March 31, 1751: Death of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales. Part I

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Act of of Settlement 1701, Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Electorate of Hanover, Electress Sophia of Hanover, Frederick-Louis, King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, the prince of Wales

Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, KG (January 31, 1707 – March 31, 1751), was the eldest son and heir apparent of King George II of Great Britain. He grew estranged from his parents, King George II and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach. Frederick Louis was the father of King George III.

Early life

1720

Prince Frederick Louis was born on January 31, 1707 in Hanover, Holy Roman Empire, as Duke Friedrich Ludwig of Brunswick-Lüneburg, to Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Prince George Augustus, son of George Louis, Elector of Hanover.

Electress Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I-VI of England, Scotland and Ireland. Under the Act of Settlement passed by the English Parliament in 1701 the Electress of Hannover was the heiress presumptive to Queen Anne of Great Britain.

However, Sophia died before Anne at age 83 in June 1714, which elevated the Elector George Louis to heir-presumptive; Queen Anne died on August 1 the same year, and Sophia’s son became King George I of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover.

George Augustus and his father, the new King, 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 was created Prince of Wales.

As Prince of Wales George Augustus first-in-line to the British throne and Frederick Louis himself second-in-line. Frederick Louis’s godfather was his grand-uncle Friedrich I, King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia. Frederick Louis was nicknamed “Griff” within the family.

When Frederick Louis’s parents and grandfather left Hanover for Great Britain Frederick Louis was only seven years old. He was left in the care of his grand-uncle Ernepst August of Hanover, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, and did not see his parents again for 14 years.

In 1722, the 15-year-old Frederick Louis was created by his grandfather King George I, Duke of Edinburgh, Marquess of the Isle of Ely, Earl of Eltham in the county of Kent. On July 26, 1726 Frederick Louis was created
Viscount of Launceston in the county of Cornwall, and Baron of Snaudon in the county of Carnarvon,

Prince of Wales

Frederick Louis was not permitted to go to Great Britain until after his father took the throne as George II on June 11, 1727. Frederick Louis had continued to be known as Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hanover (with his British HRH style) even after his father had been created Prince of Wales.

When Frederick Louis arrived in England King George II and Queen Caroline had had several younger children, and Frederick Louis was a high-spirited youth fond of drinking, gambling and women. The long separation had damaged their relationship, and they would never be close.

The motives for the ill-feeling between Frederick Louis and his parents may include the fact that he had been set up by his grandfather, even as a small child, as the representative of the House of Hanover, and was used to presiding over official occasions in the absence of his parents.

In 1728, Frederick Louis (his name now anglicised) was finally brought to Britain and was created Prince of Wales on January 8, 1729. He served as the tenth Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1728 to 1751, and a portrait of him still enjoys a commanding position in the Hall of the Trinity College, Dublin.

He sponsored a court of ‘opposition’ politicians. Frederick and his group supported the Opera of the Nobility in Lincoln’s Inn Fields as a rival to George Frideric Handel’s royally sponsored opera at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket. Frederick Louis was a lover of music who played the viola and cello; he is depicted playing a cello in three portraits by Philippe Mercier of Frederick and his sisters.

He enjoyed the natural sciences and the arts, and became a thorn in the side of his parents, making a point of opposing them in everything, according to the court gossip Lord Hervey. At court, the favourite was Frederick Louis’s younger brother, Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, to the extent that the king looked into ways of splitting his domains so that Frederick Louis would succeed only in Britain, while Hanover would go to William as the Imperial Elector.

Accession of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland. Conclusion

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Archduke Charles of Austria, Duke of Marlborough, Electress Sophia of Hanover, King Carlos II of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, King George I of Great Britain, Philippe of Anjou, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland, Sarah Churchill, Treaty of Utrecht, War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1715) was a conflict involving many of the leading European powers that was triggered by the death in November 1700 of the childless Carlos II of Spain.

Prince Louis, The Grand Dauphin, had the strongest genealogical claim to the Spanish throne held by King Carlos II who was his maternal uncle. The Grand Dauphin was the son and heir-apparent of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre.

