Official name: Kingdom of Hannover/ Königreich von Hannover
Unofficially: Hannover
Capital: Dortmund
Head of State/Government: Ludwig Billung-Marburg
Demonym: Hanoverian
Language: Westphalian 76% Other German 14% Frisian 7% Other (Dutch, Danish, French, Aenglisc)
Religion: Jansenist (42%) Synergist (36%) Catholic (10%) Other Protestant (8%) Jewish (4%)
Pop: 6.1 Mil
Map: (Terribly drawn, I know!)
Flag:
An absolute monarchy, the Kingdom has no legislative chambers to speak of.
More detailed land claims: Entire Imperial-Dutch border, follows the Rhine south to Mainz/Frankfurt, but excluding Mainz/Frankfurt, Excludes Dusseldorf. All of Hesse/Brunswick, not Anhalt/Magdeburg, Includes Lunenburg, Follows the current Danish border, excludes Bremen/Hamburg.
In 1110, Ulrich Billung, duke of Saxony, son of Magnus and Sophie of Hungary, wed Hedwig of Gudensberg, heiress to Hesse and Gudensberg. This made Ulrich an extremely powerful figure, and he led an uprising against Emperor Heinrich V in 1120 when Heinrich leveled a new tax, which the Emperor put down. Ulrich was stripped of much of his eastern lands and his title, which would end up with the Ascanians. After reconciling with the Emperor, he was recognized as Duke of Braunschweig. Still one of the greatest lords of the Empire, Ulrich was elected Emperor upon Heinrich’s death without an heir in 1125. Heinrich’s lands, however, were set to be inherited by his nephew Friedrich Hohenstaufen of Swabia. Ulrich considered the Hohenstaufens his bitter rivals and sought to prevent the inheritance by issuing a ban against the Duke of Swabia, leading to conflict within the empire. Ulrich had some successes, but failed to entirely impose his will. Still, he managed to gain the northern portion of the Salian lands when he made peace with the Swabians. The rest of Ulrich’s reign was devoted to affairs in Italy and a failed crusade against the Sicilians.
A relatively unpopular emperor, after Ulrich’s death in 1137 the Imperial crown passed to his Hohenstaufen rivals and his many lands were divided between his two sons, and even more thoroughly divided among his grandsons. Through marriage, the Bavarian Welfs managed to inherit a decent portion of Ulrich’s lands, giving them a power base with which to recapture Bavaria. So divided, the political influence of the Billungs in the empire faded. Despite the political insignificance several communities within the greater Billung/Welf dominion grew wealthy trading with merchants from Bremen and other Hanseatic cities.
Things began to change when Dietrich Billung-Osnabruck invited a large community of Aenglisc “Lollards” to settle in his newly conquered east-Frisian territory in 1404. Soon the area began to attract heretics from all over Europe. The theological debates at the nearby newly-founded University of Osnabrück became extremely heated, but relatively quickly a reformist consensus developed. Following the execution of Jan Hus, the consensus grew increasingly radically separatist. For harboring such dangerous heretics, Otto Welf, Duke of Westphalia, successfully had Dietrich excommunicated and banned and led a coalition to seize his lands. Even after a bloody uprising was put down by Duke Otto, he failed to entirely eradicate the heretics, and reform-minded theologians continued to pour out of Osnabruck.
FInally, a monk from Saxony residing in Kassel nailed several Theses regarding the sale of indulgences to a local church door, causing an uproar. The monk was promptly excommunicated and executed, but in his wake other reformers sprung up and the religious situation in whole region spiraled out of control. Many local rulers broke with the church entirely and local reformers began to organize new congregations. Most loyal Catholic rulers had their lands overrun, and shockingly, the Emperor Friedrich V refused to intervene. Coalitions of princes formed to crush the heretics, but the new zealous Protestant factions banded together despite various doctrinal differences, and motivated by religious zeal and employing tactically revolutionary lines of musketeers and wagonburg techniques repulsed all invaders.
The lone Catholic holdout in the region was the Elector of Braunschweig (who had seen Osnabruck added to his domains following Duke Otto’s crusade). Under Catholic ownership, many of the Osnabruck theologians fled to the new University of Marburg further south. In 1593, Kurfürst Albrecht Welf of Braunschweig died without an heir, triggering the religiously tinged Brunswickian Succession crisis between the Catholic Maximilian II Welf of Bavaria and the Protestant Niklaus Billung-Marburg of Hesse. Duke Niklaus ultimately prevailed, creating the new, and fairly large, and unrepentantly Protestant Electorate of Hesse-Braunschweig.
Many differing reformist movements developed in the region, organized by graduates of the Universities at Osnabruck and later Marburg. The Johannites, after Johann Eickenroth, rejected baptism at birth by arguing only a consciously faithful believer should receive baptism, and took a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, forsaking all oaths, military and civil service in the corrupt world. The Johannites, known elsewhere as “anabaptists” spread far and wide across Europe and the new world, but never really caught on at home. The Neo-Hussites, or “Jansenists” embraced the doctrine of predestination, but kept many Catholic teachings regarding the Eucharist, and kept a church hierarchy in place, albeit one subordinate entirely to secular rulers. The “Synergists,” or “Schwartzerdians” rejected predestination, but believed in salvation through faith alone, and rejected Catholic teaching on feasts, saints and sacraments.
Grateful for his non-intervention in his war with Bavaria and subsequent confirmation as elector Kurfurst Niklaus controversially married his daughter Anna Katharina to Friedrich’s brother Karl Anton, the marriage requiring an elaborate “freedom of conscience” agreement for Anna. This only increased the anti-Swabian sentiment among the other princes, however. It would ultimately prove a valuable match at the start of the Carlian/Ottonian war, though as the dynastic connection led Kurfurst Niklaus to put aside his rivalry with the Bavarians to become the lone Northern prince to support the Swabian claim. The Billung-Marburg branch proved to be zealous Protestants, lending their armies to Protestant causes left and right, notably on behalf of the French kings, with whom they were heavily intermarried. Numerous Protestant refugees, especially Aenglisc, flooded into Niklaus’ lands.
In 1704, the house of Billung-Berg died out, and the Marburg line finally successfully reunited all of Duke Ulrich’s domains into one entity. In recognition of his service against the Tartars, Emperor Ferdinand recognized Kurfurst Wilhelm III Billung as King-Elector Wilhelm I of Hannover. Despite being named for Hannover, King Wilhelm built a new royal residence in Dortmund.
Despite being the birthplace of the reformation, the University of Marburg gradually shifted away from theology, allowing Munich to eclipse it in this field, and toward philosophy and mathematics. Talented graduates from all across the Empire and from outside of it flocked to teach there, and the region became a hotbed of liberalism. Notably, King Niklaus I, reigning 1761-1796, became known for his correspondences with intellectuals and authors across Europe. The model of an enlightened monarch, he instituted reforms guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and abolished torture. Highly interested in land use, he supported land reclamation projects, and made efforts to popularize new-world crops. He levied high tariffs on foreign goods, helping to develop industry in the cities within his domain. Despite these reforms, Hannover remains an absolute monarchy… for now.
Johanism never having been popular in the region, and giving its strong association with other parts of the Empire, Volontism hasn’t spread much in Hannover. With a local hotbed of enlightenment thought and a secularist bent to the current government, a strong anti-secularist push-back is certainly plausible, however, especially given the historical centrality of Protestantism to the region. The new King, Ludwig, grandson to Niklaus, is young and relatively untested, but his has so far shown himself to be more than happy to continue upholding his grandfather’s reforms.
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