November 9, 1683: Birth of King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover. Part I.

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Act of Settlement of 1701, Act of Union 1707, Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, House of Hanover, Imperial Elector of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland

George II (George Augustus; November 9, 1683 – October 25, 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.

George Augustus was born in the city of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire, followed by his sister, Sophia Dorothea, three years later. Their parents, George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg (later King George I of Great Britain), and Sophia Dorothea of Celle, both committed adultery. In 1694 the marriage was dissolved on the pretext that Sophia had abandoned her husband. She was confined to Ahlden House and denied access to her two children, who probably never saw their mother again.

George Augustus spoke only French, the language of diplomacy and the court, until the age of four, after which he was taught German by one of his tutors, Johann Hilmar Holstein. In addition to French and German, he also learnt English and Italian, and studied genealogy, military history, and battle tactics with particular diligence.

George Augustus as Prince of Wales

George Augustus’s second cousin once removed, Queen Anne, ascended the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1702. She had no surviving children, and by the Act of Settlement 1701, the English Parliament designated Anne’s closest Protestant blood relatives, George’s grandmother Sophia of the Rhine and her descendants, as Anne’s heirs in England and Ireland.

Consequently, after his grandmother and father, George was third in line to succeed Anne in two of her three realms. He was naturalized as an English subject in 1705 by the Sophia Naturalization Act, and in 1706 he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Duke and Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton, and Baron Tewkesbury in the Peerage of England. England and Scotland united in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and jointly accepted the succession as laid down by the English Act of Settlement.

Marriage

Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach by Godfrey Kneller, 1716

George’s father did not want his son to enter into a loveless arranged marriage as he had and wanted him to have the opportunity of meeting his bride before any formal arrangements were made. Negotiations from 1702 for the hand of Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, Dowager Duchess and regent of Holstein-Gottorp, came to nothing. the eldest child of Charles XI of Sweden and Ulrike Eleonore of Denmark. Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden,was heir presumptive to the Swedish throne until her death in 1708.

In June 1705, under the false name “Monsieur de Busch”, George visited the Brandenburg-Ansbach court at its summer residence in Triesdorf to investigate incognito a marriage prospect: Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the former ward of his aunt Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia. She was married to Friedrich I, King in Prussia.

Caroline was born on March 1, 1683 at Ansbach, the daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach. Her father was the ruler of one of the smallest German states; he died of smallpox at the age of 32, when Caroline was three years old.

The Brandenburg-Ansbach family belonged to a branch of the House of Hohenzollern and was the ruler of a small German state, the Principality of Ansbach. Since Caroline was orphaned at a young age she moved to the enlightened court of her guardians, King Friedrich I and Queen Sophia Charlotte in Prussia. At the Prussian court, her previously limited education was widened, and she adopted the liberal outlook possessed by Sophia Charlotte, who became her good friend and whose views influenced Caroline all her life.

The English envoy to Hanover, Edmund Poley, reported that George was so taken by “the good her character that he had of her that he would not think of anybody else”. A marriage contract was concluded by the end of July. On September 2, 1705 Caroline arrived in Hanover for her wedding, which was held the same evening in the chapel at Herrenhausen.

George Augustus his fathe, the new King George I of Great Britain, sailed for England from The Hague on September 16, 1714 and arrived at Greenwich two days later. The following day, they formally entered London in a ceremonial procession. George Augustus given the title of Prince of Wales.

Caroline followed her husband to Britain in October with their daughters, while thier eldest son, Frederick Louis, remained in Hanover to be brought up by private tutors. London was like nothing George Augustus had seen before; it was 50 times larger than Hanover, and the crowd was estimated at up to one and a half million spectators. George Augustus courted popularity with voluble expressions of praise for the English, and claimed that he had no drop of blood that was not English.

In the first years of his father’s reign as king, George Augustus associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party in 1720.

King George I died on June 22, 1727 during one of his visits to Hanover, and George Augustis succeeded him as King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover at the age of 43. The new king decided not to travel to the Holy Roman Empire for his father’s funeral, which far from bringing criticism led to praise from the English who considered it proof of his fondness for England.