However, since neither the Grand Dauphin nor his eldest son, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, could be displaced from the succession to the French throne, King Carlos II named the Philippe, Duke of Anjou as his heir. The Duke of Anjou was the second son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, Duke of Anjou as his heir-presumptive.

If Philippe, Duke of Anjou refused the crown, the alternative was Archduke Charles of Austria, younger son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.

King Felipe V of Spain

Having accepted, Philippe was proclaimed King Felipe V of an undivided Spanish Empire on November 16, 1700. The proclamation led to war, with France and Spain on one side and the Grand Alliance on the other to maintain the separation of the Spanish and French thrones.

At issue wasn’t just who had hereditary right to the Spanish throne; at it’s heart was to established the principle that dynastic rights were secondary to maintaining the balance of power between different countries.

As the expensive War of the Spanish Succession grew unpopular, so did the Whig administration. The impeachment of Henry Sacheverell, a high church Tory Anglican who had preached anti-Whig sermons, led to further public discontent.

Anne thought Sacheverell ought to be punished for questioning the Glorious Revolution, but that his punishment should only be a mild one to prevent further public commotion.

In London, riots broke out in support of Sacheverell, but the only troops available to quell the disturbances were Anne’s guards, and Secretary of State Sunderland was reluctant to use them and leave the Queen less protected.

Anne declared God would be her guard and ordered Sunderland to redeploy her troops. In line with Anne’s views, Sacheverell was convicted, but his sentence—suspension of preaching for three years—was so light as to render the trial a mockery.

The Queen, increasingly disdainful of the Marlboroughs and her ministry, finally took the opportunity to dismiss Sunderland in June 1710.

Godolphin followed in August. The Junto Whigs were removed from office, although Marlborough, for the moment, remained as commander of the army. In their place, she appointed a new ministry headed by Harley, which began to seek peace with France.

Unlike the Whigs, Harley and his ministry were ready to compromise by giving Spain to the Bourbon claimant, Philippe of Anjou, in return for commercial concessions. In the parliamentary elections that soon followed his appointment, Harley, aided by government patronage, secured a large Tory majority.

In January 1711, Anne forced Sarah to resign her court offices, and Abigail took over as Keeper of the Privy Purse. Harley was stabbed by a disgruntled French refugee, the Marquis de Guiscard, in March, and Anne wept at the thought he would die. He recovered slowly. Godolphin’s death from natural causes in September 1712 reduced Anne to tears; she blamed their estrangement on the Marlboroughs.

Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, died in April 1711and his brother Archduke Charles of Austria, succeeded him in Austria, Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire as Emperor Charles VI.

To also give him the Spanish throne was no longer in Britain’s interests, but the proposed Peace of Utrecht submitted to Parliament for ratification did not go as far as the Whigs wanted to curb Bourbon ambitions.

In the House of Commons, the Tory majority was unassailable, but the same was not true in the House of Lords. The Whigs secured the support of the Earl of Nottingham against the treaty by promising to support his Occasional Conformity bill.

Seeing a need for decisive action to erase the anti-peace majority in the House of Lords, and seeing no alternative, Anne reluctantly created twelve new peers, even though such a mass creation of peers was unprecedented.

Abigail’s husband, Samuel Masham, was made a baron, although Anne protested to Harley that she “never had any design to make a great lady of [Abigail], and should lose a useful servant”. On the same day, Marlborough was dismissed as commander of the army. The peace treaty was ratified and Britain’s military involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession ended.

By signing the Treaty of Utrecht, King Louis XIV of France recognised the Hanoverian succession in Britain. Nevertheless, gossip that Anne and her ministers favoured the succession of her Catholic half-brother, Prince James Francis, Prince of Wales rather than the Hanoverians continued, despite Anne’s denials in public and in private.

The rumours were fed by her consistent refusals to permit any of the Hanoverians to visit or move to England, and by the intrigues of Harley and the Tory Secretary of State Lord Bolingbroke, who were in separate and secret discussions with her half-brother about a possible Stuart restoration until early 1714.

Death

Anne was unable to walk between January and July 1713. At Christmas, she was feverish, and lay unconscious for hours, which led to rumours of her impending death. She recovered, but was seriously ill again in March.

