George I was born March 28, 1660, son of Ernest, Elector of Hanover and Sophia, granddaughter of James I. He was raised in the royal court of Hanover, a German province, and married Sophia, Princess

Hanover line

George I (1714-27 AD)

George I was born March 28, 1660, son of Ernest, Elector of Hanover and Sophia, granddaughter of James I. He was raised in the royal court of Hanover, a German province, and married Sophia, Princess of Zelle, in 1682. The marriage produced one son (the future George II) and one daughter (Sophia Dorothea, who married her cousin, Frederick William I, King of Prussia). After ruling England for thirteen years, George I died of a stroke on a journey to his beloved Hanover on October 11, 1727.

George, Elector of Hanover since 1698, ascended the throne upon the death of Queen Anne, under the terms of the 1701 Act of Settlement. His mother had recently died and he meticulously settled his affairs in Hanover before coming to England. He realized his position and considered the better of two evils to be the Whigs (the other alternative was the Catholic son of James II by Mary of Modena, James Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender). George knew that any decision was bound to offend at least half of the British population. His character and mannerisms were strictly German; he never troubled himself to learn the English language, and spent at least half of his time in Hanover.

The pale little 54 year-old man arrived in Greenwich on September 29, 1714, with a full retinue of German friends, advisors and servants (two of which, Mohamet and Mustapha, were Negroes captured during a Turkish campaign). All were determined to profit from the venture, with George leading the way. He also arrived with two mistresses and no wife - Sophia had been imprisoned for adultery. The English population was unkind to the two mistresses, labeling the tall, thin Ehrengard Melusina von Schulenberg as the "maypole", and the short, fat Charlotte Sophia Kielmansegge as the "elephant". Thackeray remarked, "Take what you can get was the old monarch's maxim... The German women plundered, the German secretaries plundered, the German cooks and attendants plundered, even Mustapha and Mohamet... had a share in the booty."

The Jacobites, legitimist Tories, attempted to depose George and replace him with the Old Pretender in 1715. The rebellion was a dismal failure. The Old Pretender failed to arrive in Britain until it was over and French backing evaporated with the death of Louis XIV. After the rebellion, England settled into a much needed time of peace, with internal politics and foreign affairs coming to the fore.

George's ignorance of the English language and customs actually became the cornerstone of his style of rule: leave England to it's own devices and live in Hanover as much as possible. Cabinet positions became of the utmost importance; the king's ministers represented the executive branch of government, while Parliament represented the legislative. George's frequent absences required the creation of the post of Prime Minister, the majority leader in the House of Commons who acted in the king's stead. The first was Robert Walpole, whose political mettle was tried in 1720 with the South Sea Company debacle. The South Sea Company was a highly speculative venture (one of many that was currently plaguing British economics at that time), whose investors cajoled government participation. Walpole resisted from the beginning, and after the venture collapsed and thousands were financially ruined, he worked feverishly to restore public credit and confidence in George's government. His success put him in the position of dominating British politics for the next 20 years, and the reliance on an executive Cabinet marked an important step in the formation of a modern constitutional monarchy in England.

George avoided entering European conflicts by establishing a complex web of continental alliances. He and his Whig ministers were quite skillful; the realm managed to stay out of war until George II declared war on Spain in 1739. George I and his son, George II, literally hated each other, a fact that the Tory party used to gain political strength. George I, on his many trips to Hanover, never placed the leadership of government in his son's hands, preferring to rely on his ministers when he was abroad. This disdain between father and son was a blight which became a tradition in the House of Hanover.

Thackeray, in The Four Georges, allows both a glimpse of George I's character, and the circumstances under which he ruled England: "Though a despot in Hanover, he was a moderate ruler in England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much as possible, and to live out of it as much as he could. His heart was in Hanover. He was more than fifty-four years of age when he came amongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept us assuredly from Popery and wooden shoes. I, for one, would have been on his side in those days. Cynical, and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king out of St. Germains [the Old Pretender] with a French King's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train."

