George I

George I (1660-1727) was king of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1727. Founder of the Hanoverian dynasty, he was the first English monarch whose claim to reign depended upon an act of Parliament.

Born at Hanover on March 28, 1660, George Lewis, of the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg, was the son of Ernest Augustus and Sophia, granddaughter of James I of England. George's marriage to his cousin Sophia Dorothea in 1682 united the Hanoverian possessions of the house of Brunswick. He answered his wife's suspected infidelity by divorcing her in 1694 and confining her to her castle for life. He succeeded his father as elector of Hanover in 1698.

George's role in British history stemmed from two circumstances: he was the great-grandson of James I, and he was a Protestant. In 1701 the English Parliament, recognizing that neither William III nor his successor, Anne, would leave an heir and fearing reversion of the crown to a Roman Catholic, passed the Act of Settlement; it conferred the inheritance on Sophia of Hanover and "the heirs of her body being Protestants." By this statute George became king in 1714—to the exclusion of some 57 persons with superior hereditary claims.

Understandably, George proved unpopular in Britain. A shy, rather sour man, he preferred to avoid crowds and royal pageantry. Ignorant of the language, bereft of intellectual gifts, and unmoved by the arts, save music, he showed no appreciation of English culture. Hanover remained undisguisedly his first love. He showered his German mistresses with estates and pensions and showed favoritism to his German courtiers. In foreign affairs he was rightly suspected of giving priority to the interests of Hanover, but fortunately those interests were usually congruent with Britain's.

Yet, fundamentally, George I was the right man at the right time for Britain. He possessed a quality the Stuart kings had lacked—steadiness. He knew his friends from his enemies and rewarded them accordingly; nothing was more essential in defending the new dynasty against treason. He quickly learned to find his ministers among the Whigs, who had supported his succession to the throne.

Though ignorant of English politics, George I did have experience in European foreign affairs. For 6 years he relied chiefly on his Hanoverian ministers, Bernstorff and Bothmer; the English ministers, led by Lords Townshend and Stanhope, usually had to work through the German advisers on matters requiring royal assent. The main weakness of this arrangement lay in its tendency to isolate the King's government from its parliamentary support. When the King visited Hanover in 1716, his most influential men in Parliament, Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole, were left behind and fell victim to intrigue. Blamed for opposing the King's foreign policy and, quite unfairly, for conniving with George's son, the Prince of Wales, Townshend lost royal favor and resigned in April 1717. Walpole followed him. Finding allies among the Tories, they led a vigorous parliamentary opposition. The lively court of the Prince of Wales became a gathering place of dissident politicians. Although the government, increasingly dominated by Bernstorff until 1719, survived these onslaughts, the political turmoil provoked by the outcast Whigs goaded the King into action.

It has been said that George I reigned but did not rule. However, he could be energetic and ruthless when his power seemed threatened. To overshadow the prince's court, he suppressed his aversion to courtly entertainments and conversed with ambitious men. The King's inability to speak English was not a serious hindrance; nearly everyone at court was fluent in French.

In 1720 the bursting of the "South Sea Bubble" raised stormy protests in Parliament. The goverment badly needed men who could tame the House of Commons, and chief among these was Walpole. Gaining access to George I through his aging but most trusted mistress, Madame Schulenberg, now Duchess of Kendal, Walpole and Townshend successfully negotiated a reentry to office. By 1722 Walpole was the King's leading minister and retained royal confidence to the end.

George I died suddenly of a stroke on June 11, 1727, while journeying to Hanover. Unmourned by his family and his English subjects, he had nevertheless done his duty. His instincts were authoritarian, yet he had managed to stifle rebellion without imposing tyranny. Above all, he learned to accommodate himself to a system of constitutional rule that the more energetic William III had found frustrating and distasteful.

Further Reading

The most penetrating account of George I's relationship with his ministers can be found in J. H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole (2 vols., 1956-1961). A detailed history of the reign by Wolfgang Michael is partially translated from the German under the title England under George I (2 vols., 1936-1939). John M. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George I (1967), contains a valuable chapter on the court in politics.

Additional Sources

Hatton, Ragnhild Marie, George I, elector and king, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Mangan, J. J., The king's favour: three eighteenth century monarchs and the favourites who ruled them, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. □

George I (1660–1727), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27) and elector of Hanover. George was the eldest son of Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover (1692–8), and of Sophia, granddaughter of James I of England, who herself became heir to the British throne by the 1701 Act of Settlement. She died on 8 June 1714, and George succeeded peacefully on 1 August upon the death of Queen Anne.