By July, Anne had lost confidence in Harley; his secretary recorded that Anne told the cabinet “that he neglected all business; that he was seldom to be understood; that when he did explain himself, she could not depend upon the truth of what he said; that he never came to her at the time she appointed; that he often came drunk; [and] last, to crown all, he behaved himself towards her with ill manner, indecency and disrespect.”

On July 27, 1714, during Parliament’s summer recess, she dismissed Harley as Lord Treasurer. Despite failing health, which her doctors blamed on the emotional strain of matters of state, she attended two late-night cabinet meetings that failed to determine Harley’s successor.

A third meeting was cancelled when she became too ill to attend. She was rendered unable to speak by a stroke on July 30, 1714, the anniversary of Gloucester’s death, and on the advice of the Privy Council handed the treasurer’s staff of office to Whig grandee Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury.

Anne died around 7:30 a.m. on August 1, 1714. John Arbuthnot, one of her doctors, thought her death was a release from a life of ill-health and tragedy; he wrote to Jonathan Swift, “I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her.”

She was buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII Chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on August 24.

Succession

The Electress Sophia of Hanover had died on May 28, two months before Anne, so the Electress’s son, Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, succeeded to the British throne as King George of Great Britain and Ireland pursuant to the Act of Settlement 1701.

The possible Catholic claimants, including Anne’s half-brother, James Francis, Prince of Wales were ignored. The Elector’s accession was relatively stable: a Jacobite rising in 1715 failed. Marlborough was reinstated, and the Tory ministers were replaced by Whigs.

June 7, 1660: Birth of George I, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover. Part I.

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Elector of Hanover, Electress Sophia of Hanover, Ernst August of Hanover, George I, George I of Great Britain, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Elector of Hanover and of Brunswick-Lüneburg., King of Great Britain and Ireland, Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Celle, Sophia Dorothea of Great Britain, Sophia of the Palatinate of the Rhine, Sophia of the Rhine (Electress Sophia)

George I (George-Louis; German: Georg-Ludwig; May 28/June7, 1660 – June 11, 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) in the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover. Under the old Julian Calendar (OS for Old Style) George I was born May 28 1660. When the Julian Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar (NS for New Style) his birthday was recognized as being June 7, 1660.

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

George was born in the city of Hanover in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the eldest son of Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife, Sophia of the Palatinate of the Rhine. Sophia was the granddaughter of King James I of England through her mother, Elizabeth Stuart of England. Sophie’s father was Friedrich V.; (1596-1632) was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the derisive sobriquet “the Winter King.”

Sophia of the Palatinate of the Rhine, Electress of Hanover and Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Mother)

Ernst-August, Elector of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Father)

For the first year of his life, George was the only heir to the German territories of his father and three childless uncles. George’s brother, Friedrich-August, was born in 1661, and the two boys (known as Görgen and Gustchen by the family) were brought up together. Their mother was absent for almost a year (1664–65) during a long convalescent holiday in Italy, but corresponded regularly with her sons’ governess and took a great interest in their upbringing, even more so upon her return. Sophia bore Ernst-August another four sons and a daughter. In her letters, Sophia describes George as a responsible, conscientious child who set an example to his younger brothers and sisters.

Friedrich V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire, King of Bohemia

By 1675 George’s eldest uncle had died without issue, but his remaining two uncles had married, putting George’s inheritance in jeopardy as his uncles’ estates might pass to their own sons, should they have had any, instead of to George.

In 1679 another uncle died unexpectedly without sons, and Ernst-August became reigning Duke of Calenberg-Göttingen, with his capital at Hanover. George’s surviving uncle, Georg-Wilhelm of Celle, had married his mistress in order to legitimise his only daughter, Sophia-Dorothea, but looked unlikely to have any further children. Under Salic law, where inheritance of territory was restricted to the male line, the succession of George and his brothers to the territories of their father and uncle now seemed secure. In 1682, the family agreed to adopt the principle of primogeniture, meaning George would inherit all the territory and not have to share it with his brothers.

