In 1714, the death of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, brought the first of the Hanoverian line to the throne of the new Kingdom of Great Britain.
The name "Hanoverian" name derives from the German principality of they ruled, Hanover. The first four Hanoverian kings were named George, and the period 1714 to 1830 is often called the Georgian Age.
Hanover was one of some three hundred states that made up the Holy Roman Empire. As Voltaire correctly quipped, it was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. It had developed in the Middle Ages into a confederation of mainly German states presided over loosely by emperors from the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty.
The prince of Hanover was an Elector, one of seven in the "empire." Their title came from their right to select the emperors. Since the 15th century they had always elected the emperors from the Habsburgs.
In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became king of Great Britain, in accordance with the Act of Settlement of 1701. That act of Parliament barred Roman Catholics from inheriting the throne and provided that upon Queen Anne's death, the throne would pass to her closest Protestant heir. In 1701 that was George's mother Sophia, but she died just weeks before Anne. [Image: George I, by Sir Godfrey Kneller]
Most Britons grudgingly accepted their new foreign king. he might be German but at least he was not French or Catholic. The first two Georges were never exactly popular.
A few months after George I's coronation, Scottish Jacobites rose on behalf of the exiled Catholic Stuart claimant, James "III," son of James II & VII. Their rebellion was quickly crushed, as were other risings and plots, but the threat of a successful Jacobite coup was not ended until the 1750s.
George I was not the kind of person to inspire devotion or enthusiasm, even in his own family. He and his wife detested one another. Before inheriting the British crown, he had possibly murdered her lover. He also imprisoned her for life.
George I arrived in England with two mistresses. He promptly conferred titles on them. One was tall and thin, the other large and heavy. The English dubbed them the Maypole and the Elephant.
George I's heir, also called George, hated him, and the feeling was mutual. This family dynamic became a feature of the reigns of the first three Hanoverian kings. Father and heir never got on.
The reigns of the first two Georges were marked by significant political developments. Parliament continued its march towards supremacy. The office of Prime Minister emerged for the first time. The job had -- and still has -- no existence in law. Like so much of the British political system, it is the product of traditional usage.
Historians generally accord the title of the first Prime Minister to Sir Robert Walpole. He rejected the title, which began as a term of scorn. An MP from Norfolk, he rose to power due to his administrative ability and skill in maintaining a working majority in Parliament. He also benefited from being a Whig.
The Whigs were firm supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty. The Tories were much less enthusiastic. George I suspected that some Tories were closet Jacobites, and he was not entirely wrong. He favored Whig politicians and chose his ministers from their ranks.
George I's reign ushered in what British historians have called the Whig Supremacy. It lasted until the 1760s. Walpole's tenure as prime minister lasted from 1721 to 1742, making him the longest serving as well as the first prime minister. His ascendancy was sometimes called the "Robinocracy" from Walpole's nickname, Robin.
An event we can relate to these days helped bring Walpole to power. It was The South Sea Bubble, a financial crash involving the South Sea Company. It was a monopoly company established in 1714 to trade with the Spanish empire in America, a trade in slaves and manufactured goods.
The Company promised huge profits. It attracted many investors, including Walpole himself, who did well from it. A buying mania ensued and shares skyrocketed in price. But the great profits never materialized. The South Sea Company was essentially a Ponzi scheme.
The company's crash exposed corruption on the part of its directors, who included leading government ministers. Their disgrace and Walpole's adroit management of the fallout left him in command of the cabinet. He also earned the admiration of the king for protecting his mistresses, who had been involved in the scheme, from prosecution. George I relied on Walpole to lead the government for the rest of his reign.
George II, who inherited the throne in 1727, intended to replace Walpole, who he disliked for siding with his father. His politically astute queen, Caroline of Anspach, urged him to retain Sir Robert.
Although George also took mistresses, he was devoted to Caroline and listened to her. He helped keep Walpole in power for another fifteen years. In 1735 he gifted the house at 10 Downing Street to Walpole. It has been the residence of British prime ministers ever since.
Unfortunately for Walpole, Queen Caroline died in 1737. George II was devastated. As she lay dying, he promised that he would never take another wife, only mistresses. He kept his promise.
[Image: George II and Queen Caroline]
Walpole's position was secure as long as he maintained the support of a majority in Parliament and the support of the monarch. Getting and keeping the majority was a difficult and unedifying business. It required lots of promises, threats, and above all, bribes.
The bribes included titles, lucrative government jobs, and pensions. It was a constant balancing act, because the number of bribes available was always insufficient for the number of those seeking them.
