April 2, 1653: Birth of Prince George of Denmark and Norway, Duke of Cumberland

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Duchess of Marlborough, Duke of Cumberland, George I of Great Britain, Glorious Revolution, King James II-VII of England, Lady Sarah Churchill, Prince George of Denmark and Norway, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen Mary II of England

Prince George of Denmark (April 2, 1653 – October 28, 1708) was the husband of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. He was the consort of the British monarch from Anne’s accession on March 8, 1702 until his death in 1708

Early life

George was born in Copenhagen Castle, and was the younger son of Frederik III, King 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, whose son, George Louis, would succeed his future wife as King of Great Britain. This made Prince George of Denmark and King George I of Great Britain first cousins.

His father died in 1670, while George was in Italy, and George’s elder brother, Christian V, inherited the Danish throne. George returned home through Germany. He travelled through Germany again in 1672–73, to visit two of his sisters, Anna Sophia and Wilhelmine Ernestine, who were married to the electoral princes of Saxony and the Palatinate.

Prince George of Denmark and Norway, Duke of Cumberland

In 1674, George was a candidate for the elective Polish throne, for which he was backed by King Louis XIV of France and Navarre. George’s staunch Lutheranism was a barrier to election in Roman Catholic Poland, and John Sobieski was chosen instead.

As a Protestant, George was considered a suitable partner for the niece of King Charles II of England, Lady Anne. They were distantly related (second cousins once removed; they were both descended from King Frederik II of Denmark), and had never met.

George was hosted by Charles II in London in 1669, but Anne had been in France at the time of George’s visit. Both Denmark and Britain were Protestant, and Louis XIV was keen on an Anglo-Danish alliance to contain the power of the Dutch Republic.

Anne’s uncle Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, and the English Secretary of State for the Northern Department, Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, negotiated a marriage treaty with the Danes in secret, to prevent the plans leaking to the Dutch. Anne’s father, James, Duke of York, welcomed the marriage because it diminished the influence of his other son-in-law, Dutch Stadtholder William III of Orange, who was naturally unhappy with the match.

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. Anne was voted a parliamentary allowance of £20,000 a year, while George received £10,000 a year from his Danish estates, although payments from Denmark were often late or incomplete.

George was not ambitious, and hoped to live a quiet life of domesticity with his wife. He wrote to a friend: “We talk here of going to tea, of going to Winchester, and everything else except sitting still all summer, which was the height of my ambition. God send me a quiet life somewhere, for I shall not be long able to bear this perpetual motion.”

Charles II, Anne’s uncle, famously said of Prince George, “I have tried him drunk, and I have tried him sober and there is nothing in him”.

In February 1685, King Charles II died without legitimate issue, and George’s father-in-law, the Roman Catholic Duke of York, became king as James II in England and Ireland and James VII in Scotland. George was appointed to the Privy Council and invited to attend Cabinet meetings, although he had no power to alter or affect decisions.

Prince George of Denmark and Norway, husband of the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, wearing a ducal robe with the collar of the Garter.

William of Orange refused to attend James’s coronation largely because George would take precedence over him. Although they were both sons-in-law of King James, George was also the son and brother of a king and so outranked William, who, although a Prince, was an elected stadtholder of a republic.

George was unpopular with his Dutch brother-in-law, William III, Prince of Orange, who was married to Anne’s elder sister, Mary. Anne and Mary’s father, the British ruler James II and VII, was deposed in the Glorious Revolution in 1688, and William and Mary succeeded him as joint monarchs with Anne as heir presumptive.

In early April 1689, William assented to a bill naturalizing George as an English subject, and George was created Duke of Cumberland, Earl of Kendal and Baron of Okingham (Wokingham) by the new monarchs. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 20 April 1689, being introduced by the Dukes of Somerset and Ormonde.

William excluded George from active military service, and neither George nor Anne wielded any great influence until after the deaths of Mary and then William, at which point Anne became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland. In 1707 with the Act of Union between England and Scotland and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen Anne’s title changed accordingly.

During his wife’s reign, George occasionally used his influence in support of his wife, even when privately disagreeing with her views. He had an easy-going manner and little interest in politics; his appointment as Lord High Admiral of England in 1702 was largely honorary.

George was quiet and self-effacing. John Macky thought him “of a familiar, easy disposition with a good sound understanding but modest in showing it … very fat, loves news, his bottle & the Queen.”

The previous husband’s of a British queen regnant had become King Consorts. Felipe II of Spain was a King Consort to his wife Queen Mary I of England. King François II of France and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, were King Consorts to Mary I of Scotland.