Ernest-Augustus, Duke of York (Brother)

The same year, George married his first cousin, Sophia-Dorothea of Brunswick-Celle, thereby securing additional incomes that would have been outside Salic laws. The marriage of state was arranged primarily as it ensured a healthy annual income and assisted the eventual unification of Hanover and Celle. His mother at first opposed the marriage because she looked down on Sophia Dorothea’s mother, Eleonore (who came from lower nobility), and because she was concerned by Sophia-Dorothea’s legitimated status. She was eventually won over by the advantages inherent in the marriage.

Sophia-Dorothea of Brunswick-Celle

In 1683 George and his brother Friedrich-August served in the Great Turkish War at the Battle of Vienna, and Sophia-Dorothea bore George a son, Georg-August. The following year, Friedrich-August was informed of the adoption of primogeniture, meaning he would no longer receive part of his father’s territory as he had expected. This led to a breach between Friedrich-August and his father, and between the brothers, that lasted until his death in battle in 1690.

With the imminent formation of a single Hanoverian state, and the Hanoverians’ continuing contributions to the Empire’s wars, Ernst-August was made an Imperial-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. George’s prospects were now better than ever as the sole heir to his father’s electorate and his uncle’s duchy.

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

Sophia-Dorothea had a second child, a daughter named after her, in 1687, but there were no other pregnancies. The couple became estranged—George preferred the company of his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg.

June 4, 1738: Birth of King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

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Act of Settlement 1701, Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg- Strelitz, Electress Sophia of Hanover, Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick Louis Prince of Wales, Frederick the Great, George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, King George III of the United Kingdom, King George IV of the United Kingdom, King of Great Britain, King of Hanover, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, Sophia of the Rhine (Electress Sophia)

George III (George William Frederick; June 4, 1738 – January 29, 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from his accession on October 25, 1760 until the union of the two countries on January 1, 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg (“Hanover”) in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on October 12, 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

George III, King of the United King of Great Britain and Ireland. King of Hanover

Family

George was born in London at Norfolk House in St James’s Square. As he was born two months prematurely and thought unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker, who was both Rector of St James’s and Bishop of Oxford. One month later, he was publicly baptised at Norfolk House, again by Secker. His godparents were King Friedrich I of Sweden (for whom Lord Baltimore stood proxy), his uncle Friedrich III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (for whom Lord Carnarvon stood proxy), and his great-aunt Sophia-Dorothea, Queen in Prussia (for whom Lady Charlotte Edwin stood proxy).

George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland.

George III was the grandson of King George II, and the eldest son of Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.

George III’s father was Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales, (1707-1751), was heir apparent to the British throne from 1727 until his death from a lung injury at the age of 44. He was the eldest but estranged son of King George II and Caroline of Ansbach.

Under the Act of Settlement passed by the English Parliament in 1701, Frederick-Louis was fourth in the line of succession to the British throne at birth, after his great-grandmother (Electress Sophia of Hanover) paternal grandfather (George I) and father (George II). He moved to Great Britain following the accession of his father, and was created Prince of Wales. He predeceased his father, however, and upon the latter’s death on October 25, 1760, the throne passed to Prince Frederick’s eldest son, George III.

Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales (Father)

George III’s mother, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg was born in Gotha to Friedrich II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1676–1732) and Magdalena Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst (1679–1740). Her paternal grandparents were Friedrich I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and Magdalena-Sibylla of Saxe-Weissenfels, a daughter of August, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, and his wife Anna-Maria of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Magdalena-Sibylla’snpaternal grandparents were Johann-Georg I, Elector of Saxony, and Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (Mother)

Friedrich I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, was the eldest surviving son of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and his cousin Elisabeth-Sophie of Saxe-Altenburg.

Princess Augusta did not speak French or English, and it was suggested that she be given lessons before the wedding, but her mother did not consider it necessary as the British royal family were from Germany (Holy Roman Empire). She arrived in Britain, speaking virtually no English, for a wedding ceremony with Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales, which took place almost immediately, on May 8,1736, at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace, London.

Although he was the first British King of the House of Hanover born in England with English his native language, the ancestry of George III was thoroughly German.

