George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (17 February 1582, in Celle – 12 April 1641, in Hildesheim), ruled as Prince of Calenberg from 1635. He was a member of the House of Welf, a prominent German noble family. George was part of a cadet branch of the family known as the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which held territories in what is now Lower Saxony in Germany. George was the sixth son of William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1535–1592) and Dorothea of Denmark (1546–1617). His mother was daughter to King Christian III of Denmark and Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg. She acted as a regent during the early years of his reign, keeping power from the Councillors who had mismanaged the estates during his father's fits of insanity. In the 1635 re-division of the territories of the House of Welf, after the death of Frederick Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, he received the Principality of Calenberg, which included the former Principality of Göttingen, since 1495, while his elder brother, Augustus the Elder, retained the Principality of Lüneburg. George was the first duke to move his residence to Hanover, where he built the Leineschloss as his residence in 1636, a palace situated by the river Leine. After his death, he was succeeded by his son, Christian Louis.

Children

George married Anne Eleonore of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Louis V, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Magdalene of Brandenburg, in 1617. They had the following known children:

Ancestry

George's Paternal Great-grandmother Ursula of Brandenburg and Maternal Great-grandmother Anna of Brandenburg were sisters. This meant his parents were second cousins, giving George an inbreeding coefficient of 0.015625.

Descendants

See List of members of the House of Hanover.

Popular culture

He is a character in the Eric Flint series of science fiction novels, The Ring of Fire as the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a moderate conservative member of the Crown Loyalist faction, and commander of a division in the Army of the United States of Europe.