George II suppressed his father’s will because it attempted to split the Hanoverian succession between George II’s future grandsons rather than vest all the domains (both British and Hanoverian) in a single person. Both British and Hanoverian ministers considered the will unlawful, as George I did not have the legal power to determine the succession personally. Critics supposed that George II hid the will to avoid paying out his father’s legacies.

George II was crowned at Westminster Abbey on October 22, 1727. George Frideric Handel was commissioned to write four new anthems for the coronation, including Zadok the Priest.

Life of George I, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover. Part III.

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Act of Settlement 1701, Act of Union 1707, George Augustus, George I of Great Britain, House of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain, Kingdom of Great Britain, Queen Anne of Great Britain

Part III

Accession to the British Throne.

Though both England and Scotland recognised Anne as their queen, only the English Parliament had settled on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, as the heir presumptive. The Parliament of Scotland (the Estates) had not formally settled the succession question for the Scottish throne. In 1703, the Estates passed a bill declaring that their selection for Queen Anne’s successor would not be the same individual as the successor to the English throne, unless England granted full freedom of trade to Scottish merchants in England and its colonies.

Georg-Ludwig, Elector of Hanover

At first Royal Assent was withheld, but the following year Anne capitulated to the wishes of the Estates and assent was granted to the bill, which became the Act of Security 1704. In response the English Parliament passed measures that threatened to restrict Anglo-Scottish trade and cripple the Scottish economy if the Estates did not agree to the Hanoverian succession.

Eventually, in 1707, both Parliaments agreed on an Act of Union, which united England and Scotland into a single political entity, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and established the rules of succession as laid down by the Act of Settlement 1701. The union created the largest free trade area in 18th-century Europe.

Whig politicians believed Parliament had the right to determine the succession, and to bestow it on the nearest Protestant relative of the Queen, while many Tories were more inclined to believe in the hereditary right of the Catholic Stuarts, who were nearer relations. In 1710, George announced that he would succeed in Britain by hereditary right, as the right had been removed from the Stuarts, and he retained it. “This declaration was meant to scotch any Whig interpretation that parliament had given him the kingdom [and] … convince the Tories that he was no usurper.”

George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

George’s mother, the Electress Sophia, died on May 28, 1714 at the age of 83. She had collapsed in the gardens at Herrenhausen after rushing to shelter from a shower of rain. George was now Queen Anne’s heir presumptive. He swiftly revised the membership of the Regency Council that would take power after Anne’s death, as it was known that Anne’s health was failing and politicians in Britain were jostling for power.

Queen Anne suffered a stroke, which left her unable to speak, and she died on August 1, 1714. The list of regents was opened, the members sworn in, and George was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland. Partly due to contrary winds, which kept him in The Hague awaiting passage, he did not arrive in Britain until September 18.

George was crowned at Westminster Abbey on October 20. The accession of George of Hanover was not widely popular. His coronation was accompanied by rioting in over twenty towns in England.

George mainly lived in Great Britain after 1714, though he visited his home in Hanover in 1716, 1719, 1720, 1723 and 1725; in total George spent about one fifth of his reign as king in Germany. A clause in the Act of Settlement that forbade the British monarch from leaving the country without Parliament’s permission was unanimously repealed in 1716. During all but the first of the king’s absences power was vested in a Regency Council rather than in his son, George Augustus, Prince of Wales.

May 1, 1707: The Acts of Union goes into effect.

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Act of Union 1707, Act of Union 1800, King George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, King George III of Great Britain, King George III of the United Kingdom, king James I-VI of England and Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, Kings and Queens of Great Britain, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Kings of france, Queen Anne of Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth I of England

The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on July 22, 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”.

Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Ireland

Prior to 1603, England and Scotland were separate kingdoms; as Elizabeth I never married, after 1567, her heir became the Stuart king of Scotland, James VI, who was brought up as a Protestant. James was the double first cousin twice removed, of Queen Elizabeth I. After her death in 1603 the two countries shared a monarch when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne.

Although described as a Union of Crowns in 1603 there were in fact two separate Crowns resting on the same head (as opposed to the implied creation of a single Crown and a single Kingdom, exemplified by the later Kingdom of Great Britain). The two Crowns were held in personal union by James, as James I of England, and James VI of Scotland. He announced his intention to unite the two, using the royal prerogative to take the title “King of Great Britain”, and give a British character to his court and person. However, the titles and the attempted uniting of the two crown were not sanctioned by Parliament.

