Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick

Young Prince Anthony Ulrich

Anthony Ulrich was the second surviving son of the ducal couple; he and his siblings received a comprehensive education at the Wolfenbüttel court by scholars like Justus Georg Schottel and Sigmund von Birken, as well as by his art-minded stepmother Elisabeth Sophie of Mecklenburg (1613–1676). Anthony Ulrich's sister was Sibylle Ursula von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1629–1671),[1] who stood out as a writer and translator.

He studied at the University of Helmstedt where he obtained a doctorate in theology. On his Grand Tour, he travelled to Italy and the Low Countries, he met with Madeleine de Scudéry and became passionate about theatre. When he married Elisabeth Juliane (1633–1704), daughter of Duke Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Sønderburg-Norburg, in 1656, he wrote a stage play on this occasion.

Already his father consulted him in politics and the government business. After Augustus the Younger's death in 1666, Rudolph Augustus, Anthony Ulrich's elder brother, became reigning duke and made Anthony Ulrich his proxy. Rudolph Augustus had more interest in hunting and his library than in government affairs and left most decisions to his brother; in 1685, he officially made Anthony Ulrich a coregent with equal rights. The young prince united the forces of the Welf principalities to combat the rebellious City of Brunswick, whose citizens finally had to accept the ducal overlordship in 1671. In the following year, however, his main concern was the rivalry with his cousin Duke Ernest Augustus, who from 1679 ruled over the Brunswick Principality of Calenberg.

Duke Anthony Ulrich, portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud

After the Ernest Augustus had received the new ninth prince-electorship from Emperor Leopold I in 1692 and went on to rule as Elector of Hanover, tensions between the two states rose, as both Anthony Ulrich and Rudolph Augustus were dismayed that they had not received the electorship according to the right of primogeniture. While both Hanover under Ernest Augustus' son Elector George Louis and the Welf Principality of Lüneburg sided with the Habsburg emperor in the War of the Spanish Succession, Anthony Ulrich decided to enter into an agreement with King Louis XIV of France. This led to Hanover and Lüneburg forces invading the Principality of Wolfenbüttel in March 1702; Anthony Ulrich was almost captured while travelling from his Wolfenbüttel residence to Brunswick. By order of the emperor, Anthony Ulrich was deposed as duke against his brother's protestations, and Rudolph Augustus remained as the only Wolfenbüttel ruler, while Anthony Ulrich fled to Saxe-Gotha. In April 1702, Rudolph Augustus signed a treaty with Hanover and Lüneburg that Anthony Ulrich later agreed to.

After Rudolph Augustus' death in 1704, Anthony Ulrich took over government again. He continued to settle various disputes with his Hanover cousin George Louis, who in 1705 also inherited Lüneburg, until a final agreement between the two sister principalities was reached in 1706. Wolfenbüttel also renounced all claims to the former Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg and received several smaller estates in compensation.

It was now Anthony Ulrich's turn to approach the Imperial Habsburg dynasty. In 1704, he had concluded an agreement with his cousin Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg, wife of the future Emperor Joseph I, to marry his granddaughter Elisabeth Christine off to Joseph's brother Archduke Charles of Austria. The young woman was reluctant to convert to the Catholic faith, which she finally did in a solemn ceremony at Bamberg Cathedral on 1 May 1707. The marriage took place the next year in Vienna.

In 1709, Anthony Ulrich himself converted to the Catholic Church. He guaranteed to his subjects that this would not influence his government, although he allowed the consecration of the first Catholic church in Brunswick. He lived to see the election of Archduke Charles as Emperor Charles VI in 1711 and also the marriage of his granddaughter Charlotte Christine with Alexei Petrovich Romanov, son of Tsar Peter I, in the same year.

He died at the age of 80 at his Schloss Salzdahlum residence, which he had built, and was buried in the crypt of the Wolfenbüttel Marienkirche. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Augustus William.