Prince Ernst August of Hanover is the senior male line descendant of King George III, who was his great-great-great-great-grandfather. He has a claim to be the Duke of Cumberland in the British peerage, but only if he applies for it to be re-instated under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917.
Question is, what would he have to do to have it reinstated? The Act says that a successor could apply to the Crown to have the title reinstated, and must show that “such person has incurred no disability under this Act, and is well affected to His Majesty’s Person and Government.”
So what would Ernest have to do to show he is well affected to Her Majesty’s Person and Government? As a citizen of Germany, could he meet that test without being in breach of German law? Could it be done as a sign of amity between the two nations, a century on from the Great War?
(The back story is that that his great-great-great-grandfather was George’s fifth son, Prince Ernest, Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover. The title of Duke of Cumberland descended to his great-grandfather, Ernest Augustus, the 3rd Duke of Cumberland. However, he was deprived of the title of Duke of Cumberland because he fought for the German Empire in World War I. None of his successors have sought to reclaim the title.)
Why would he bother ? Any such title would be inferior to those he already possesses, even if one’s a collector; and whatever one thinks of the wretched Windsors and their rascally Guelph forebears, the royalty of the UK is pretty small potatoes in present day royal ranking.
Obviously most Americans don’t give the world of present day royal families other than sometimes the Brits a second’s thought, apart from those who hate and resent them —then again they prolly resent everybody — but it is certainly still a very rarefied world. Wealthier than before since they don’t have countries to run.
[ Elizabeth Windsor is very rich, although many of her aristocrats are far wealthier, and others such as industrialists still more so; but Victoria who had a trifle more power was barely rich at all in money. ]
Forgot to mention that there is one other person, also German, who potentially could bring a claim for a British title: Hubertus Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, who is descended from Queen Victoria’s son, Leopold, Duke of Albany.
I see that Wikipedia shows Ernst August as “Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg” despite that the German nobility was abolished 98 years ago. Am I correct that this is pretense with no meaning? Is it even legal for him to title himself this way?
Germany allows them to use former titles as part of a surname.
According to Wiki, his full name is “Ernst August Albert Paul Otto Rupprecht Oskar Berthold Friedrich-Ferdinand Christian-Ludwig Prinz von Hannover Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg”.
The German government considers his forenames to be “Ernst August Albert Paul Otto Rupprecht Oskar Berthold Friedrich-Ferdinand Christian-Ludwig”, and his surname to be “Prinz von Hannover Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg”.
If he lived in Austria, the Austrian government would insist that he drop the “Prinz von” and “Herzog zu”.
If I understand correctly (and I probably don’t), Germany might allow him to change his surname to “Prinz von Hannover Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg und Cumberland”. Since hereditary peerages no longer confer a seat in the House of Lords, he might be able to argue that it doesn’t really count as nobility. However, since the British government still considers Peers to be a distinct class, I think a German court might not allow it.
He writes to the Queen and asks, she asks the Prime Minister, who arranges for the appropriate committee of Privy Councilors (senior and retired senior politicians of all parties) to consider the question and advise.
The criterion mentioned in the OP is, however, a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.
Successive Prime Ministers have declined to recommend the creation of any new hereditary peerages in the general way of honours for British citizens, and it’s not as though any of the present descendants of those deprived in this way are sufficiently close family, or sufficiently involved in helping HM with royal duties, for her to go beyond her recent practice in relation to doling out dukedoms around the family.
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, but is the fact that no new hereditary peerages are being created a matter of law, or of policy? Or “constitution”?
It’s a matter of policy. Plus, there’s an exception for members of the Royal Family; Prince William of Wales was created Duke of Cambridge on his marriage, and it’s expected that if his brother marries he, too, will get a peerage.
Since Ernst Augustus’s claim would be based on his descent from the Royal Family, an application from him for revival might be considered to come within that exception.
Plus, isn’t there a difference between reviving a peerage which was already granted, and creating an entirely new one? Seems to me that there should be; it’s implicit in the Act itself.
There’s a difference, but it may be a difference without a distinction. The policy consideration which lead to the conclusion that creating new peerages is a Bad Idea might equally lead to the conclusion that reviving deprived titles is a Bad Idea.
It may be relevant (or at least interesting) to note that, apart from British titles, there’s a slew of German princelings who have, or used to have, a claim to British subject status by virtue of the Sophia Naturalisation Act 1705. After the Act of Settlement declared that the crown would pass to Sophia and her protestant heirs, this opened up the possiblity that the throne would pass to someone who was not an English subject; indeed, that the immediate heir to the throne at any time might not be a English subject (and therefore might not owe allegiance to the King). To prevent this, the Sophia Naturalisation Act declared that Sophia and all her Protestant heirs, however remote, would have the status of English (later British) subjects.
On the basis of this Act, Prince Friedrich of Prussia, who had been a student at Cambridge when the war broke out in 1939 and had been interned for the duration, established by court action in 1947 that he had been a British subject all along, and applied for compensation for his wrongful internment. This was an unpopular outcome, and the Sophia Naturalisation Act was repealed in 1948, but without prejudice to the rights of anyone who was already a subject by virtue of the Act. Ernst Augustus of Hanover (father to the one mentioned in the OP, established his own British subject status in 1957 under the Sophia Naturalisation Act.
The point is, the Sophia Naturalisation Act was repealed in 1948 because it was thought inappropriate that anyone not otherwise connected with Britain should have British subject status on the basis of distant descent from the British royal family. (Sophia’s grandfather was James VI and I, which is why she was chosen as the heir in 1701). They are likely to take the same view with respect to British ducal titles.
Indeed. But the family’s previous custom and practice is that dukedoms have gone to those in the direct line of succession, and expected to be active in, the family business, on their marriage. Which would make handing them out in this sort of situation beyond improbable.
Not really, because the dukedoms given to those active in the family business usually descend to those not so involved. For example, Queen Victoria gave the Dukedom of Fife to her granddaughter’s husband, but the present (4th) duke has no royal role, and neither did his father the 3rd duke. The current Dukes of Gloucester and Kent are both active in the Firm, but both are elderly, both have sons in line to inherit, and neither son has ever participated in royal duties. Titles once given almost inevitably flow out of the Royal Family to cousins who won’t be in the direct line or the family business. The royals expect that. Cumberland won’t be less royal than Fife, or for that matter Grafton or St Albans (both titles created for illegitimate sons of Charles II, and currently held by men far removed from the present royal family).