Wilhelm
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Duke Wilhelm was the last ruling prince from the line of Brunswick - Wolfenbüttel - Bevern. With his death in 1884, the small duchy of Brunswick fell to the Lüneburg line (New House of Lüneburg), the House of Hanover, which had already been deprived of its power in 1866 by Prussia. Wilhelm was the youngest son of duke Friedrich Wilhelm (1771-1815). However, before Wilhelm took up the rule in Brunswick, his older brother Karl II. (1804-1873) ruled. At the Vienna Congress in 1814, while it was ruled by a regency council in lieu of the still minor-aged Karl II., the principality of Brunswick - Wolfenbüttel was elevated to the duchy of Brunswick. The governing style of Karl II. angered his subjects through numerous inexplicable decisions, so that in 1830 an insurrection took place in the duchy of Brunswick. Karl II. fled thereupon, in September 1830, to London. Still in September of the that year, Wilhelm took up the rule of the duchy and never returned it to his brother. The relationship of the two brothers remained unsettled until the death of Karl II. in 1873. Duke Wilhelm gave his ministers a largely free hand in the affairs of state. The constitutional monarch was much esteemed by the people. The duke preferred not to marry and to give up the traditional courtly diversions, like hunting and theater. His banished brother died in 1873 in Geneva and bequeathed his fortune to this city. Duke Wilhelm died in 1884 in Sibyllenort. With the death of duke Wilhelm, the line of Brunswick - Bevern also died out and therewith, too, the New House of Brunswick. The hereditary succession fell to the Hanoverian line, which, due to political difficulties, was unable to take up the rule in Brunswick until 1913.
--Adapted from the website, Die Welfen
Sources
- Kiekenapp, B. In the catalogue for the exhibition "Braunschweig - Bevern." Brunswick, 1997.