Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover 21/22 December 1878, he and Princess Thyra married at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. Queen Victoria appointed the Duke of Cumberland a colonel in the British Army in 1876 and promoted him to major general in 1886, lieutenant general in 1892 and general in 1898. Although he was a British peer and a prince of Great Britain and Ireland, he continued to consider himself an exiled monarch of a German realm and refused to disclaim his succession rights to Hanover, making his home in Gmunden, Upper Austria. The Duke of Cumberland was also first in the line of succession to the
Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born 1954) nobility were abolished in 1919; thereafter for legal purposes, hereditary titles form part of the name only. In his British passport however, the prince is styled "His Royal Highness". While descendants of non-dynastic marriages may bear "Prinz/Prinzessin von Hannover Herzog/Herzogin zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg Königlicher Prinz/Prinzessin von Großbritannien und Irland" as surnames, they are not recognised as bearing titles or membership in the House of Hanover according to its house rules. Patrilineal descent, reckoned from father to son, was the principle of membership in Europe's dynasties, including that of Hanover. Monarchs of the House of Hanover belong patrilineally to the