Georg Wilhelm I of Hanover (26 January 1624-28 August 1705) was Duke of Hanover and Calenburg from 1648 until his death in 1705. George William was an ancestor of George I of Britain, who was by hereditary right the Prince of Brunswick-Luneburg. He loved uniforms and was both lewd and loose, and Hanover was capable of resisting even Prussia.
Biography[]
Georg Wilhelm was the son of Christian Ludwig I of Hanover, and he became the Duke of Calenburg in 1648, ruling over Hanover in the last year of the Thirty Years War. Under his rule, Hanover forged an alliance with Great Britain against France during the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the Spanish Succession later in the 1600s.
In 1703, Georg Wilhelm was faced with a new threat: Sweden, a fellow Protestant nation, declared war, hoping to annex more lands for Swedish Pommerania. Georg Wilhelm was aided by Prussia and the United Provinces, but the Dutch left the alliance in 1704 after a crushing defeat in the Battle of Rostock. He died shortly after in 1705 and was succeeded by his granddaughter Luise Ulrike I of Hanover.
| Duke of Hanover | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Christian Ludwig I |
1648-1705 | Succeeded by: Luise Ulrike I |