Hanoverians

“ In 1885 measures were taken to incorporate the province of Hanover more thoroughly in the kingdom of Prussia, and there is little doubt but that the great majority of the Hanoverians have submitted to the inevitable, and are loyal subjects of the king of Prussia. ”

“ During this space immense numbers of Hanoverians flocked to the colours, some old soldiers, others volunteers who had not served before. When the army evacuated Hanover in February, 1806, it brought back so many recruits that the Legion was raised to ten battalions of infantry and five regiments of horse.
These were almost the last genuine Hanoverians that were raised for service in the corps, for when the electorate was annexed to Jerome Bonaparte’s “Kingdom of Westphalia,” it became part of the French Imperial system, and was subjected to the conscription for Jerome’s service. ”

“ A detachment of Hanoverians took by assault the castle of Steinhurst, belonging to the privy-counsellor Wederkop, and defended by thirty Danish dragoons, who had received orders to repel force by force. Several men were killed on both sides before the Hanoverians could enter the place, when the garrison was disarmed, and conducted to the frontiers. This petty dispute about a small territory, which did not yield the value of one thousand pounds a-year, had well nigh involved Hanover in a war, which, in all probability, Great Britain must have maintained ”

“ He was recognized as the leader of the Hanoverians and of all those who opposed the “revolution from above.” He took a leading part in the formation of the party of the Centre in 1870–1871, but he did not become a member of it, fearing that his reputation as a follower of the king of Hanover would injure the party, until he was formally requested to join them by the leaders. ”

“ Since the Hanoverians have reigned over the English, the world has been a writing and a reading world, and nothing has more interested writers and readers than the dissensions of sovereigns and their sons. If we extend our observation to those days when German sovereigns were unthought of in England, we shall find that kings and princes did not always agree ”

“ He was a Divine Right man, a fiery Jacobite, in those days; and, probably not without some absurd unconfessed dream in his heart that it might somehow help the dead old cause, he one afternoon fluttered the Hanoverian hearts—all the men we meet in street and mart are Hanoverians, of course—of our little literary club by solemnly rising 'to give notice' that at the following meeting he would read a paper to prove that 'the House of Hanover has no right to the English throne.' Great was the excitement through the fortnight intervening, extending even to the masters ”

“ These were the suggestions of spleen and animosity: for, granting the necessity of a land war, the Hanoverians were the most natural allies and auxiliaries which Great Britain could engage and employ. How insolent soever some few individual generals of that electorate might have been in their private deportment, certain it is their troops behaved with great sobriety, discipline, and decorum; and in the day of battle did their duty with as much courage and alacrity as any body of men ever displayed on the like occasion. ”

“ In all appearances, they will be great rivals. Shippen was in great rage at Murray's apostacy; if anything can really change his principles, possibly this competition may. To-morrow we shall have a tougher battle on the sixteen thousand Hanoverians. Hanover is the word given out for this winter: there is a most bold pamphlet come out, said to be Lord Marchmont's, which affirms that in every treaty made since the accession of this family, England has been sacrificed to the interests of Hanover, and consequently insinuates the incompatibility of the two. ”

“ He commanded a division of Hanoverians at the battle of Göhrde in Hanover, 13 Sept. 1813, and afterwards commanded a mixed force of Russians, Hanoverians, and Hanseatics, under Count von Benningsen, which blockaded Hamburg. He commanded the 6th Hanoverian brigade during the Waterloo campaign and the advance to Paris. ”

“ In England his Majesty is busy that way; still more among his Hanoverians, now under his own royal eye; and among his Danes and Hessians, whom he has now brought over into Hanover, to combine with the others. Danes and Hessians, 6,000 of each kind, he for some time keeps back in stall, upon subsidy, ready for such an occasion. Their "Camp at Hameln," "Camp at Nienburg" (will, with the Hanoverians, be 30,000 odd) ”

“ The Hanoverians who were on the political side or held posts in the Household might, by the exercise of a little tact, have lived down an unpopularity that was the result of circumstances rather than arising from any personal animosity. ”

“ One would think all those little politicians had been reading the Memoirs of the minority of Louis XIV.
[Footnote 1: Leicester House was the London residence of the young
Prince of Wales.]
There has been another great difficulty: the season obliging all camps to break up, the poor Hanoverians have been forced to continue soaking in theirs. The county magistrates have been advised that they are not obliged by law to billet foreigners on public-houses, and have refused. Transports were yesterday ordered to carry away the Hanoverians! There are eight thousand men taken from America ”

“ Caprice is too apt to blend itself with this method of punishing, and men of cruel dispositions are prone to indulge this diabolical propensity, under the pretence of zeal for discipline.
The Hanoverian infantry are not so tall as some of the other German troops, owing to this, that nobody is forced into the service, the soldiers are all volunteers; whereas, in other parts of Germany, the [93] Prince picks the stoutest and tallest of the peasants, and obliges them to become soldiers. It is allowed, that in action no troops can behave better than the Hanoverians ”

“ A brigade of Dutch cavalry came up from the west along the Nivelles road, and three brigades of infantry appeared marching hurriedly in from the north, along the Brussels road; two of these brigades were British, under the command of Kemp and of Pack, and they formed Picton’s division. The third were a brigade of Hanoverians, under Best. The British and the Hanoverians formed along the Namur road at M N, protected by its embankment, kneeling in the high wheat, and ready to fire when the enemy’s attacking line should come within close range of their muskets. ”

“ Meantime the young duke and the old Austrian field-marshal had agreed to take all risks and to storm through between Fontenoy and the wood redoubt, and had launched the great attack, one of the most celebrated in the history of war. The English infantry was in two lines. The Hanoverians on their left, owing to want of space, were compelled to file into third line behind the redcoats, and on their outer flanks were the battalions that had been with Ingoldsby. A few guns, man-drawn, accompanied the assaulting mass, and the cavalry followed. The column may have numbered 14,000 infantry. ”

