jewels, loudly protested against her marriage, and refused to be present at it.
The reign of King Ernest was popular in Hanover. The personal interest which he took in the affairs of his people, compared with the absenteeism of his three immediate predecessors, compensated to a great extent for his unbending toryism. In 1840, when his power was firmly established, he granted his subjects a new constitution, which was based upon modern ideas, and, while maintaining the privileges of the aristocracy, recognised the right of the people to representation. The care which he took of the material interests of his people, his accessibility, and the way in which he identified himself with Hanover, made up for his roughness of manner and confidence in himself. In 1848 he was supported by his people, and was able to suppress with ease the beginnings of revolt. In England he became yet more unpopular owing to his conduct with regard to the Stade tolls (see The Stade Duties Considered, by William Hutt, M.P., London, 1839). Scandals, too, were associated with his name by the conduct of Mrs. Olivia Serres, who called herself Princess Olive of Cumberland, and claimed to be the king's legitimate daughter The king continued his interest in English politics, constantly corresponded with his old friends and the leaders of the tory party, and never swerved from the opinions of his youth. He had many domestic misfortunes; in 1841 he lost his wife, and his only son, afterwards George V of Hanover, was totally blind.
An interesting account of the court of Ernest of Hanover has been published by his English domestic chaplain (‘The Court and Times of King Ernest of Hanover,’ by the Rev. C. Allix Wilkinson), from which it appears that the character of the monarch remained the same throughout his life. He was always a plain, downright man, and his manners are well summed in the words of William IV, which were quoted to Mr. Wilkinson by Dean Wellesley: ‘Ernest is not a bad fellow, but if any one has a corn he is sure to tread on it.’ Of all the sons of George III he was the one who had the strongest will, the best intellect, and greatest courage.
King Ernest died on 18 Nov. 1851 at his palace of Herrenhausen, at the age of eighty, and was buried on the 26th amidst the universal grief of his people. ‘I have no objection to my body being exposed to the view of my loyal subjects,’ he wrote in his will, ‘that they may cast a last look at me, who never had any other object or wish than to contribute to their welfare and happiness, who have never consulted my own interests, while I endeavoured to correct the abuses and supply the wants which have arisen during a period of 150 years' absenteeism, and which are sufficiently explained by that fact.’ The inscription affixed to the statue of King Ernest in the Grande Place of Hanover bears the words, ‘Dem Landes Vater sein treues Volk.’
[There is no good biography of King Ernest of Hanover extant; of the obituary notices the most valuable are those in the Times, the Examiner, and in the Gent. Mag. for January 1852; for his military career see Jones's Narrative of the War in the Low Countries (London, 1795), the biographies in Philippart's Royal Military Calendar, and the record of the 15th hussars; for the attack on his life by Sellis, Jesse's Life of George III, iii. 541–6, and Rose's Diaries and Correspondence, ii. 437–46; for his quarrel with William IV see Stocqueler's Hist. of the Royal Horse Guards; for his political career the memoirs and journals, especially Pellew's Life of Lord Sidmouth and the Greville Journals; and for his later life Reminiscences of the Court and Times of King Ernest of Hanover, by the Rev. C. A. Wilkinson.]
ERNULF or ARNULF (1040–1124), bishop of Rochester, was of French birth (‘natione Gallus’), and brought up in Normandy at the famous monastery of the Bec, where Lanfranc his teacher and Anselm, his senior by about seven years, became lifelong friends. Ernulf, too, entered the order of St. Benedict, and long lived as a brother of the monastery of St. Lucian at Beauvais. It is probable that he is the Arnulf ‘the grammarian’ to whom St. Anselm refers (Ep. lv.) as proficient in the accidence (‘in declinationibus’), congratulating one Maurice for having the advantage of his instruction. But after a while the disorder occasioned by certain unruly elements in the house—we are left to guess the precise cause—made Ernulf seek another abode. He consulted his old master Lanfranc, now (it is implied) archbishop of Canterbury, who recommended him to come to England ‘quia ibi [at Beauvais] animam suam salvare non posset.’ So to Canterbury, some time after 1070, he came, and dwelt with the monks of Christ Church for all the days of Lanfranc, who died in 1089, and was made prior by Archbishop Anselm. He was careful for the fabric of the cathedral, and carried on Anselm's work, during his exile, of rebuilding the choir on a much extended and far grander plan than the previous structure of Lanfranc. The new choir was distinguished by its splendour of marbles and paintings, and of glass such as could nowhere else be seen in England.
