Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born 1954)

Ernst August was born in Hanover, the eldest son of Ernst August, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick (1914–1987) and his first wife, Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1925–1980).[6] He was christened, Ernst August Albert Paul Otto Rupprecht Oskar Berthold Friedrich-Ferdinand Christian-Ludwig.[1]

As the senior male-line descendant of George III of the United Kingdom, Ernst August is head of the House of Hanover, the surviving junior branch of the medieval House of Welf, which itself is the older branch of the House of Este, a dynasty whose earliest known members lived in Lombardy in the late 9th/early 10th century and which, in its younger branch, ruled Ferrara (1240–1597) and the Duchy of Modena-Reggio (1288–1796) in Italy.[6]

The title of Prince of Great Britain and Ireland was recognised ad personam for Ernst August's father and his father's siblings by King George V of the United Kingdom on 17 June 1914.[7] The hereditary Dukedom of Cumberland and Teviotdale and the Earldom of Armagh, borne in 1917 by his paternal great-grandfather, were suspended under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917. However, the title Royal Prince of Great Britain and Ireland had been entered into the family's German passports, together with the German titles, in 1914. After the German Revolution of 1918–19, with the abolition of the privileges of nobility,[8] titles officially became parts of the last name. So, curiously, the British prince's title is still part of the family's last name in their German passports, while it is no longer mentioned in their British documents.[9] On 29 August 1931, Ernst August's grandfather Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, as head of the House of Hanover, declared the formal resumption, for himself and his dynastic descendants, of use of his former British princely title as a secondary title of pretense,[5] which style, "Royal Prince of Great Britain and Ireland", his grandson Ernst August continues to claim.[10]

As heir of the last Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale and Earl of Armagh, Ernst August has the right to petition under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 for the restoration of his ancestors' suspended British peerages, but he has not done so. His father, also called Ernst August, did, however, successfully claim British nationality after World War II by virtue of a hitherto overlooked (and since repealed) provision of the Sophia Naturalization Act 1705 (Attorney-General v HRH Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover [1957] 1 All ER 49).

Ernst August is also a great-grandson of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II whose daughter Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia was his grandmother.[5] His father's sister Frederica of Hanover (1917–1981) was Queen consort of Greece between 1947 and 1964 as the wife of King Paul. He is thus a first cousin of both ex-king Constantine II of Greece and his sister, Queen Sophia of Spain, whose husband Juan Carlos I was king of Spain 1975–2014. Ernst August's uncle, Prince George William of Hanover (1915–2006), married Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (1914–2001), a sister of the future royal consort Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, evoking in 1946 the only known case of a British monarch, George VI, withholding requested permission for a kinsman's marriage under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 (on the advice of his Government as a result of World War II's hostilities).[11] It was held by British officials at the time that the marriage and its issue would not be legitimate in the United Kingdom despite being legal in Germany.[12]

By a 24 August 1981 declaration issued by his father as the Head of House, pursuant to Chapter 3, §§ 3 and 5 of the House laws of 1836, Ernst August was authorised to marry dynastically, and did firstly marry, civilly on 28 August 1981 and religiously on 30 August 1981, Chantal Hochuli (b. 2 June 1955 in Zurich), the daughter and heiress of a Swiss real estate developer. They had two sons:

• Prince Ernst August Andreas Philipp Constantin Maximilian Rolf Stephan Ludwig Rudolph (born 19 July 1983)
• Prince Christian Heinrich Clemens Paul Frank Peter Welf Wilhelm-Ernst Friedrich Franz (born 1 June 1985)

Ernst August and Chantal Hochuli divorced on 23 October 1997.

He married secondly, civilly in Monaco on 23 January 1999, Princess Caroline of Monaco, who was at the time expecting the birth of their child:

• Princess Alexandra Charlotte Ulrike Maryam Virginia (born 20 July 1999)

As he was born in the male line of George II of Great Britain, he sought permission to marry pursuant to the British Royal Marriages Act 1772, which would not be repealed until the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 took effect on 26 March 2015.[13] On 11 January 1999, Queen Elizabeth II issued a Declaration in Council, "My Lords, I do hereby declare My Consent to a Contract of Matrimony between His Royal Highness Prince Ernst August Albert of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg and Her Serene Highness Princess Caroline Louise Marguerite of Monaco..."[14] Without the Queen's consent, the marriage would have been void in Britain where Ernst August's family owns property and his lawful descendants remain in succession to both the British crown and the two suspended peerages.[15] Similarly the Monégasque court officially notified the government of France of Caroline's marriage to Ernst August, receiving assurance that there was no objection in compliance with the (since defunct) Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1918. Moreover, in order for Caroline to retain her claim to the throne of Monaco and to transmit succession rights to future offspring, the couple were also obliged to obtain the approval of yet a third nation, in the form of official consent to the marriage of Caroline's father, Prince Rainier III as the sovereign of Monaco.[4]