Having established links with the Whig Party before his succession, largely because of their mutual opposition to the Tory peace with France at Utrecht in 1713, George favoured a Whig administration, though he did employ a handful of senior Tories until the Jacobite Rebellion in 1715 led to the proscription of that party. The Whigs won the general election of 1715, and established their supremacy for the next four and a half decades. Though unpopular, George's position was never seriously threatened either by the rebellion of 1715 or by the Jacobite plots of 1719 and 1722. In fact these episodes served only to strengthen the Hanoverian succession.

George appears to have been diligent in politics, especially in his chosen fields of foreign affairs, diplomacy (he helped to negotiate the Quadruple Alliance of 1718), and the army, over which he insisted on keeping control. His court was private and he much preferred the company of his German ministers to his British advisers, as well as that of the duchess of Kendal and the countess of Darlington. These two were long thought to have been his mistresses, and indeed Kendal was from 1691, but she may also have later been his morganatic wife (he had divorced his wife Sophia Dorothea in 1694 for adultery and imprisoned her for life). Darlington, however, was his half-sister.

Contrary to long-established views, George did attend cabinet meetings throughout his reign. The language he commonly used with his ministers was French but he arrived with a smattering of English and knew sufficient to write and converse in it by the end of his reign. However, he rarely attended Parliament and never debates in the House of Lords ‘incognito’ as had some of his predecessors, such as Charles II and Anne.

Relations between George and his son, the prince of Wales (later George II), were often strained, and in 1717 a violent quarrel erupted. The prince and his wife were expelled from the court (their children were kept by the king) and set up a rival one in Leicester House. This quarrel coincided with the Whig schism in which Walpole and Townshend left the ministry of Sunderland and Stanhope. In April 1720 the royal quarrel was patched up as a cover for the reconciliation of the ministry with the schismatic Whigs.

George frequently returned to Hanover in the summer months. The king's attachment to his electorate and its presumed prominent influence on English foreign policy (as well as the interference of the German ministers at the English court) created a good deal of friction. George, however, was close to some of his English ministers, particularly Stanhope, who looked after foreign policy, and Sunderland. It was the king's attachment to the latter which kept him in power after the bursting of the South Sea bubble in 1720 (the most serious crisis of the reign) and Stanhope's untimely death in 1721. Sunderland had arranged for fraudulent South Sea shares to be given to the king, and had overseen the distribution of douceurs in Parliament to help things along. George and his chief minister had to stick together in the ensuing crisis, and managed to weather the storm. Sunderland's unexpected death in April 1722 forced George to accept Walpole (whose acumen in salvaging the financial disaster had saved the dynasty) and Townshend as his chief ministers, though Carteret (a protégé of Sunderland) was to remain a serious contender for power for a further two years.

George's reign ended with domestic affairs entering a period of quiet, while abroad Britain was recognized as the major arbiter of the balance of power. He died of a stroke on 20 June 1727 at Osnabrück.

Clyve Jones

Bibliography

Hatton, R. , George I: Elector and King (1978).

George I (1660–1727), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27) and elector of Hanover. George was the eldest son of Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover (1692–8), and of Sophia, granddaughter of James I of England, who herself became heir to the British throne by the 1701 Act of Settlement. She died on 8 June 1714, and George succeeded peacefully on 1 August upon the death of Queen Anne.

George favoured a Whig administration, though he did employ a handful of senior Tories until the Jacobite Rebellion in 1715 led to the proscription of that party. The Whigs won the general election of 1715, and established their supremacy for the next four and a half decades.

George appears to have been diligent in politics, especially in his chosen fields of foreign affairs, diplomacy, and the army. His court was private and he much preferred the company of his German ministers to his British advisers, as well as that of the duchess of Kendal and the countess of Darlington. These two were long thought to have been his mistresses, and indeed Kendal was from 1691. Darlington, however, was his half‐sister.

Relations between George and his son, the prince of Wales (later George II), were often strained, and in 1717 a violent quarrel erupted. The prince and his wife were expelled from the court and set up a rival one in Leicester House. This quarrel coincided with the Whig schism in which Walpole and Townshend left the ministry of Sunderland and Stanhope. In April 1720 the royal quarrel was patched up as a cover for the reconciliation of the ministry with the schismatic Whigs.