Marriage

In 1759, George was smitten with Lady Sarah Lennox, sister of Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, but Lord Bute advised against the match and George abandoned his thoughts of marriage. “I am born for the happiness or misery of a great nation,” he wrote, “and consequently must often act contrary to my passions.” The prominent Lennox Family of Richmond were illegitimate descendants of King Charles II of England.

Lady Sarah Lennox

In 1753 attempts were made by King George II to marry his grandson George, Prince of Wales to Princess Sophie-Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, eldest daughter of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and his wife, Philippine-Charlotte of Prussia, sister of Friedrich II the Great of Prussia.

This was an attempt to improve relations with Prussia, as Sophie-Caroline was a niece of Friedrich II of Prussia and George II needed Prussian troops to help offset the alliance between France and Austria that had occurred as a result of the Diplomatic Revolution. Prince George’s mother, Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, thwarted George II’s plans, however, which increased tensions within the British royal family. Sophie-Caroline married Friedrich, Margrave of Bayreuth, instead.

Princess Sophie-Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Though this match was not to be, Sophie-Caroline’s brother Charles II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, married George’s sister Princess Augusta in 1764, and George III’s son George IV married their daughter Caroline of Brunswick, thus continuing the close ties between the two houses.

The following year, at the age of 22, George succeeded to the throne when his grandfather, George II, died suddenly on 25 October 25, 1760, two weeks before his 77th birthday. The search for a suitable wife intensified. On September 8, 1761 in the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, the King married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whom he met on their wedding day.

Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles-Ludwig-Friedrich of Mecklenburg (1708–1752; known as “Prince of Mirow”) and of his wife Princess Elisabeth-Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1713–1761). Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a small north-German duchy in the Holy Roman Empire.

Young George III

A fortnight after the wedding on September22, both were crowned at Westminster Abbey. George remarkably never took a mistress (in contrast with his grandfather and his sons), and the couple enjoyed a genuinely happy marriage until his mental illness struck.

They had 15 children—nine sons and six daughters. In 1762, George purchased Buckingham House (on the site now occupied by Buckingham Palace) for use as a family retreat. His other residences were Kew Palace and Windsor Castle. St James’s Palace was retained for official use. He did not travel extensively and spent his entire life in southern England. In the 1790s, the King and his family took holidays at Weymouth, Dorset, which he thus popularised as one of the first seaside resorts in England.

George III’s life and reign, at 59 years, which was longer than those of any of his predecessors at the time, were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years’ War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, many of Britain’s American colonies were soon lost in the American War of Independence. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

George III, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover

In the later part of his life, George had recurrent, and eventually permanent, mental illness. Although it has since been suggested that he had bipolar disorder or the blood disease porphyria, the cause of his illness remains unknown. After a final relapse in 1810, a regency was established. His eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, ruled as Prince Regent until his father’s death, when he succeeded as George IV. Historical analysis of George III’s life has gone through a “kaleidoscope of changing views” that have depended heavily on the prejudices of his biographers and the sources available to them.

Changing Titles.

The nation went through many changes through his reign and his titles reflected these changes.

In Great Britain, George III used the official style “George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and so forth”. In 1801, when Great Britain united with Ireland, he dropped the title of King of France, which had been used for every English monarch since Edward III’s claim to the French throne in the medieval period. His style became “George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.”

In Germany, he was “Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Arch-Treasurer and Prince-Elector of Hanover of the Holy Roman Empire” (Herzog von Braunschweig und Lüneburg, Erzschatzmeister und Kurfürst des Heiligen Römischen Reiches) until the end of the empire in 1806. He then continued as Duke until the Congress of Vienna declared him “King of Hanover” in 1814.

Succession: Act of Settlement of 1701

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Act of Settlement 1701, Electress Sophia of Hanover, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Mary II of England, Prince William Duke of Gloucester, Queen Anne of Great Britain, William III of England

When William III and Mary II ruled jointly any of their offspring would have inherited the throne. After William and Mary the next in line was Mary’s sister the Princess Anne, Duchess of Cumberland. In 1700 Princess Anne was married to Prince George of Denmark who was the younger son of King Frederick III of Denmark and Norway and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. His mother was the sister of Ernst-August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, later Elector of Hanover. Prince George was therefore first cousin to King George I of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover his wife’s successor!

