This was the man, formidable in argument, formidable in appearance, who launched himself on to the political battle-front of the early nineteenth century. The Duke survived and the servant killed himself by cutting his own throat, but the Duke’s face and body were covered with gashes, the scars of which he bore all his life. Years later, one of the Duke’s servants who had a grievance, attempted to murder him with a sabre while he slept. As a young prince he had led a cavalry charge against the French and received an injury which cost him an eye and affected the use of an arm. To most men Cumberland was at least a nuisance, fearsome in his defence of honour, tradition and principles. He would not have denied being an inconvenience. His amusement is mischief, preparing for it, hearing about each other, and talking of it afterwards.’ Both dukes were members of the Tory Party when this was written and both were, on the surface at least, good friends.Ĭumberland would, of course, have hotly denied being a mischief maker, and he would have attacked Wellington as a man who was always compromising his principles. ![]() ‘There is no person who feels more than I do the inconvenience of the Duke of Cumberland,’ wrote the Duke of Wellington when he was Prime Minister. Nonetheless, he determined to wear his coronet in politics with a fierceness that alarmed Prime Ministers, made mere Members of Parliament quake, and drove mobs to fury. In due time Hanover became a kingdom, but as a fifth son the Duke of Cumberland had little hope in his early years of wearing a King’s crown. The Duke was the fifth son of Britain’s King George the Third who, by birthright, was also Elector of Hanover in Germany, from where his Protestant ancestor, King George the First, had been called to reign over Britain by a Parliament anxious to rid itself of the Catholic House of Stuart. The fault of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, for that was the title he held as a Briton for most of his life, was his obsession with politics and his determination to resist the tide of change that was an inevitable consequence of the Industrial Revolution in the early part of the nineteenth century. When he reigned, little more than a century ago, all Europe watched him warily as a force to be reckoned with now, even his kingdom of Hanover has vanished from the map of Europe. He did not become a king until his old age, before which he frequently earned himself the reputation of being one of the most hated men in Britain. ![]() This particular monarch was a British duke and a German king. Full of regal pomp and ceremony and self-importance in their time, they can be eclipsed so effectively by the changing current of events that even their names can cause a quizzical look and the question, Who was he? They also sometimes have strange endings. Kings, like kingdoms, sometimes have some strange beginnings. The Duke of Cumberland, shown clashing in public with his brothers in the House of Lords by Pat Nicolle
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