the father of the present Duke of Cambridge who publicly expressed his disbelief, in 1844—5, of the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, "because he had always found the potatoes at his own table very good!" ”

“ He is made captive, and serves a heathen lord and lady seven years, drawing half the plough, "like another horse." His liberation is not accounted for, but he was probably set free by his mistress, as in the ballad which follows. He gets possession of an excellent sword, and uses it on an elephant who is fighting with a lion. The grateful lion transports the duke to his own country while he is asleep. A herdsman, of whom he asks food, recommends him to go to the Brunswick mansion, where there is a wedding, and Duke Henry's former spouse is the bride. ”