James I-VI, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

Prior to the Acts of Union there had been three previous attempts (in 1606, 1667, and 1689) to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, but it was not until the early 18th century that both political establishments came to support the idea, albeit for different reasons.

The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707 during the reign of Queen Anne who then became the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. On this date, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament united to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster in London, the home of the English Parliament. Hence, the Acts are referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. On the Union, the historian Simon Schama said “What began as a hostile merger, would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world … it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history.”

Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (1702-1707). Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1707-1714).

Political Background prior to 1707

1603–1660

The 1603 Union of England and Scotland Act established a joint Commission to agree terms, but the English Parliament was concerned this would lead to the imposition of an absolutist structure similar to that of Scotland. James was forced to withdraw his proposals, and attempts to revive it in 1610 were met with hostility.

The Acts of Union should be seen within a wider European context of increasing state centralisation during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, including the monarchies of France, Sweden, Denmark and Spain. While there were exceptions, such as the Dutch Republic or the Republic of Venice, the trend was clear.

The dangers of the monarch using one Parliament against the other first became apparent in 1647 and 1651. It resurfaced during the 1679 to 1681 Exclusion Crisis, caused by English resistance to the Catholic James succeeding his brother Charles. James was sent to Edinburgh in 1681 as Lord High Commissioner; in August, the Scottish Parliament passed the Succession Act, confirming the divine right of kings, the rights of the natural heir ‘regardless of religion,’ the duty of all to swear allegiance to that king and the independence of the Scottish Crown. It then went beyond ensuring James’s succession to the Scottish throne by explicitly stating the aim was to make his exclusion from the English throne impossible without ‘…the fatall and dreadfull consequences of a civil war.’

English perspective

The English purpose was to ensure that Scotland would not choose a monarch different from the one on the English throne. The two countries had shared a king for much of the previous century, but the English were concerned that an independent Scotland with a different king, even if he were a Protestant, might make alliances against England. The English succession was provided for by the English Act of Settlement 1701, which ensured that the monarch of England would be a Protestant member of the House of Hanover. Until the Union of Parliaments, the Scottish throne might be inherited by a different successor after Queen Anne: the Scottish Act of Security 1704 granted parliament the right to choose a successor and explicitly required a choice different from the English monarch unless the English were to grant free trade and navigation.

Scottish perspective

The Scottish economy was severely impacted by privateers during the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years War, and the 1701 War of the Spanish Succession, with the Royal Navy focusing on protecting English ships. This compounded the economic pressure caused by the Darien scheme, and the Seven ill years of the 1690s, when between 5–15% of the population died of starvation. The Scottish Parliament was promised financial assistance, protection for its maritime trade, and an end of economic restrictions on trade with England.

George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland

George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland

It’s interesting to note that only four monarchs reigned with title of “King/Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. With the passing of the Act of Union on May 1, 1707 Queen Anne’s title changed from Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland to Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Kings George I and King George II reigned as King of Great Britain and Ireland.

King George III reigned as the King of Great Britain until The Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes referred to as a single Act of Union 1801) where parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland (previously in personal union) to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The acts came into force on 1 January 1801, and the merged Parliament of the United Kingdom had its first meeting on January 22, 1801. George III’s title then changed to King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland (1760-1801). King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. (1801-1820).

From the 1340s to the 19th century, excluding two brief intervals in the 1360s and the 1420s, the Kings and Queens of England (and, later, of Great Britain) also claimed the throne of France. The claim dates from King Edward III, who claimed the French throne in 1340 as the sororal nephew of the last direct Capetian, Charles IV.

Edward III and his heirs fought the Hundred Years’ War to enforce this claim, and were briefly successful in the 1420s under Henry V and Henry VI, but the House of Valois, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty, was ultimately victorious and retained control of France. Despite this, English and British monarchs continued to prominently call themselves Kings/Queens of France, and the French fleur-de-lis was included in the royal arms. This continued until the 1801 Act of Union when the claim to the title was officially dropped. By this time France no longer had any monarch, having become a republic. The Jacobite claimants, however, did not explicitly relinquish the claim.