With GeorgAewis, king of England, and the second elector of Hanover or Bruns wick-Liineburg, a brighter epoch opened to the Hanoverians, who, ou his accession to the throne of England, were relieved from the burden of maintaining the court amid ducal household, while the revenues of the crown were thenceforth appropriated solely to the general purposes of the state. Bremen and Werden were obtained in this reign by purchase from Denmark. George II., who succeeded in 1727, showed the same care as his father to spare the revenues of Hanover at the expense of those of England. In his character of elector, he participated in the Austrian war of succession, 1740148; but in the seven years' war, when Hanover suffered materially from the incursions of the French, he sided with -Prussia. This icing founded the university of Gottingen in 1745. The first 30 years of the reign of George III. (q.v.), who succeeded on the death of his grandfather in 1760, contributed largely towards the prosperity of which, like the other states of northern Germany, profited by the increased English and American trade, for which the Hanoverian ports and rivers formed the regular channels of com munication with the rest of Germany. in 1793 Hanoverian troops took part in the wars against the French republic, but the expenses of their maintenance were defrayed by England; and it was not till 1801, when Prussia, refusing to necknowledge the neutrality, of Hanover, threw troops into the electorate, that Hanover suffered from the consequences of the anomalous position in which its relations to England placed it in regard to the other states of Germany. The Prussian troops evacuated _Hanover at the close of the same year, in accordance with the treaty entered into between France and England; but the claims and counter-claims which arose from this occupation, gave rise to protracted discussions, which were not finally settled till 1830, when it was stipulated by treaty that Hanover was to pay to Prussia an indemnity of 375,000 tiders. In 1803, when war was renewed ,between England and France, Napoleon threw an army, under the command of Monier, into Hanover, and the result of this measure was to compel the Hanoverian government to enter into a convention with the French gen., by which it bound itself to abstain from serving against France during the pending war; to give up fortresses, arms, and horses to the army; to subsidize French troops; and to participate unconditionally in the general costs of the war. A large number of the army, however, having contrived to evade signing these articles of sur render, went over to England, where the men were incorporated into the German legion, which did good service both in the Peninsular war, and in the Belgian campaign of 1815, which terminated in the battle of Waterloo. in 1806 Napoleon, after having ceded Hanover to Prussia, and again withdrawn it, appropriated a portion of the electorate to complete the newly-formed kingdom of Westphalia, yllich in 1810 received the whole of the Hanoverian territory. Finally, Hanover was united with France, and the n.w. portion divided into the departments of Douches de l'Elbe, I3ouches du Weser, and Leine, while the s.c. portions formed the Westphalian departments of After and Harz. After the expulsion of the French, Hanover was elevated to the rank of a king dom in 1814. In the same year, the prince Regent of England' convoked the Han overian states to deliberate upon the best manner of consolidating the various indepen dent governments of the different provinces into one systematic whole. In 1816 the duke of Cambridge, the brother of the prince regent, was appointed governor-genern1 of Hanover; and in 1819 a new constitution was granted, in accordance with which the provincial states were retained and enlarged, and two representative chambers associated with them. Very little was done in the time of George IV. towards the amelioration of the administration, and the general disaffection and distrust had risen to the highest pitch, when William IV. ascended the.throne. The influence of the French revolution of
July (1880) extended to Hanover, and in 1831 disturbances broke out at Osterode and Gottingen. These were speedily put down, but as the national discontent did not abate, the prime minister, count Munster, who had long been obnoxious to the mass of the people, was dismissed, and the duke of Cambridge, who had hitherto acted as governor-genet al, invested with the title of viceroy, and intrusted with very extensive powers. The duke recommended gradual reforms, but as the popular feeling was decidedly in favor of a thoroughly re-modeled constitution, the states were again convoked; and finally, in 1823, a draft of the proposed constitution, which had been prepared by a commission appointed by the ministry and the states, was laid before William IV., and after it had been considerably modified in England, it received his signature, Sept. 26, 1833, without having been again submitted to the assembly of the states. The death of William IV., in 1837, placed Hanover under the rule of the next male heir, Ernest August, duke of Cumber land. One of the first measures of the new king was to abrogate the constitution of 1833, to which he had from the time of its adoption refused to give his assent and to restore that of 1819. • When the government demanded the oath of allegiance from all Tersons holding office under the state, seven of the GOttingen professors—viz., Dahlmann, Gervinus, J. Grimm, F. Grimm, Ewald, Albrecht, and W. Weber—refused to take the requited oath, in consequence of which all were deprived, without any preliminary' investi gation, of their chairs, and the three first-named banished from the country.
From this period till 1848, when the success of the French revolution compelled the German rulers to adopt a more liberal policy towards their subjects, the king show( d himself resolutely averse to sanction reform. Liberal measures, however, were, at length introduced, and the new constitution of 1848 was more liberal than that of 1833. The king, moreover, organized some useful reforms in the internal administration, and effected great improvements in several of the towns.
The chambers of Hanover showed great zeal in the reorganization of Germany, and king Ernest entered into a triple alliance with Prussia and Saxony, to promote the unity of the German nation. Unlike many of his German contemporaries, king Ernest kept the promises which he had made to his people during the revolutionary crisis of 1848-49; and although the nobility made the most pressing appeals to him for the recovery of their ancient privileges, and the overthrow of the constitution, he refused to withdraw his pledge that the country should be governed in accordance with constitutional principles; and such confidence was placed in his word, that, notwithstanding his avowed opinions„ his death, in 1851, was regarded as a serious blow to the cause of reform, for his son and successor, George V., was known to hold very extreme views in regard to the kingly power and the claims of the aristocracy: The early measures of the new king were not calculated to allay' the fears' entertained of his but the decisive declaration of the assembly of the states that they were desirous of seeing the reforms completed which had been begun by the late king, and their vote of want of confidence in the new cabinet, prevented any marked retrogressive movement on the part of the ministry, and in 1634 Hanover joined the Zo11 verm n. In 1855 the constitution underwent various modifications in accordance with the demands of the federal diet, by which it was made to approximate more closely to that of 1S40. Although the chanws were unpopular, they met with no energetic opposition. After the war of 1666 Hanover became a province of Prussia. See GERMANY.