George frequently returned to Hanover in the summer months. The king's attachment to his electorate and its presumed prominent influence on English foreign policy created a good deal of friction. George, however, was close to some of his English ministers, particularly Stanhope, who looked after foreign policy, and Sunderland. It was the king's attachment to the latter which kept him in power after the bursting of the South Sea bubble in 1720 (the most serious crisis of the reign) and Stanhope's untimely death in 1721. Sunderland's unexpected death in April 1722 forced George to accept Walpole (whose acumen in salvaging the financial disaster had in effect saved the dynasty) and Townshend as his chief ministers. He died of a stroke on 20 June 1727 at Osnabrück.

George I (George Louis), 1660–1727, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27); son of Sophia , electress of Hanover, and great-grandson of James I. He became (1698) elector of Hanover, fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, and in 1714 succeeded Queen Anne under the provisions of the Act of Settlement , becoming the first British sovereign of the house of Hanover . He was personally unpopular in England because of his German manners, his German mistresses (see Schulenburg, Ehrengard Melusina von der, duchess of Kendal ), his treatment of his divorced wife, Sophia Dorothea , and his inability to speak English. George's dual role as elector of Hanover and king of England also raised problems; he spent much of his time in Hanover and was widely (although unjustly) believed to be indifferent to English affairs. Yet, despite the uprising of the Jacobites in 1715, his crown was never in danger, for he stood to Englishmen as the guarantee of the "revolution settlement" against a return of the Roman Catholic Stuarts. George's succession brought the Whigs to power, and the early years of his reign saw constant maneuvering for power among his ministers—the 1st Earl Stanhope , the 3d earl of Sunderland , Viscount Townshend , and Robert Walpole . The principal achievement of these years was the Quadruple Alliance of 1718, which provided an international guarantee of the Hanoverian succession and the status quo of the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Rising to power in the South Sea Bubble crisis, Walpole dominated the end of the reign, beginning his long tenure as virtual prime minister. George was succeeded by his son, George II.

Bibliography: See biography by J. H. Plumb, The First Four Georges (1956); A. Redman, The House of Hanover (1960, repr. 1968); B. Williams, The Whig Supremacy, 1714–60 (2d ed. 1962); R. Hatton, George the First: Elector and King (1978).

George I 1845–1913, king of the Hellenes (1863–1913), second son of Christian IX of Denmark. After the deposition (1862) of Otto I , he was elected to succeed on the throne of Greece. Much more effective than his predecessor, George introduced (1864) a democratic constitution, acquired (1881) Thessaly and part of Epirus from Turkey, and in 1897 declared war on Turkey in order to aid the insurrection in Crete . Although badly defeated, George's close contacts with most of the ruling houses of Europe helped prevent Turkey from imposing a harsh peace settlement. George saw Greece through the first of the Balkan Wars , during which Macedonia was gained, but was assassinated before the outbreak of the second. Harilaos Trikoupis and Eleutherios Venizelos were the outstanding political figure in George's reign. George married Grand Duchess Olga, a niece of Alexander II of Russia. He was succeeded by his son Constantine I .

George I (1660–1727) Elector of Hanover (1692–1714) and King of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27). His mother Sophia (1630–1714), a granddaughter of JAMES I, and her issue were recognized as heirs to the throne of England by the Act of SETTLEMENT (1701), which excluded the Roman Catholic STUARTS. He succeeded peaceably to the throne on Queen ANNE's death in 1714, and the JACOBITE rebellion a year later helped to unite the country behind him. He had little sympathy for British constitutionalism, the need to accept the limitations of Parliament and ministers, and he disliked England, spending as much time as possible in Hanover. But he developed a good command of English, despite his German accent, and his unswerving support for WALPOLE from 1721 helped to consolidate the supremacy of the Whigs. He ruled without a queen, having divorced his wife, Sophia Dorothea, in 1694.

George I (1660–1727) King of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27), and Elector of Hanover (1698–1727). A Protestant, he succeeded Queen Anne as the first monarch of the House of Hanover. He favoured the Whigs over the Tories, suspecting the latter of Jacobite sympathies. As King of England, he preferred his native Hanover and spoke little English. As a result, power passed increasingly to Parliament and ministers such as Sir Robert Walpole.

George I (1845–1913) King of the Hellenes (1863–1913). Made king by Great Britain, France and Russia, with the approval of the Greek National Assembly, he backed the constitution of 1864 giving power to an elected Parliament. He gained territory through the Balkan Wars. He was assassinated in 1913 and was succeeded by his son Constantine I.