“ The men, he said, talked of nothing but their dull politics, and the women of nothing but their ugly clothes. Whereas, in Hanover, all these things were at perfection: men were patterns of politeness and gallantry; women, of beauty, wit, and entertainment. His troops there were the bravest in the world; his manufacturers the most ingenious; his people the happiest: in Hanover, in short, plenty reigned, riches flowed, arts flourished, magnificence abounded, everything was in abundance that could make a prince great, or a people blessed. ”

“ Some of the best company of this place were assembled on the occasion, and we were here made acquainted with old Field-Marshal Sporken, and other people of distinction. Hanover is a neat, thriving and agreeable city. It has more the air of an English town than any other I have seen in Germany, and the English manners and customs gain ground every day among the inhabitants. The genial influence of freedom has extended from England to this place. Tyranny is not felt, and ease and satisfaction appear in the countenances of the citizens. ”

“ Who could be ardent for the right of an unknown foreigner over England? And few were ardent, but there were many who, caring nothing for Pretender or Hanoverian, had a solid resolution that England should not be torn in the cause of either. Whatever was done, must be done quietly and in good order. Since it seemed that the Hanoverian had no need to change anything in law or State or Church, best that he should be king. As for the devious politics, the tricks, and the mystery of Harley and Bolingbroke, they were of no account to plain men. ”

“ The reigning King was a foreigner in all his habits and in all his tastes. He was surrounded by a Hanoverian court, who regarded England as an instrument for the aggrandizement of Hanover, and formed a centre for all intrigues to win the royal favour at the expense of patriotism. It is strange, indeed, that their influence was less directly felt in English politics, and it is perhaps owing to those very Hanoverian predilections of the King, which are so often urged against him, that their influence was not greater. ”

“ Friedrich, in alliance with France, how easy for him to catch Hanover by the throat at a week's notice, throw a death-noose round the throat of poor Hanover, and hand the same to France for tightening at discretion! Poor Hanover indeed; she reaps little profit from her English honors: what has she had to do with these Transatlantic Colonies of England? An unfortunate Country, if the English would but think; liable to be strangled at any time, for England's quarrels: the Achilles'-heel to invulnerable England ”

“ How could an open country be defended against an enemy who could march 150,000 men into it,446 and if necessary reinforce them by as many more? Should Hanover suffer by her connection with Great Britain, we ought not to make peace without exacting full and ample compensation for all the damage and injury she might have sustained. But the idea of defending Hanover by subsidies was preposterous, absurd, and impracticable. Then, excited by this favourite theme beyond the limits he had imposed on himself, he struck home at the King and his darling patrimony. ”

“ The Act of Settlement gave the Crown of England to George, Elector of Hanover, who was a Protestant and son of a Protestant grand-daughter of James I. It was thus that the Hanoverian dynasty, represented by our present King George V., attained the throne of England. Until Queen Victoria's accession, the sovereignty of Hanover, which became a kingdom when the Bourbon king was restored to the throne of France, also belonged to the King of England. But the laws of Hanover did not recognise succession through the female line, or admit of a queen as ruler ”

“ English money, however, came to the rescue; in 1758 Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, cleared the electorate of the invader; and Hanover suffered no loss of territory at the peace of 1763. Both George I. and George II. preferred Hanover to England as a place of residence, and it was a frequent and perhaps justifiable cause of complaint that the interests of Great Britain were sacrificed to those of the smaller country. ”

“ For it is apparent, my lords, that if the designs of France be such as the noble lords who oppose the motion represent them, Hanover is much nearer to danger than Britain; and, therefore, they only fight for their own preservation; since, though they have for a single year been blessed with a neutrality, it cannot be imagined, that the same favour will be always granted them, or that the French, when they have overrun all the rest of Germany, will not annex Hanover to their other dominions. ”

“ It is well known how inconsiderable, in the sight of those by whom the succession was established, Hanover appeared, in comparison with Britain. Those men, to whom even their enemies have seldom denied praise for knowledge and capacity, and who have been so loudly celebrated by many, who have joined in the last address, for their honest zeal, and the love of their country, enacted, that the king of Britain should never visit those important territories, which we have so solemnly promised to defend, at the hazard of our happiness. ”

“ It was not the king or his German advisers, but the British ministry acting through Townshend, who had accompanied the king on his journey to Hanover as soon as parliament was up (June 1725) , that devised the counter-check of the treaty of Hanover (3 Sept.) between Great Britain, France, and Prussia. George I shrank from a course which might bring invasion upon Hanover, and the ban of the empire upon himself, and all this for the sake of purely English questions, such as Gibraltar and Minorca, the Ostend Company and the Pretender. ”

“ The sovereign of Hanover was a positive despot, both politically and socially. Everything had to be done to please him, to amuse him, to conciliate him. The women around the Court were always vying with each other to see who should most successfully flatter the King, or, in the King's absence, the Royal Prince. It was intellectually a very stupid Court. Its pleasures were vulgar, its revels coarse, its whole atmosphere heavy and sensuous. Frederick was said, however, to have given some evidence of a more cultivated taste than might have been expected of a Hanoverian Crown Prince. ”

“ What I regard as most desirable for the interest of Hanover and your majesty, purely from my own conviction, may easily be imputed to other motives, and will by some be so imputed. It is therefore doubly necessary that I should always be completely informed what your majesty's views really are, that I may act accordingly."
"Do not trouble yourself to fight against foolish notions," said the king, with his peculiarly engaging and gracious smile. "I am sure, my dear Meding, you will always have my interests and the interests of Hanover at heart. ”