George III: A Picture Portfolio Of A Long And Troubled Reign (June 1960 | Volume: 11, Issue: 4)

George III: A Picture Portfolio Of A Long And Troubled Reign

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June 1960 | Volume 11, Issue 4

The King’s Ancestors

 
GEORGE I (1660–1727): The American colonies which would eject his great-grandson were a mere strip of coastal settlements, distant, insecure pawns in European dynastic wars, when an accident of ancestry brought George Louis, Elector of Hanover, to the throne in 1714. There were closer claimants by blood, not to mention more attractive personalities, among the ousted Catholic Stuarts, and they had some Tory help as old Queen Anne approached death without an heir. But the great Whig families supported George Louis, grandson of the daughter of James I and an undoubted Protestant, and through this rather blunt Hanoverian instrument they ruled England for almost a century.

This first George spoke no English, and much preferred his castle, Herrenhausen, and the German chamberlains and gross mistresses he brought to England with him. Only his wife was left behind. Years before, this unhappy princess, Sophia Dorothea of Celle (left), had been caught in an illicit love affair. Her lover was murdered and Sophia imprisoned for the rest of her life. George I is not an admirable figure, but he left government alone and, ruled by his prime minister, Robert Walpole, the Empire could prosper.

 

GEORGE II (1683–1760): Hanover-born George II was personally brave—he was the last English king to fight in battle—and he learned English, after a fashion; but he was choleric, stingy, and minutely methodical. He liked to count his money, coin by coin; his only present to Robert Walpole (his minister also) was a cracked diamond. Literature and the arts were beyond him, although, to his credit, he brought his great countryman Handel over from Hanover. He was aware of some of his weaknesses, and of the greater wisdom of his Queen, Caroline of Anspach (below). His intimate, the witty Lord Chesterfield, remarked that the King “well knew that he was governed by the Queen, while she lived; and that she was governed by Sir Robert Walpole.” To her George II was devoted, if conspicuously unfaithful, and when on her deathbed Caroline urged the aging rake to marry again, he could only sob, “No, no, I shall have mistresses.” He kept both promises.

Like all his house, George II squabbled disgracefully with his heirs, notably his son Frederick, who was banished from the palace. George II was as Germanic as his father, and loved Hanover greatly. His grandson was the first, as he put it, to “glory in the name of Briton.”

 

The Education of a King

“The cleverest tutors in the world could have done little probably to expand that small intellect,” muses Thackeray on young George III. “He did his best … He was forever drawing maps, for example, and learned geography with no small care and industry. He knew all about the family histories and genealogies of his gentry …