Duchy of Gifhorn

The duchy was founded when Duke Francis of Brunswick-Lüneburg returned in 1536 after many years at the court of the Electorate of Saxony in Wittenberg.

He demanded from his older brother, Duke Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg (known as the Confessor due to his espousal of Lutheran doctrine), to have his own duchy as an inheritance and pressed for a division of the state.

Because his demands for the entire eastern half of the dukedom were unacceptable, not least due to the serious debt carried by the state, he was given the Ämter of Gifhorn, Fallersleben and Isenhagen Abbey, near Hankensbüttel, in 1539.

The Duchy of Gifhorn was a small, easily managed lordship, in which Duke Francis could indulge freely in his noble image of himself and attend to his princely representational duties.

His marriage in 1547 to Clara of Saxe-Lauenburg at Ratzeburg only lasted three years because the duke died at the age of 41 from a wound infection.