I don't mean to claim that Walpole's political system was uniquely corrupt. It is how even "democratic" governments function to some extent even now, although the bribes may be different.
[Image: Speaker Onslow, center, calling upon Walpole, left, to speak in the House of Commons, by William Hogarth, 1730]
Walpole was able to keep things running fairly smoothly into the early 1730s. After that, he faced increasing opposition from disgruntled Whigs who called themselves the "Patriots." As an opposition, they were more effective and dangerous than the Tories. They also had the support of Frederick Prince of Wales, who true to Hanoverian form, despised his father.
The Patriots claimed that under Walpole the executive had become too powerful, the government too centralized for the good of the country. Their trump card was their attacks on Walpole's foreign policy.
Walpole favored a peaceful foreign policy, emphasizing negotiation and the promotion of trade. He was able to keep Britain out of war for most of his premiership. The Patriots denounced what they claimed was his failure to take a firm stand against the machinations of England's traditional enemies, France and Spain.
Their constant criticism gradually ate away like acid at Walpole's support in the country and Parliament. In the late 1730s the Patriots helped to whip up public demands for war against Spain. The pretext was Spanish mistreatment of British merchants trading to the Caribbean. The goal was to seize wealth and land from Spain's American colonies.
In 1739, Walpole gave way to the public clamor, and declared war. The "War of Jenkin's Ear" followed, named for an English ship captain who alleged that a Spanish coast guard officer inspecting his vessel had cut off his ear. Jenkins brought to Parliament, sparking widespread outrage.
The war did not go well. The opposition blamed Walpole's policies and forced him from office in 1742. George II was nearly as devastated as when Caroline died. He wept on hearing that Walpole resigned, and awarded the former prime minister a seat in the House of Lords, as Earl of Orford.
[Image: Walpole painted as a ranger at Richmond Park by John Wooten]
The War of Jenkins Ear merged with a broader European war in the early 1740s, the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain was now at war with France as well as Spain. The war ended in stalemate in 1748.
The War of the Austrian Succession is notable in the history of the monarchy for one fun fact: it was the last time a British king led troops in battle, in 1743. The clash at Dettingen in Germany was technically a British/Hanoverian victory but had little effect on the outcome of the war. [Image: George II at Dettingen by John Wooten]
The same war also saw the last battle fought on British soil, at Culloden near Inverness in Scotland. In April 1746, a Hanoverian army cornered and crushed Jacobite forces under Charles Edward Stuart, AKA Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Culloden was more a massacre than a battle. Responsibility for the atrocities that followed belonged to William, Duke of Cumberland, a son of George II. Scots named a smelly weed toxic to horses after him: Stinking Billy.
In retrospect, Culloden marked the end of the Jacobite threat to the Hanoverian dynasty. It also led to the destruction of the clan system in the Scottish Highlands, and eventually, the forced emigration of most Highland people to the Lowlands and other realms: Canada, the USA, Australia, and beyond.
Today there are fewer people in the Highlands than in the 18th century. Sheep, hunters, and fishermen replaced the people, then tourists seeking the "romance" of the wild mountains, lochs, and glens.
The peace of 1748 was merely a truce. By the mid 1750s Britain was once again at war with France, and eventually, Spain. It began in America, where it is still called the French and Indian War. It merged again into a broader European War, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763).
The Seven Years' War started badly for Britain. It ended in triumph. The turnaround derived in large part from the leadership and strategies of William Pitt, who directed the war effort from 1757. Pitt was a leading member of the Patriot group of Whigs.
[Image: William Pitt the Elder, later first Earl of Chatham by William Hoare]
George II hated Pitt. In addition to his constant attacks on the government and management of the war, Pitt had alleged that British interests were being sacrificed to the interests of Hanover, which he called "that despicable electorate."
The king tried to keep Pitt out of government. He succeeded for several years. But as defeat followed defeat, he was forced to relent in 1757, and Pitt entered the cabinet to manage the war.
Whether it was due to Pitt's leadership or not, cictory followed victory from 1758 on. New France (Canada and the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi) became part of the British Empire, as did Spanish Florida and chunks of India and Africa.
George II did not live to see the outcome. By1760, he was blind in one eye and nearly deaf. On October 25, he died of heart failure (aortic dissection) while in his close stool (toilet) -- a rather undignified death for a king.
On the plus side, George II lived to be 77, longer than any previous British monarch. He had outlived his eldest son and heir, Frederick, who died in 1754. He was succeeded by his grandson, who became George III, the first Hanoverian monarch born in Britain.
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