While Sophia Dorothea was daily growing more unhappy, her father-in-law was growing more ambitious and the prospects of her husband more brilliant. The younger branch of Brunswick was outstripping the elder in dignity, and not merely an electoral but a kingly crown seemed the prize it was destined to attain.
When Ernest’s elder brother, John Frederick, died childless, and left him the principalities of Calemberg and Grubenberg, with Hanover or a ‘residenz,’ he hailed an increase of influence which he hoped to see heightened by securing the Duchy of Zell also to his family. He had determined that George Louis should succeed to Hanover and Zell united. In other words, he established primogeniture, recognised his eldest son as heir to all his land, and only awarded to his other sons moderate appanages whereby to support a dignity which he considered sufficiently splendid by the glory which it would receive, by reflection, from the head of the house.
This arrangement by no means suited the views of one of Ernest’s sons, Maximilian. He had no inclination whatever to borrow glory from the better fortune of his brother, and was resolved, if it might be, to achieve splendour by his own. He protested loudly against the accumulation of the family territorial estates upon the eldest heir; claimed his own share; and even raised a species of domestic rebellion against his sire, to which weight, without peril, was given by the alleged adhesion of a couple of confederates, Count von Moltke and a conspirator of burgher degree.
Ernest Augustus treated ‘Max’ like a rude child. He put him under arrest in the paternal palace, and confined the filial rebel to the mild imprisonment of his own room. Maximilian was as obstinate as either Henry the Dog or Magnus the Violent, and he not only opposed his sire’s wishes with respect to the aggrandisement of the family by the enriching of the heir-apparent, but went counter to him in matters of religion. In after-years he was not only a good Jacobite, but he also conformed to the faith of the Stuarts, and Maximilian ultimately died, a tolerable Roman Catholic, in the service of the Emperor.
In the meanwhile, his domestic antagonism against his father was not productive of much inconvenience to himself. His arrest was soon raised, and he was restored to freedom, though not to favour or affection. It went harder, however, with his friend and confederate Count von Moltke, against whom, as nothing could be proved, much was invented. An absurd story was coined to the effect, that at the time when Maximilian was opposing his father’s projects, Count von Moltke, at a court entertainment, had presented his snuff-box to Ernest Augustus. This illustrious individual having taken therefrom the pungent tribute respectfully offered, presented the same to an Italian greyhound which lay at his feet, who thereon suddenly sneezed and swiftly died. The count was sent into close arrest, and the courtly gossips forged the story to account for the result. The unfortunate von Moltke was, indeed, as severely punished as though he had been a murderer. He was judged in something of the old Jedburgh fashion, whereby execution preceded judgment; and the head of Count von Moltke had fallen before men could well guess why he had forfeited it. The fact was that this penalty had been enacted as a vicarious infliction on Prince Maximilian. The more ignoble plotter was only banished, and in the death of a friend and the exile of a follower, Maximilian, it was hoped, would see a double suggestion from which he would draw a healthy conclusion. This course had its desired effect. The disinherited heir accepted his ill-fortune with a humour of the same quality, and, openly at least, he ceased to be a trouble to his more ambitious than affectionate father.
The next important public circumstance was the raising Hanover to an Electorate; and this was not effected without much bribery and intrigue. In those warlike times, when France and the German empire were in antagonism, the attitude assumed by such a state as Hanover was matter of interest to the adverse powers. It is said that the last argument which decided the Emperor’s course was a hint from De Groot, the Hanoverian minister, that Ernest Augustus might cast in his lot with France. A prince who had so often well served the empire was not to be allowed to assist France for lack of flinging to him the title of Elector. This title was granted, but under heavy stipulations. The two Dukes of Hanover and Zell bound themselves, as long as the war lasted, on the side of the Emperor against the French and against the Turks, to pay annually 500,000 thalers, to furnish a contingent amounting to 9,000 men, to uphold the claim of the Arch-Duke Charles on the Spanish throne, and at any election of a new Emperor to vote invariably for the eldest heir of the House of Hapsburg. The 19th of December 1692 was the joyful day on which Ernest Augustus was nominated Elector of Hanover.
The day, however, was anything but one of joy to the branch of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. That elder branch felt itself dishonoured by the august dignity which had been conferred upon the younger scion of the family. The elder branch, and the Sacred College with it, affirmed that the Emperor was invested with no prerogative by which he could, of his own spontaneous act, add a ninth Elector to the eight already existing. Originally there were but seven, and the accession of one more to that time-honoured number was pronounced to be an innovation by which ill-fortune must ensue. Something still more deplorable was vaticinated as the terrible consequence of a step so peremptorily taken by the Emperor, in despite of the other Electors.
It was said by the supporters of the Emperor and Hanover that the addition of a ninth and Protestant Elector was the more necessary, that there were only two Electors on the sacred roll who now followed the faith of the Reformed Church, and that the sincerity of one, at least, of these was very questionable. The reformed states of Germany had a right to be properly represented, and the Emperor was worthy of all praise for respecting this right. With regard to the nomination, it was stated that, though it had been made spontaneously by the Emperor, it had been confirmed by the Electoral College—a majority of the number of which had carried the election of the Emperor’s candidate.
Now, this last point was the weak point of the Hanoverians; for it was asserted by many adversaries, and not denied by many supporters, that in such a case as this no vote of the Electoral College was good unless it were an unanimous vote. To this objection, strongly urged by the elder branch of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, no answer was made, except, indeed, by praising the new Elector, of whom it was correctly stated that he had introduced into his states such a taste for masquerades, operas, and ballets as had never been known before; and that he had made a merry and a prosperous people of what had been previously but a dull nation, as regarded both manners and commerce. The Emperor only thought of the good service which Ernest Augustus had rendered him in the field, and he stood by the ‘accomplished fact’ of which he was the chief author.
The College was to the full as obstinate, and would not recognise any vote tendered by the Elector of Hanover, or of Brunswick, as he was at first called. For nearly sixteen years was this opposition carried on. At length, on the 30th of June 1708, this affair of the ninth electorate was adjusted, and the three colleges of the empire resolved to admit the Elector of Hanover to sit and vote in the Electoral College. In the same month, he was made general of the imperial troops, then assembled in the vicinity of the Upper Rhine.