William of Orange, one the other hand, had become a joint sovereign king, and not a King Consort, with his wife, refusing to take a subordinate rank to Mary.

William III and Mary II had exemplified the traditional gender roles of seventeenth-century Europe: Mary was the dutiful wife and William wielded the power.

Prince George of Denmark and Norway, Duke of Cumberland and Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland

George and Anne, however, reversed the roles: George was the dutiful husband and it was Anne who exercised the royal prerogatives. William had assumed incorrectly that George would use his marriage to Anne as a means of building a separate power base in Britain, but George never challenged his wife’s authority and never strove to accrue influence.

In Britain at this time Husbands had a legal right to their wife’s property, and it was argued that it was unnatural and against the church’s teachings for a man to be subject to his wife. George made no such claim or demand; he was content to remain a prince and duke. “I am her Majesty’s subject”, he said, “I shall do naught.”

Anne’s seventeen pregnancies by George resulted in twelve miscarriages or stillbirths, four infant deaths, and a chronically sick son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who died at the age of eleven. Despite the deaths of their children, George and Anne’s marriage was a strong one.

George died on October 28, 1708 aged 55 from a recurring and chronic lung disease, much to the devastation of his wife.

His death has flung the Queen into an unspeakable grief. She never left him till he was dead, but continued kissing him the very moment his breath went out of his body, and ’twas with a great deal of difficulty my Lady Marlborough prevailed upon her to leave him.

Anne wrote to her nephew, Frederick IV of Denmark, “the loss of such a husband, who loved me so dearly and so devotedly, is too crushing for me to be able to bear it as I ought.” Anne was desperate to stay at Kensington with the body of her husband, but under pressure from the Duchess of Marlborough, she reluctantly left Kensington for St James’s Palace.

The immediate aftermath of George’s death damaged their relationship further. He was buried privately at midnight on 13 November in Westminster Abbey.

Accession of Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland. Part V

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Duke of Gloucester, Elizabeth Stuart of England, King James II-VII of England, Prince William, Queen Anne of England, Roman Catholic, Sophie of Hanover, The Act of Settlement of 1701, William III-II of England

Anne’s final pregnancy ended on January 25, 1700 with a stillbirth. She had been pregnant at least 17 times over as many years, and had miscarried or given birth to stillborn children at least 12 times. Of her five liveborn children, four died before the age of two.

Anne suffered from bouts of “gout” (pains in her limbs and eventually stomach and head) from at least 1698. Based on her foetal losses and physical symptoms, she may have had systemic lupus erythematosus, or antiphospholipid syndrome. Alternatively, pelvic inflammatory disease could explain why the onset of her symptoms roughly coincided with her penultimate pregnancy.

Other suggested causes of her failed pregnancies are listeriosis, diabetes, intrauterine growth retardation, and rhesus incompatibility. Rhesus incompatibility, however, generally worsens with successive pregnancies, and so does not fit the pattern of Anne’s pregnancies, as her only son to survive infancy, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, was born after a series of stillbirths. Experts also believe syphilis, porphyria and pelvic deformation to be unlikely as the symptoms are incompatible with her medical history.

Anne’s gout rendered her lame for much of her later life. Around the court, she was carried in a sedan chair, or used a wheelchair. Around her estates, she used a one-horse chaise, which she drove herself “furiously like Jehu and a mighty hunter like Nimrod”. She gained weight as a result of her sedentary lifestyle; in Sarah’s words, “she grew exceeding gross and corpulent. There was something of majesty in her look, but mixed with a gloominess of soul”.

Anne’s sole surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, died at age 11 on July 30, 1700. She and her husband were “overwhelmed with grief”. Anne ordered her household to observe a day of mourning every year on the anniversary of his death. With King William III childless and the Duke of Gloucester dead, Anne was the only person remaining in the line of succession established by the Bill of Rights 1689.

To address the succession crisis and preclude a Catholic restoration, the Parliament of England enacted the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that, failing the issue of Anne and of William III by any future marriage, the Crown of England and Ireland would go to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her Protestant descendants.

Sophia was the granddaughter of James I-VI of England, Scotland and England through his daughter Elizabeth, who was the sister of Anne’s grandfather Charles I. Over 50 Catholics with stronger claims were excluded from the line of succession.

