Ernest Augustus I of Hanover - Later Life, Death, and Memorial

Later Life, Death, and Memorial

In 1851, the King undertook a number of journeys around Germany. He accepted an invitation from the Prussian Queen-consort to visit Charlottenburg Palace, near Berlin. He visited Mecklenburg for the christening of the Grand Duke's son, and Lüneburg to inspect his old regiment. In June Ernest celebrated his 80th birthday by playing host to the King of Prussia. Late that summer, he visited Göttingen, where he opened a new hospital and was given a torchlight procession.

The King continued his interest in British affairs, and wrote to Lord Strangford about the Great Exhibition of 1851:

The folly and absurdity of the Queen in allowing this trumpery must strike every sensible and well-thinking mind, and I am astonished the ministers themselves do not insist on her at least going to Osborne during the Exhibition, as no human being can possibly answer for what may occur on the occasion. The idea ... must shock every honest and well-meaning Englishman. But it seems everything is conspiring to lower us in the eyes of Europe.

The King died on 18 November 1851 after an illness of about a month. He was mourned greatly in Hanover; less so in England where The Times omitted the customary black border to its front page and claimed "the good that can be said of the Royal dead is little or none." Both he and Queen Frederica rest in a mausoleum in the Herrenhausen Gardens.

A large equestrian statue of King Ernest Augustus may be found in a square named after him in front of Hanover Central Station, inscribed with his name and the words (in German) "To the father of the nation from his loyal people." It is a popular meeting place; in the local phrase, people arrange to meet unterm Schwanz or "under the tail" (that is, of the horse which the King rides).

Although The Times denigrated Ernest's career as Duke of Cumberland, it did speak well of his time as King of Hanover, and of his success in keeping Hanover stable in 1848:

Above all, he possessed a resolute decision of character, which, however unfortunately it may have operated under different conditions, appeared to extraordinary advantage at the crisis of continental thrones. Bewildered by the revolutionary din, and oscillating ignominiously between fear and rage, resistance and concession, the clique of crowned heads suffered greatly by contrast with a Sovereign who at least knew his own mind, and was prepared to abide by his opinions. In the European convulsions, therefore, King Ernest maintained the stability of his throne and the tranquillity of his people without damage from revolution or reaction. As Kings, indeed, are computed on the continent, he was an able and even a popular Monarch, and his memory may find, perhaps, in his ancestral dominions a sympathy which it would be vain to bespeak for it in the scenes of his manhood or the land of his birth.