Monarchy

George I

Georg Ludwig was the son of the duke of Braunsweig-Lüneburg (also known as Hanover) and Sophia, the grand-daughter of James VI and the chosen successor to the British throne according to the Act of Settlement 1701.

In 1682, he married his first cousin Sophia of Celle. After she produced a son and a daughter, the couple were estranged. Georg preferred his mistress Ehrengard Melusine von der Schulenburg, with whom he eventually had at least three illegitimate children. Sophia had an affair with a Swedish count, with whom it appears she planned to elope. Instead Georg bribed four of his courtiers to murder the count and throw his body in a river. After their marriage was dissolved because she had 'abandoned' her husband, Georg had Sophia imprisoned in a castle, denied access to her children and father and forbidden to remarry.

After Queen Anne died at the beginning of August 1714, the 58-year-old George, as he now signed himself in English, took six weeks to arrive in England. As he and his German advisers appointed his first ministry and prepared for his coronation on 20 October, the 'Old Pretender' James Francis Edward remained in France, waiting for his followers to rally support in Scotland and, if possible, in England. However, the self-proclaimed 'James III' was defeated in both England and Scotland, and on the night of 4 February 1716, he secretly took ship for France. He never saw Britain again.

George I was the second foreign king that the English had had in 30 years. Indeed, he was much more foreign than William of Orange, the Dutchman who had replaced the Stuart James II on the throne in 1689. After all, William had spoken fluent English and had been married to an English princess.

George, on the other hand, was resolutely, unremittingly German: he arrived with German ministers, German-speaking Turkish body-servants and a determination to further the interests of his native Hanover, where he went whenever he could and stayed as long as possible. Subsequently, he never learned more than a few words of broken English. It was all neatly symbolised by his heraldry, which showed the white horse of Hanover superimposed on the British royal coat-of-arms.

Moreover, the German takeover of 1714 had almost as great political consequences as the Dutch conquest of 1689. The desire to get rid of the Catholic James II had united the Tories with their Whig opponents, and for the following 30 years, the two parties had continued to alternate in power. But George saw things very differently. Passionately interested in military affairs, he blamed the Tories for the Peace of Utrecht, which had for the sake of peace given back to France most of what it had lost in the War of the Spanish Succession. He blamed them even more for their continuing flirtation with the exiled House of Stuart, and he lost no time in making his feelings known.

After he landed in England, George held his first British court in the Queen's House at Greenwich. There he paraded his high regard for the leaders of the Whigs (the party that wanted to limit the powers of the monarchy) but administered a very public snub to the leader of the Tories (who traditionally supported the crown): the king allowed him to kiss his hands but said nothing to him in return.

It was clear that, if George had anything to do with it, the sun would shine on the Whigs, while the Tories were destined for the wilderness. And George did have a lot to do with it: royal influence, combined with a distaste at the Tories' unreliability about the Hanoverian succession, helped win the Whigs a comfortable majority in the Commons. It was a century before the Tories would win another general election and 60 years before a Tory would hold high political office.

The resulting long Whig domination has been hailed as the restoration of political stability. It could equally be characterised as six decades of one-party rule, with all the problems that that entails. For instance, with the Tories out of the way, the Whigs fell to fighting among themselves, and this struggle became linked with another, within the new German royal family.

'The Hanoverians,' it has been cruelly said, 'like pigs, trample their young.' Worst was the mutual loathing of fathers and eldest sons, and this was certainly true of George and his eldest son, George, prince of Wales. Matters between them came to a head in 1716, when the king, who had been pining for Germany, returned to Hanover for a six-month visit.

Custom dictated that the prince should have been left as regent. Instead, an obscure medieval precedent was dug out and he was created 'guardian and lieutenant of the realm' with severely restricted powers. However, when, in July, the prince and princess and their daughters moved to Hampton Court, George junior was the figure-head of government and he and his wife Caroline were determined to exploit it.

In a jealous rage, George I heard of his son's popularity. When he returned to England, he entered – against all his instincts and preferences – into a public relations war with the prince. And, the following summer, the king took up residence at Hampton Court, alongside the prince and princess. In uncomfortable proximity in the same building, the two adjacent but rival courts continued to maintain different styles: the King's studiously informal, the Wales's preserving something of the traditional formality of the English court.

The two-camp court continued until the end of George I's reign, with a short reconciliation brokered by Robert Walpole in 1720. On 22 June 1727, the king died – fittingly, on the way to Hanover.

Portrait of the modest king George I as an English gentleman, painted in 1717 by Godfrey Kneller akg-images
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George I (1714–27)
www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon53
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Entertaining account of George I's ascendancy to the throne and the manner in which he ruled.

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