Anne’s father, the former King James II-VII, died in September 1701. His widow, Anne’s stepmother, the former queen, wrote to Anne to inform her that her father forgave her and to remind her of her promise to seek the restoration of his line, meaning her Catholic half-brother, James Francis, The Prince of Wales, but Anne had already acquiesced to the line of succession created by the Act of Settlement.

September 28, 1663: Birth of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton

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1st Duke of Grafton, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Barbara Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Duke of Monmouth, Glorious Revolution of 1688, Henry FitzRoy, Isabella Bennet, James Scott, John Churchill, King Charles II of England, King James II-VII of England, Monmouth Rebellion, Scotland and Ireland, William III of Orange

Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, KG (September 28, 1663 – October 9, 1690) was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland and his mistress Barbara Villiers. A military commander, Henry FitzRoy was appointed colonel of the Grenadier Guards in 1681 and Vice-Admiral of England from 1682 to 1689. He was killed in the storming of Cork during the Williamite–Jacobite War in 1690.

Early life and military career

Born to Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine in 1663, Henry FitzRoy was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, the second by Barbara Villiers. His mother was the daughter of William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, and Mary Bayning (1623-1672), heiress to a fortune of £180,000. Viscount Grandison was a colonel of one of King Charles I’s regiments who was killed in action during the Civil War.

William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, was born in 1614, eldest son of Sir Edward Villiers (1585-1626) and Barbara St. John (ca 1592-1672). His father was the older half-brother of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, favourite of both James I-VI of England, Scotland and Ireland and Charles I, a relationship from which he greatly benefitted.

On August 1, 1672, at the age of nine, a marriage was arranged for Henry FitzRoy to the five-year-old Isabella Bennet, the only daughter of Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, a Royalist commander, by his wife, Elisabeth of Nassau (1633–1718). Elisabeth was a daughter of Louis of Nassau-Beverweerd and thus a granddaughter of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and a great-granddaughter of Prince Willem I the Silent, Prince of Orange.

In 1675 Charles II created Henry, Duke of Grafton. A wedding ceremony between Henry FitzRoy and Isabella Bennet took place on November 7, 1679. At the time of his marriage, Henry FitzRoy was created Baron Sudbury, Viscount Ipswich, and Earl of Euston. After their wedding the couple lived at Euston Hall. Isabella and her husband had one son, Charles FitzRoy, who succeeded his parents as 2nd Duke of Grafton and 3rd Earl of Arlington.

King Charles II made his son a Knight of the Garter in 1680. He was appointed colonel of the Grenadier Guards in 1681.

FitzRoy was brought up as a sailor and saw military action at the siege of Luxembourg in 1684. In that year, he received a warrant to supersede Sir Robert Holmes as Governor of the Isle of Wight, when the latter was charged with making false musters. However, Holmes was acquitted by court-martial and retained the governorship.

In 1686 Henry FitzRoy killed John Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, in a duel. FitzRoy was appointed Vice-Admiral of the Narrow Seas from 1685 to 1687. At King James II-VII’s coronation, Grafton was Lord High Constable. During the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth he commanded the royal troops in Somerset.

Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, the Duke of Monmouth was Henry Fitzroy’s half-brother, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland with his mistress Lucy Walter.

Monmouth led the unsuccessful Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, an attempt to depose his uncle King James II-VII. After one of his officers declared Monmouth the legitimate king, (alleging his mother was legally married to Charles II) in the town of Taunton in Somerset, Monmouth attempted to capitalise on his Protestantism and his position as the son of Charles II, in opposition to James, who was a Roman Catholic. The rebellion failed, and Monmouth was beheaded for treason on July 15, 1685.

Henry FitzRoy acted with John Churchill, and joined his cousin and his wife’s kinsman, Prince Willem III of Orange to overthrow the King in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, KG, PC (1650 – 1722 O.S.) played a defining role in defeating both the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 that helped secure James on the throne, but he was also a key player in the military conspiracy that led to James being deposed during the Glorious Revolution.

Death

Henry FitzRoy died in Ireland on October 9, 1690 aged 27, of a wound received at the storming of Cork while leading King William III’s forces. His body was returned to England for burial.

On October 14, 1697 his widow married Sir Thomas Hanmer, a young Buckinghamshire baronet, who became Speaker of the House of Commons and an authority on the works of William Shakespeare. The Dowager Duchess of Grafton died in 1723.

Legacy

The Duke of Grafton owned land in what was then countryside near Dublin, Ireland, which later became part of the city. A country lane on this land eventually developed into Grafton Street, one of Dublin’s main streets. Grafton Alley in Cork, close to where he was shot, also bears his name.