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Elector of Hanover, First Lord of the Treasury, George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, South Sea Bubble
Within a year of George’s accession the Whigs won an overwhelming victory in the general election of 1715. Several members of the defeated Tory Party sympathised with the Jacobites, who sought to replace George with Anne’s Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart (called “James III and VIII” by his supporters and “the Pretender” by his opponents).
George’s distrust of the Tories aided the passing of power to the Whigs. Whig dominance grew to be so great under George that the Tories did not return to power for another half-century. After the election, the Whig-dominated Parliament passed the Septennial Act 1715, which extended the maximum duration of Parliament to seven years (although it could be dissolved earlier by the Sovereign).
After his accession in Great Britain, George’s relationship with his son (which had always been poor) worsened. George Augustus, Prince of Wales, encouraged opposition to his father’s policies, including measures designed to increase religious freedom in Britain and expand Hanover’s German territories at Sweden’s expense.
In 1717 the birth of a grandson (future Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales) led to a major quarrel between George and the Prince of Wales. The king, supposedly following custom, appointed the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Newcastle, as one of the baptismal sponsors of the child. The king was angered when the Prince of Wales, disliking Newcastle, verbally insulted the Duke at the christening, which the Duke misunderstood as a challenge to a duel.
The Prince was told to leave the royal residence, St. James’s Palace. The Prince’s new home, Leicester House, became a meeting place for the king’s political opponents. George and his son were later reconciled at the insistence of Robert Walpole and the desire of the Princess of Wales, who had moved out with her husband but missed her children, who had been left in the king’s care. But after the quarrel at the baptism, father and son were never again on cordial terms.
George-Augustus (George II) as Prince of Wales in 1716. Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
In Hanover, the king was an absolute monarch. All government expenditure above 50 thalers (between 12 and 13 British pounds), and the appointment of all army officers, all ministers, and even government officials above the level of copyist, was in his personal control. By contrast in Great Britain, George had to govern through Parliament.
In 1715 when the Whigs came to power, George’s chief ministers included Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Townshend (Walpole’s brother-in-law), Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland. In 1717 Townshend was dismissed, and Walpole resigned from the Cabinet over disagreements with their colleagues; Stanhope became supreme in foreign affairs, and Sunderland the same in domestic matters.
The economic crisis, known as the South Sea Bubble, made George and his ministers extremely unpopular. In 1721 Lord Stanhope, though personally innocent, collapsed and died after a stressful debate in the House of Lords, and Lord Sunderland resigned from public office.
Sunderland, however, retained a degree of personal influence with George until his sudden death in 1722 allowed the rise of Sir Robert Walpole. Walpole became de facto Prime Minister, although the title was not formally applied to him (officially, he was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer). His management of the South Sea crisis, by rescheduling the debts and arranging some compensation, helped the return to financial stability.
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC (1676-1745), known between 1721 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British politician who is generally regarded as the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain.
As requested by Walpole, George revived the Order of the Bath in 1725, which enabled Walpole to reward or gain political supporters by offering them the honour. Walpole became extremely powerful and was largely able to appoint ministers of his own choosing.
Unlike his predecessor, Queen Anne, George rarely attended meetings of the cabinet; most of his communications were in private, and he only exercised substantial influence with respect to British foreign policy. With the aid of Lord Townshend, he arranged for the ratification by Great Britain, France and Prussia of the Treaty of Hanover, which was designed to counterbalance the Austro-Spanish Treaty of Vienna and protect British trade.
George, although increasingly reliant on Walpole, could still have replaced his ministers at will. Walpole was actually afraid of being removed from office towards the end of George I’s reign, but such fears were put to an end when George died during his sixth trip to his native Hanover since his accession as king.
King George suffered a stroke on the road between Delden and Nordhorn on June 9, 1727, and was taken by carriage to the Prince-Bishop’s palace at Osnabrück where he died in the early hours before dawn on June 11, 1727.
George surrounded by his family, in a painting by James Thornhill.
George I was buried in the chapel of Leine Palace in Hanover, but his remains were moved to the chapel at Herrenhausen Gardens after World War II. Leine Palace had burnt out entirely after British aerial bombings and the king’s remains, along with his parents’, were moved to the 19th-century mausoleum of King Ernst-August in the Berggarten. George was succeeded by his son, George-Augustus, who took the throne as George II.
It was widely assumed, even by Walpole for a time, that George II planned to remove Walpole from office but was prevented from doing so by his wife, Caroline of Ansbach. However, Walpole commanded a substantial majority in Parliament and George II had little choice but to retain him or risk ministerial instability. In subsequent reigns the power of the prime minister increased further at the expense of the power of the sovereign.
European Royal History 