George and Anne were married on July 28, 1683 in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, London, by Henry Compton, Bishop of London. The guests included King Charles II, Queen Catherine, and the Duke and Duchess of York. In England George remained HRH Prince George of Denmark and Nowray until April 10, 1689 when King William III raised his brother-in-law to the peerage by granting him the title Duke of Cumberland. Throughout their marriage they had 17 pregnancies with the majority of them being stillbirths or miscarriages. Two daughters, Mary and Anne-Sophia both lived for a year or so. Another daughter named Mary and a son named George lived only a short while after birth. The longest lived child of The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, was HRH Prince William, Duke of Gloucester. His death in 1700 age of 11 created a crisis for the succession. Just prior to his death this was the succession to the Crown.

HM King William III of England and Scotland.

1. HRH Princess Anne, The Duchess of Cumberland
2. HRH Prince William, The Duke of Gloucester
3. HRH Prince James, The Prince of Wales *
4. HM Queen Anne Marie d’Orléans, Queen of Savoy *
5. HRH Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont *

I only listed the first five. Those with the asterisk were not even in the line of succession at this time. Although the Act of Settlement was not the law of the land at this time all those would not have been acceptable due to being Catholic. I included them to show what the succession may have looked like had Catholics been allowed, and also to demonstrate that after the future Queen Anne and her son, the rest in line to the throne were Catholic. That is why Prince William, Duke of Gloucester’s death created a crisis for the throne. Although Prince James was technically still Prince of Wales, his title would not be attained until March 2, 1702 and his presence on the throne was not desired. If Catholics had been allowed to succeed to the throne the line of succession would have looked more like this:

1. HRH Prince James, the Prince of Wales
2. HRH Princess Anne, The Duchess of Cumberland
3. HRH Prince William, The Duke of Gloucester
4. HM Queen Anne Marie d’Orléans, Queen of Savoy
5. HRH Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont

HSH Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover was the closest Protestant and just prior to the Act becoming law she was around 150th in line to the throne.

On the day of William III’s death, March 8 1702, the line of succession to the English throne was determined by the Act of Settlement 1701 and his sister-in-law, Anne, second daughter of the deposed King James II-VII of England and Scotland (who had died September 16, 1701), assumed the throne as Queen Anne. Electress Sophia (age 70), five of her children (ages 35 to 41), and three legitimate grandchildren (ages 14 to 18) were alive. Although Sophia was in her seventy-first year, older than Anne by thirty-five years, she was very fit and healthy, and invested time and energy in securing the succession either for herself or her son.

1. HRH Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover
2. HRH Prince George Louis, Elector of Hanover
3. HRH Prince George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Hanover
4. HRH Princess Sophia Dorothea of Hanover
5. HRH Prince Maximilian Wilhelm of Hanover
6. HRH Prince Christian Henry of Hanover
7. HRH Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover
8. HRH Princess Sophia, Queen in Prussia
9. HRH Prince Frederick William of Prussia, Crown Prince of Prussia

The electress was eager to move to London, however, the proposal was denied, as such action would mortally offend Anne who was strongly opposed to a rival court in her kingdom. Anne might have been aware that Sophia, who was active and lively despite her old age, could cut a better figure than herself.

Although considerably older than Queen Anne, Sophia enjoyed much better health. According to the Countess of Bückeburg in a letter to Sophia’s niece, the Raugravine Luise, on the 5th of June 1714 Sophia felt ill after receiving an angry letter from Queen Anne. Two days later she was walking in the gardens of Herrenhausen when she ran to shelter from a sudden downpour of rain and collapsed and died, aged 83 a considerable advanced age for the era. Shortly, a little over a month later, in August, Queen Anne died at the age of 49. Had Anne died before June 1714, Sophia would have been the oldest person to ascend the British throne.

Upon Sophia’s death, her eldest son Elector Georg-Ludwig of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1660-1727) became heir presumptive in her place, and weeks later, succeeded Anne as King George I.