George II (1727-60 AD)

George II was born November 10, 1683, the only son of George I and Sophia. His youth was spent in the Hanoverian court in Germany, and he married Caroline of Anspach in 1705. He was truly devoted to Caroline; she bore him three sons and five daughters, and actively participated in government affairs, before she died in 1737. Like his father, George was very much a German prince, but at the age of 30 when George I ascended the throne, he was young enough to absorb the English culture that escaped his father. George II died of a stroke on October 25, 1760.

George possessed three passions: the army, music and his wife. He was exceptionally brave and has the distinction of being the last British sovereign to command troops in the field (at Dettingen against the French in 1743). He inherited his father's love of opera, particularly the work of George Frederick Handel, who had been George I's court musician in Hanover. Caroline proved to be his greatest asset. She revived traditional court life (which had all but vanished under George I, was fiercely intelligent and an ardent supporter of Robert Walpole. Walpole continued in the role of Prime Minister at Caroline's behest, as George was loathe keeping his father's head Cabinet member. The hatred George felt towards his father was reciprocated by his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in 1751.

Walpole retired in 1742, after establishing the foundation of the modern constitutional monarchy: a Cabinet responsible to a Parliament, which was, in turn, responsible to an electorate. At that time, the system was far from truly democratic; the electorate was essentially the voice of wealthy landowners and mercantilists. The Whig party was firmly in control, although legitimist Tories attempted one last Jacobite rebellion in 1745, by again trying to restore a Stuart to the throne. Prince Charles Edward Stuart, known as the Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed in Scotland and marched as far south as Derby, causing yet another wave of Anti-Catholicism to wash over England. The Scots retreated, and in 1746, were butchered by the Royal Army at Culloden Moor. Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped to France and died in Rome. The Tories became suspect due to their associations with Jacobitism, ensuring oligarchic Whig rule for the following fifty years.

Walpole managed to keep George out of continental conflicts for the first twelve years of the reign, but George declared war on Spain in 1739, against Walpole's wishes. The Spanish war extended into the 1740's as a component of the War of Austrian Succession, in which England fought against French dominance in Europe. George shrank away from the situation quickly: he negotiated a hasty peace with France, to protect Hanover. The 1750's found England again at war with France, this time over imperial claims. Fighting was intense in Europe, but North America and India were also theatres of the war. Government faltering in response to the French crisis brought William Pitt the Elder, later Earl of Chatham, to the forefront of British politics.

Thackeray describes George II and Walpole as such, in The Four Georges "... how he was a choleric little sovereign; how he shook his fist in the face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked his coat and wig about in his rages; and called everybody thief, liar, rascal with whom he differed: you will read in all the history books; and how he speedily and shrewdly reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom he had hated during his father's life, and by whom he was served during fifteen years of his own with admirable prudence, fidelity, and success. But for Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender back again."

George III (1760-1820 AD)

George III was born in 1738, first son of Frederick, Prince of Wales and Augusta. He married Charlotte of Mecklinburg-Strelitz in 1761, to whom he was devoted. The couple produced a prolific fifteen children: nine sons and six daughters. George was afflicted with porphyria, a maddening disease which disrupted his reign as early as 1765. Several attacks strained his grip on reality and debilitated him in the last years of his reign. Personal rule was given to his son George, the Prince Regent, in 1811. George III died blind, deaf and mad at Windsor Castle on January 29, 1820.

George III succeeded his grandfather, George II, in 1760 (Frederick, Prince of Wales, had died in 1751 having never ruled). George was determined to recover the prerogative lost to the ministerial council by the first two Georges; in the first two decades of the reign, he methodically weakened the Whig party through bribery, coercion and patronage. Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder was toppled by Whigs after the Peace of Paris, and men of mediocre talent and servile minds were hand-picked by George as Cabinet members, acting as little more than yes-men. Bouts with madness and the way he handled the American Revolution eroded his support and the power of the Crown was granted again to the Prime Minister.

