Kingdom of Hanover years of George III's reign and the reigns of kings George IV and William IV from 1816 to 1837, was Adolph Frederick, George III's youngest surviving son. When Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne in 1837, the 123-year personal union of Great Britain and Hanover ended. Salic law operated in Hanover, excluding accession to the throne by a female while any male of the dynasty survived; thus instead of Victoria, her uncle in the male-line of the House of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, now the eldest surviving son of George III, succeeded to the throne of the new kingdom as
Kingdom of Hanover with some smaller states to form the current state of Lower Saxony in West Germany, later Germany. The territory of Hanover had earlier been a principality within the Holy Roman Empire before being elevated into an electorate in 1708, when Hanover was formed by union of the dynastic divisions of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, excepting the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. After his accession in 1714, George Louis of the House of Hanover ascended the throne of Great Britain as George I, and Hanover was joined in a personal union with Great Britain. Descendants of Hanoverians who fought alongside the British in