HANOVER, a kingdom in Germany, formed out of the duchies which formerly belonged to several families of the junior branch of the house of Brunswick. In the course of the revolutionary war, under the influence of France, the dukedoms of Bavaria, of Saxony, and of Wirtemberg had been raised to the rank of kingdoms; and when the overthrow of Bonaparte was accomplished, the dukedoms which had composed the electorate of Hanover were thought by the allied powers of sufficient consequence to be elevated to the same dignity, as, with the additions then made to them, they were nearly equal in extent and population to the other portions of Germany whose rulers had received that rank. It accordingly assumed that grade in 1814, under George III., and was acknowledged as such by all the powers of Europe.
The obscurity in which antiquity has involved the early history of nations can only be in a slight degree cleared up by tracing the origin of the families that maintained the continued rule over them. The ruling family of Hanover has been traced, by the combined efforts and researches of Muratori and Leibnitz, to an Italian origin, in the dark ages, that is, to the princely house of Este; and by Gibbon, from that house up to the descendants of Charlemagne. A Marquis of Este, in the eleventh century, married Cuniza or Cunegonda, an heiress of a princely family in Bavaria, whose son received the name of Guelph, derived from his maternal ancestors, and inherited their dominions, including the dukedom of Bavaria. The grandson of this Guelph, named Henry the Black, and his son named Henry the Proud, acquired by marriage new and extensive dominions on the banks of the Elbe and the Weser; and Henry the Lion, the most powerful prince of his age, was the first of the race who assumed the title of Duke of Brunswick. Under this Henry, who distinguished himself as a great warrior, an uncle wrested from him the southern portion of his territory in Bavaria and Suabia, and left him, at the conclusion of most bitter hostility, in the possession of the northern portion of it. He made the city of Brunswick the capital of his dominions, and, being in possession of the rich silver mines of the Hartz, was enabled to extend his power over the tribes of Northern Germany, inhabiting Holstein, Mecklenburg, and nearly the whole coast of the Baltic Sea.
Henry the Lion was twice married. By his first wife he left no family; and, although by his second wife, who was Maud, the daughter of Henry II. of England, he had several sons, none of them left any issue except William, and under Otho, the only son of William, took place the partition of the house—Brunswick and Luneburg being divided into two dukedoms. The latter branch received the Hanoverian portion as a fief from William Sigefred, bishop of Hildesheim. After the death of Otho, and of his two sons Otho and William, who successively followed, the male line became extinct in 1369. Otho, elector of Saxony, who had married a daughter of William, was, by the influence of the emperor of Germany, Charles IV., invested with the government. He died without issue, having by his testament bequeathed the dukedom to his uncle Wenceslaus, elector of Saxony—a bequest which was contested by Torquatus Magnus, duke of Saxony, but at length was terminated in a compromise, by which Bernard, the eldest son of Torquatus, obtained the dominion, and reigned until 1434. After several successions, the power became vested in