1⁄12 Thaler - Rudolph August and Anthony Ulrich

Rudolph August and Anthony Ulrich co-ruled Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in an arrangement that was, by most contemporary accounts, deeply uncomfortable. Rudolph August, the elder brother, had governed alone since 1666 but faced mounting pressure — partly from the Emperor, partly from within the family — to bring Anthony Ulrich into formal co-regency, which he reluctantly accepted in 1685. Anthony Ulrich was the more ambitious and culturally forceful of the two, a novelist and court architect in his own right, while Rudolph August largely withdrew from active governance in his final years before his death in 1704 ended the joint reign.