The Peace of Paris (1763) ended the Seven Years' War with France, with the strenuous, anti-French policies of the elder Pitt emphasizing naval superiority in the colonial warfare. Great Britain emerged from the conflict as the world's greatest colonial power. England thrived under peacetime conditions, but George's commitment to taxing the American colonies to pay for military protection led to hostilities in 1775. The colonists proclaimed independence in 1776, but George obstinately continued the war until the final American victory at Yorktown in 1781. The Peace of Versailles, signed in 1783, ensured British acknowledgment of the United States of America. The defeat cost George dearly: his sanity was stretched to the breaking point and his political power decreased when William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister in 1783. George reclaimed some of his power, driving Pitt from office from 1801-04, but his condition worsened again and he ceased to rule in 1811.

The peace following the French war settlement was short-lived. A mere ten years later, England joined a continental alliance against French revolutionary forces who, after gaining power in France, sought total French hegemony across Europe. By 1797, the largest part of Europe was under French dominance, with England standing alone against the revolutionary Republic. The British Navy again proved decisive, defeating French forces at Camperdown, Cape St. Vincent and the Battle of the Nile in 1797, and finally at Copenhagen in 1801. Peace was negotiated at Amiens in 1802, with the French supreme on land and the British at sea. Napoleon Bonaparte seized supreme power in France at the turn of the century, and renewed attacks against England in 1803. Hostilities with France lasted until 1814 taking several forms. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, led the land attack; the navy, commanded by Lord Horatio Nelson won the decisive battle off Cape Trafalgar, and imposed a blockade of Europe to offset Napoleon's " continental system" which was forbidden from importing British goods; and the younger Pitt guided the government through the hardships of total war. In addition to the continental conflict, England went to war again with the United States between 1812-14, over the British practice of pressing American seamen into service in the British Navy. Both conflicts were resolved in 1814; Napoleon was deposed and England agreed not to abscond with American sailors. Napoleon returned to Europe briefly in 1815, but was soundly defeated by continental forces led by Wellington.

Other events and people also marked the reign. A second Act of Union was passed in 1801, bringing Ireland under the umbrella of Great Britain until the Government of Ireland Act (1920) established the modern arrangement. Slave trade was abolished in 1807, although slavery continued in British colonies until 1833. Population increases, improvements in agricultural and industrial methods and a revolution in transportation spurred British economic growth. English literature was graced by some of its best known authors: Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats were among the writers of the era.

George's madness ultimately left the fate of the crown on his eldest son George, Prince Regent. Prince George was put in the daunting position of attempting to govern according to the increasingly erratic will of his father. A letter received by novelist E. M. Frostier from his aunt, Marine Thornton, describes the situation: "... there he was sitting on the Throne with his King's Crown on, his robes scarlet and ermine, and held his speech written out for him, just what he had to say. But, oh dear, he strode up and made a bow and began "My Lords and Peacocks'. The people who were not fond of him laughed, the people who did love him cried, and he went back to be no longer a king, and his eldest son reigned in his stead".

George IV (1820-30 AD)

George IV, eldest son of George III and Charlotte, was born August 12, 1762. He secretly married his first wife, the Catholic widow Maria Fitzherbert, in 1785 without his father's permission. The marriage was declared illegal at his father's behest; had the marriage been allowed to continue, George would have been ineligible to reign with a Catholic wife. In 1795, he married again, this time to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick, who bore him one daughter, Charlotte. He died on June 26, 1830 after a series of strokes brought on a hemorrhage in his stomach.

George IV was the antithesis of his father: conservative in his infrequent political involvement and licentious in affairs of the heart. Although he was scandalous with his mistresses and extravagant in his spending, he was a patron of the arts who left many wonderful artifacts for posterity. He had his father's immense book collection donated as the foundation of the British Museum Library and his penchant for building projects inspired the "Regency" style of architecture. His extravagances, however, came at a time of social distress and general misery following the Napoleonic Wars and the tremendous changes brought forth by the industrial revolution.

