George I
1660-1727
Ancestry and Early Years
George Lewis, or George I as he was later known, was born in the
German duchy of Brunswick-Luneberg in 1660, the year of the Restoration.
He was the son of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover and Sophia, the
daughter of Elizabeth Stuart the 'Winter Queen' of Bavaria, herself the
daughter of the first Stuart King James
I and VI.
George's mother, Sophia of Hanover, was a cultured and intelligent
woman who spoke five languages, an English visitor to Hanover described
her as "a woman of incomparable knowledge in divinity, philosophy,
history and the subjects of all sorts of books", she was also a
lady of shrewd common sense and an even temperament. His father, Ernest
Augustus, although possessing courage, was a man of limited mental
capacity, who was cold and reserved and his main interests in life
seemed to be the pursuit of horses and women. An uninspiring figure,
George himself was described by one observer to be "low of stature,
of features coarse, of aspect dull and placid."
In
1680 he was invited over to England as a prospective suitor to James
II's daughter, later to become Queen
Anne. It seems that George Lewis, who history was to prove no
gentleman, was unimpressed by the Princess and not keen to marry her, he
returned to Hanover having failed to propose.
He was married in 1682 to his highly attractive first cousin, Sophia
Dorothea of Celle, the daughter of George William, Duke of Brunswick-Luneberg
and the French Huguenot Eleanor d' Olbreuze. The marriage led to the
eventual unification of Hanover and Celle and produced two children, a
son, named George Augustus, born on 10 November 1683 and a daughter,
Sophia Dorothea, born on 16 March 1687, who was later to become Queen of
Prussia.
George's wife Sophia Dorothea was a pretty and vivacious young woman,
but her boorish husband ignored her, prefering to spend his time with
his mistresses. She consequently embarked on an affair with the handsome
and dashing Swedish Count Phillip von Konigsmark. Despite warnings to
keep the liaison discreet, she foolishly flaunted her relationship with
her lover, which quickly developed into a much discussed court scandal.
In 1694, Konigsmark disappeared at Herrenhausen, (suspected to have
been murdered ) George proceeded to divorce Sophia Dorothea. The
unfortunate woman was imprisoned at the Castle of Ahlden by her
vindictive husband, she was twenty-eight years old at the time but was
to spend the rest of her life there and tragically was never to see her
two young children again.
When George's father, Ernest Augustus died on 23 January, 1698, he
suceeded to the Duchy of Brunswick-Luneberg, which he reigned over as an
absolute monarch and became an electoral prince of the Holy Roman
Empire. Shortly after, Queen Anne's only surviving child, William, Duke
of Gloucester died, leaving George's mother, Sophia as the heiress to
the throne of England through the 1701 Act of Settlement. There were
many with a far superior hereditary right to England's throne, but they
were passed over to maintain a Protestant succession. George was
invested with the Order of the Garter by Queen Anne in recognition of
his place in the English Succesion.
Reign
Sophia
of Hanover, who claimed her dearest wish was to have Sophia, Queen of
Great Britain engraved on her tombstone, narrowly missed her life's
ambition, she died aged eighty-four, only two months before Queen Anne.
In 1714, on the death of the last Stuart monarch, George, at the age of
54, came to England to accept "the throne of our ancestors" as
he referred to it in his first speech to Parliament .
The English were singularly unimpressed with their new sovereign.
George I was a short, irascible German who failed to even speak English
and could not be bothered to learn the language. Landing in England at
Greenwich, on the evening of 18th September, 1714, in a thick fog, he
was accompanied two mistresses Mademoiselle Schullenberg and Madame
Keilmansegge, The pair were irreverently dubbed the "the Elephant
and the Maypole." His coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on
20 October.
Although the majority of the British people were Protestant and
therefore approved of the Act of Settlement and the rule of the German
George, as an alternative to the return of the Pretender and the Pope, a
minority still preferred the cause of the Jacobites in the person of
James II's staunchly Catholic son James
Francis Edward Stuart, at the time exiled on the continent and
eagerly waiting his chance to claim his inheritance.
The following year, 1715, the Jacobites raised the standard of 'James
III' in Scotland. The Battle of Sherrifmuir was fought but turned out to
be inconclusive. A small Jacobite force ventured into England but was
defeated at Preston. The revolt was all but over when James Francis
Edward at last arrived, a reserved young man, the Scots were uninspired
by his leadership, and in 1716, having achieved nothing, he returned to
France.
George's relationship with his only son, the Prince of Wales, which
was never good, continued to deteriorate. George Augustus encouraged
political opposition to his father's policies. On the birth of the
Prince of Wales son, William, in 1717 a major rift developed between
them. The King appointed the Duke of Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain, as
one of the child's sponsors. The Prince, who had not been consulted and
heartily disliked Newcastle proceeded to insult him at the christening,
thereby angering his father. The Prince of Wales was promptly ordered to
leave St. James's Palace and set up home at home at Leicester House,
with the Princess of Wales. They were not allowed to take their
children, who remained in the care of the king, an action that was
naturally deeply resented by the Prince and his wife. Leicester House
which then became a meeting place for the King's political opponents.Sir
Robert Walpole managed to bring about a temporary reconcilliation
between father and son in 1720, but they remained largely estranged.
Robert Walpole, England's first Prime Minister
In the early part of his reign, George I attended meetings of the
cabinet regularly. Though he was somewhat hampered by his inability to
speak English, his son George, the new Prince of Wales, translated for
him. Establishing a much repeated Hanoverian tradition, the King had a
poor relationship with his eldest son, they frequently quarrelled and
became estranged. George ceased to attend meetings of the cabinet and
Robert Walpole took advantage of his absence to establish his own
power. George seemed content to leave the business of ruling England
to Walpole while he himself ruled as a despot in Hanover.
Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister
Walpole was born in 1676, the son of a West Norfolk landowner and
entered Parliament as a member of the Whig party in 1701. He rose to
prominence rapidly becoming First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor
of the Exchequer in 1715. He died in 1745.
A company was set up to trade with the South Seas in 1711, into which
thousands invested their savings. In 1720 most of those who had invested
heavily in the scheme lost their money and were ruined. The government
was engulfed in the scandal.
George I famously said " I hate all boets and bainters "
Apart from his patronage of Handel, the King did not appreciate the
arts. Nevertheless his reign saw some literary achievements. Robinson
Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published in 1719 and Jonathon Swift's
Gulliver's Travels in 1726, in the same year the first circulating
library in Britain was opened in Edinburgh.
Later years
George's unfortunate ex-wife, Sophia Dorothea, having spent
thirty-two years, more than half of her life, as the Prisoner of Ahlden
died at the German castle on 23 November, 1726.
The King's relationship with his eldest son and heir George, Prince
of Wales, remained hostile, an icy coldness existed between the pair.
Walpole formed a friendship with Caroline of Anspach, the Princess of
Wales. Unlike her spouse, she was possessed of some intelligence and
through her influence, the Prime Minister gained the Prince of Wales'
trust. He managed to bring about the impossible and engineered a
reconciliation between George and his son, it proved however to be a
superficial one.
During one of his frequent visits to his beloved Hanover, George I
suffered a stroke and died at Osnabruck on 11th June, 1727, in his
sixty-seventh year, he was buried in the Chapel of the Leine Schloss. He
was succeeded by his son George
II. After the Second World War the body of George I was transferred
to the Chapel vaults at Schloss Herrenhausen.
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