King Ernst August has always received a very bad press in Britain and has generally been represented as the wickedest of Queen Victoria's 'wicked uncles'. He was certainly of fearsome appearance, having lost an eye in the battle of Tournai in 1794, and something of
a martinet. Moreover, he had been involved in several unsavory scandals including the musterious murder of his valet Sellis and an alleged incestuous relationship with his sister Princess Sophia, resulting in the birth of a child.

He had remained a bachelor until the age of forty-four when he fell in love with his first cousin, the thirty-seven-year-old Princess Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Princess had a 'past', having been married twice already and gained the reputation of being somewhat
loose in her ways. Her aunt Queen Charlotte heartily disapproved of the match and refused to be present or to receive her new daughter-in-law. In spite of this the marriage was a happy one. The Duchess of Cumberland gave birth to a stillborn daughter in January 1817 and possibly another in April 1818 (accounts are conflicting) and finally to a son Georg in May 1819.

As King of Hannover, all Ernst August's good qualities came to the fore. He believed in paternalistic rule and did much to imporve the lot of his subjects, who were delighted to have their own King living in their midst after years of being governed by Viceroys. Needless, to say, the King had no time for liberalism and dealt very firmly with a revolutionary mob which demanded concessions in the troublesome year of 1848. Queen Friederike died in 1841 and the old King's last years were considerably brightened by the pleasure he took in seeing his three young grandchildren playing around him. He died in November 1851, aged eighty.

After: King's and Queens of Europe" by David Williamson.