George's amorous nature was highly controversial. As Prince Regent, he had many mistresses until he secretly married Maria. After her dismissal from court, George again turned to mistresses until he submitted to his father's wishes by marrying Caroline. The couple detested each other and their marriagewas barely intact when their daughter was born in 1796. Caroline took the child and moved to Italy, returning to England when George succeeded his father, and then only to claim the rights of queen. George managed to have her barred from his coronation, denying her queenship.

George was an enigma: bright, witty and able on the one hand, indolent, spoiled, and lazy on the other. The Duke of Wellington described him as such: "He was the most extraordinary compound of talent, wit, buffoonery, obstinacy, and good feelings, in short, a medley of the most opposite qualities, with a great preponderance of good - that I ever saw in any character in my life."

William IV (1830-37 AD)

William IV, born August 21, 1765, was the third son of George III and Sophia. He cohabited with the actress Mrs. Dorothea Jordan from 1791-1811, who bore him ten illegitimate children. Upon the death of Princess Charlotte, daughter and heir of George IV, the surviving children of George III were required to hastily make arrangements to secure the Hanoverian succession; William abandoned Mrs. Jordan and, after several rebuffs, married Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg and Meinengein, who bore him two daughters (both of which died in early childhood). William IV died of pneumonia on June 20, 1837, leaving no legitimate children.

William succeeded his brother, George IV, and was welcomed with open arms by the British public, who had grown weary of the excesses of the fourth George. William possessed an unassuming character, exemplary private life and disdain for pomp and ceremony. Court life became somewhat lackluster, adding to the generally low opinion that had formed concerning the monarchy. William did little to counteract such feelings, but never generated the embarrassment and scandal of his Hanoverian predecessors.

Parliamentary reform was the order of the day. The county franchise had not been updated since its inception during the reign of Henry VI, in 1430. Only freeholders in the counties were eligible to vote; separate boroughs required various qualifications to vote. The industrial and agricultural revolutions, increases in population and trade and migration from the country to the city left England with a dilapidated, ineffective system of representation that only benefited the aristocracy. Lord Grey, with William's support, pushed a reform bill through the Commons in 1831, which was defeated by paranoid Peers in the House of Lords. A second bill was offered and likewise defeated. In 1832, the third version of the bill passed in both chambers, but only because William threatened to create enough new peerages to insure passage of the bill. The Reform Act of 1832 extended the voting franchise to middle class land owners and became the basis for further acts which eventually enfranchised all adult subjects.

The fight for democracy was sweeping Europe, with dire consequences for royalty. William's unremarkable character was instrumental in England passing through this era unscathed. He was the only European monarch of the age to survive the advent of democracy. Upon the death of the unimpressive king, the Spectator issued the following eulogy: "His late Majesty, though at times a jovial and, for a king, an honest man, was a weak, ignorant, commonplace sort of person." His death separated the joint rule of England and Hanover: his niece Victoria ascended the throne of England, but was barred by Salic law from ruling in Hanover, which passed into the hands of William's brother Ernest, Duke of Cumberland.

Victoria (1837-1901 AD)

Victoria, born May 24, 1819, was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Edward died when Victoria was but eight months old, upon which her mother enacted a strict regimen that, shunned the courts of Victoria's uncles, George IV and William IV. She married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840; the union produced four sons and five daughters. She died at eighty-one years of age on January 22, 1901, after a reign of sixty-three years.

She ascended the throne upon the death of William IV. Barely eighteen, she refused any further influence from her domineering mother and ruled in her own stead. Popular respect for the Crown was at low point at her coronation, but the modest and straightforward young Queen won the hearts of her subjects. She wished to be informed of political matters, although she had no direct input in policy decisions. The Reform Act of 1832 had set the standard of legislative authority residing in the House of Lords, with executive authority resting within a cabinet formed of members of the House of Commons; the monarch was essentially removed from the loop. She respected and worked well with Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister in the early years of her reign, and England grew both socially and economically.

Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, who replaced Melbourne as the dominant male influence in Victoria's life. She was thoroughly devoted to him and completely submitted to his will. The public, however, was not enamored with the German prince; he was excluded from holding any official political position, was never granted a title of peerage and was named Prince Consort only after 17 years of marriage. Victoria did nothing without her husband's approval. His interests in art, science and industry spurred him to organize the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, a highly profitable industrial convention. He used the proceeds, some £186,000, to purchase lands in Kensington for the establishment of several cultural and industrial museums. His death from typhoid in 1861 deeply affected Victoria's psyche - she went into seclusion for more than 25 years, not emerging until the Golden Jubilee of 1887, the celebration of her fiftieth year on the throne. An entire generation was raised without ever having seen the face of their Queen.

The reform of government allowed England to avoid the politically tumultuous conditions sweeping across Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. The continent experienced the growing pains of conservatism, liberalism and socialism, and the nationalistic struggle for political unification. England focused on developing industry and trade and expanding its imperial reach; during the reign of Victoria, the empire doubled in size, encompassing Canada, Australia, India and various locales in Africa and the South Pacific. Her reign was almost free of war, with an Irish uprising (1848), the Boer Wars in South Africa (1881, 1899-1902) and an Indian rebellion (1857) being the only exceptions. Victoria was named Empress of India in 1878. England avoided continental conflict from 1815 through 1914, the lone exception being the Crimean War (1853-56). The success in avoiding European entanglements was, in large part, due to the marriage of Victoria's children: either directly or by marriage, she was related to the royal houses of Germany, Russia, Greece, Rumania, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Belgium. Nicholas II of Russia was married to Victoria's granddaughter Alexandra, earning him the nickname "dear Nicky", and the dreaded Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was her grandson "Willy". During her seclusion, she ruled her family with the iron hand that was denied her by the English constitutional arrangement.

The old political parties of England, the Whigs and the Tories transformed during the reign of Victoria. John Peel's support of the Corn Law Repeal splintered the Tories into two camps. Peel's supporters joined with Whigs to create the Liberal Party and the anti-Peel Tories became the Conservative Party. Unlike most of Europe, English politicians agreed on the larger issues of governmental structure and political ideology, but differed on the smaller issues of policy practicality and implementation. Liberals represented traders and manufacturers, with Conservatives representing the landed gentry. Victoria's role after this political realignment was one of mediation between departing and arriving Prime Ministers (the Prime Minister was chosen by the party in control of the House of Commons). She was particularly fond of Conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who, by linking Victoria to the expansion of the empire, garnered respect for the monarchy that had been lacking since Victoria's seclusion. She despised the other prominent Prime Minister of the day, the Liberal William Gladstone, whose party dominated Parliament from 1846-1874. Even in the throes of grief during her seclusion, Victoria gave close attention to daily business and administration, at a time when England was evolving politically and socially. Legislation passed in the era included the Mines Act (1842), The Education Act (1870), The Public Health and Artisan's Dwelling Acts (1875), Trade Union Acts (1871 and 1876) and Reform Acts in 1867 and 1884 which broadened suffrage.

The national pride connected with the name of Victoria - the term Victorian England, for example, stemmed from the Queen's ethics and personal tastes, which generally reflected those of the middle class. The Golden Jubilee brought her out of her shell, and she again embraced public life. She toured English possessions and even visited France (the first English monarch to do so since the coronation of Henry VI in 1431). When she died of old age, an entire era died with her.

Victoria's long reign witnessed an evolution in English politics and the expansion of the British Empire, as well as political and social reforms on the continent. France had known two dynasties and embraced Republicanism, Spain had seen three monarchs and both Italy and Germany had united their separate principalities into national coalitions. Even in her dotage, she maintained a youthful energy and optimism that infected the English population as a whole.

Lytton Strachey chronicled her last days with the sentimentality that had developed by the end of her reign, in the biography, Queen Victoria: " By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century it was clear that her dwindling forces were kept together only by an effort of will. On January 14, she had at Osbourne an hour's interview with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few days before. She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when the audience was over, there was a collapse. On the following day her medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England. But after that there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last optimism of those about her break down. The brain was failing and life was gently slipping away. Her family gathered round her; for a little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on January 22, 1901, she died." Victoria's was the longest reign in English history.

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