Nonetheless, Caroline was a Roman Catholic and Ernst August the male heir of George III when the couple wed, at which time a provision of the Act of Settlement 1701 stipulated that in the event the British crown is to devolve upon an heir married to "a Papist", that heir is permanently disabled from succeeding to the throne, which would pass instead to the next Protestant in the order of succession who had not been married to a Roman Catholic. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 repealed that marital restriction (also embodied in the Bill of Rights 1689), with retroactive effect, as of 26 March 2015.[13]

Ernst August's younger brother Prince Ludwig Rudolph of Hanover and his wife, Princess Isabella of Hanover (1962–1988), died tragically. On 28 November 1988, while authorities removed Princess Isabella's body from The Queen's Villa in Gmunden, Austria, a house owned by Ernst August which he had left to his brother and sister-in-law, and investigated the drug-strewn scene, Ludwig Rudolph, distraught over his wife's apparently accidental cocaine overdose, placed a call to his brother in London, imploring him to take care of the couple's 10-month-old son.[16][17] Then he fled. Hours later Ludwig Rudolph was found dead, apparently a victim of suicide, near his family's hunting lodge several miles away, on Lake Traun.[16][16][18] Custody of their infant son Otto Heinrich was eventually awarded, contrary to the expressed wishes of Ludwig Rudolph as the surviving parent and Ernst August's legal efforts, to the child's maternal grandparents, Count Ariprand (1925–1996) and Countess Maria von Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli (born 1929), to be raised at their family seat, Bleiburg Castle in southern Austria.[17]

After their marriage, Ernst August and Caroline moved to Le Mée-sur-Seine, France, where they had purchased an 18th-century manor house from their friend Karl Lagerfeld.[19] Their daughter went to kindergarten and prep-school there, while the family used Caroline's house in Monte Carlo and Ernst August's hunting lodge near Gmunden, Austria, as secondary homes. The manor house in France was subsequently sold, just as had been Hurlingham Lodge in London, after the divorce from his first wife.

He was photographed urinating on the Turkish Pavilion at the Expo 2000 event in Hanover, causing a diplomatic incident and a complaint from the Turkish embassy accusing him of insulting the Turkish people. He successfully sued those who published (Bild-Zeitung) the photograph for invasion of privacy, obtaining an award of 9,900 euros, although the paper had previously published a photo of Ernst August urinating outside a hospital in Austria.[20]

In 2004, he was convicted of aggravated assault and causing grievous bodily harm after supposedly beating a German man, Joe Brunnlehner, with a knuckleduster on the Kenyan island of Lamu.[21][22] He has demanded a retrial for the case on the basis of false evidence. His lawyers have publicly stated that he has never owned a knuckleduster in his life nor held one in his hand.[22]

In 2004, Ernst August had signed over his German property to his elder son, including Marienburg Castle, the agricultural estate of Calenberg Castle, the "Princely House" at Herrenhausen Gardens in Hanover and some forests near Blankenburg Castle (Harz) which he had repurchased in former East Germany after the German reunification of 1990. At the time, Ernst-August’s wealth was estimated as high as $250 million.[23] Since then, the younger Ernst August has taken over many representative tasks on behalf of his father. The latter remained in charge of the Austrian family assets. In 2013 however, Ernst August was removed from the chairmanship of a family foundation based in Liechtenstein, the Duke of Cumberland Foundation, which holds the properties near Gmunden in Austria, the Hanovers' main residence in exile after 1866 when their Kingdom of Hanover was annexed by Prussia. Instead, the younger Ernst August was put in charge, reportedly for negligence on part of his father,[24] at the initiative of the foundation's trustee Prince Michael of Liechtenstein.[25] The foundation manages vast forests, a game park, a hunting lodge, the Queen's Villa and other property. In 2017 Ernst August filed legal action to recover his chairmanship, and he intends to revoke the bestowal of his German property. Due to this dispute over family assets, he also declared his intention to withhold consent for his son's marriage to Ekaterina Malysheva[26] which he did not attend.

On Monday, 3 April 2005, Ernst August was admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. The next day, he fell into a deep coma, two days before the death of his father-in-law, Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. On Friday, 8 April 2005, hospital officials reported that he was no longer in a coma but remained in intensive care. A report the same day on BBC World described his condition as "serious but not irreversible."[27] After his release he was subsequently seen in public with his wife. In an interview he admitted at the time that his health crisis was caused by his hyperactive lifestyle and problems with alcohol.[28]

His health deteriorated in subsequent years. He was hospitalized again in 2011, 2017 and 2018 for problems related to alcohol.[29] In February 2019 he had another emergency surgery for pancreatitis. One week later, it was reported that he is suffering from throat cancer.[30]

• Princely House of Monaco
• Official site of the House of Welf (in German)