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Ernst August von Hannover (born 1954)

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Ernst August Albert Paul Otto Rupprecht Berthold Friedrich Ferdinand Christian Ludwig, Prince of Hanover (born 26 February 1954 in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany) is the son of Ernst August of Hanover (1914-1987) and his wife Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1925-1980). Prince Ernst August is head of the House of Hanover, the royal house which ruled the United Kingdom from 1714 to 1837.

As heir of the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale he has the right to petition under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, for the restoration of his British peerage titles (but has not done so).

He is styled Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg and Prince of Great Britain and Ireland.

Family

He first married, civilly on 28 August 1981 and religiously on 30 August 1981, chocolate-heiress Chantal Hochuli. They had two children, Ernst August (b. 1983) and Christian (b. 1985), and divorced on 23 October 1997.

He married secondly, on 23 January 1999, Princess Caroline of Monaco, daughter of Rainier III of Monaco and Grace Kelly. In accordance with the Act of Settlement 1701, by marrying a Catholic, he was removed from the line of succession to the British throne (but retains his hereditary rights to the throne of Hanover).

Ernst August, King of Great Britain?

In his book "The Victorians," acclaimed biographer A.N. Wilson alleges that Queen Victoria's mother, Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg, had a lengthy affair with her Irish-born secretary Sir John Conroy and that he, rather than Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, was Victoria's real father. Wilson based his argument partly on medical data which suggested that the illness porphyria -- a hereditary disorder of body metabolism -- once ran in the Royal Family, but there is no evidence that Victoria carried it or passed it to her descendants.

Wilson also writes that Victoria was a carrier for the disease hemophilia, although medical records tracing her mother's ancestors for 17 generations show no evidence of the disease, suggesting to him that Victoria inherited it from Conroy, and suggesting to those knowledgable about the disease that this was a spontaneous mutation. American researchers on Victoria's medical background said it was "extremely unlikely" that Conroy had been a hemophiliac, and that the disease was more likely to have resulted from a genetic mutation. Approximately one of every three cases of hemophilia arise by spontaneous mutation, and spontaneous cases with no family history do not generally arise from unfaithful wives selecting hemophiliac lovers.

Queen Victoria's claim to the crown was through her father, the younger brother of King William IV (who died childless). If Wilson's suggestion is true, it would make no difference to the right of Victoria's descendants to the throne, as legitimacy is a matter of law, not of descent.

If Victoria had not been born, or if her legitimacy had been challenged by her father during her lifetime, and if Prince Ernst of Hanover had not married a "Papist", Ernst would be the rightful claimant to the throne, according to Burke's Peerage. Prince Ernst is the descendant of Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, who was Victoria's uncle (and younger brother of the Prince Edward and King William IV).

It is highly doubtful, however, that the remains of the British Royal Family will ever be made available for DNA testing.

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