4 Mariengroschen - George II William

Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle existed as a separate duchy only until 1705, when the line died out with Georg Wilhelm and the territory was absorbed into Hanover. The 4 Mariengroschen denomination was a workhorse of northern German petty commerce during the 1660s, circulating alongside the fractional coinage of a dozen neighboring states whose borders shifted almost as frequently as their dynastic alliances. Georg Wilhelm's reign was complicated from the outset by a 1658 agreement with his brothers that required him to remain unmarried — a condition he eventually violated by legitimizing his morganatic union with Éléonore d'Esmier.