Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: King of England - reigned 1714 to 1727
• Stories and Notes: He was the son of the first elector of Hanover, Ernest Augustus (1629–1698), and his wife Sophia who was a granddaughter of James I of England. He was heir through his father to the hereditary lay bishopric of Osnabrück and the duchy of Calenberg, which was one part of the Hanoverian possessions of the house of Brunswick. He acquired the other part by his marriage in 1682 to his cousin Sophia Dorothea of Celle. They had two children George (who later became George II) and Sophia (who married Frederick William of Prussia in 1706 and was the mother of Frederick the Great). It was not a happy marriage. George had several mistresses, and his wife Sophia eloped with Swedish Count Philip Konigsmark who in 1694 mysteriously disappeared believed killed with George’s connivance and his body thrown in a river. Sophia was imprisoned in Castle Ahlden in Celle where she remained until she died 30 years later. In England Queen Anne had no surviving children and in 1701 Parliament passed the Act of Settlement to ensure a Protestant line of succession and oppose the claim of the Catholic James Edward Stuart. George’s mother Sophia became heiress to the British throne, but she died in May 1714 a few weeks before Queen Anne so when Anne died in August that year George became King George I of Great Britain. George arrived in England aged 54 speaking only a few words of English, with 18 cooks and two mistresses one very fat and the other thin and tall who became nicknamed ‘Elephant and Castle’ after an area in London. In Hanover he was absolute ruler but in England found that he had to work with Parliament and his Whig ministers particularly Lord Townshend who was dismissed, Earl Stanhope and Robert Walpole. The king grew frustrated in his attempts to control Parliament and more and more dependent upon his advisers as scandal surrounded him; his supporters turned against him, demanding freedom of action as the price of reconciliation. George rarely attended meetings with his ministers, and particularly Walpole became powerful and effectively Britain’s first Prime Minister. Jacobite rebellions in Scotland in 1715 led by Lord Mar, and in 1719 supported by Spanish troops intending to place James Edward Stuart (‘The old Pretender’) on throne found little support and were quickly defeated. The ‘South Sea Bubble’ in which shares in companies were purchased in rash financial speculation before a stock market crash in 1720 left many investors ruined, and George was implicated in the scandal. Walpole’s management of the crisis by rescheduling debts and paying compensation using Government money helped return financial stability. George quarrelled with his son George (a trait inherited by successive Hanoverian kings) and became increasingly unpopular. He spent more and more time in Hanover where he died of a stroke in 1727.
• To Lady Kathleen: 9 x cousin 11 times removed

Notes:

Died:
Died of a stroke

George married Duchess of Brunswick - Luneburg Sophia Dorothea on 21 Nov 1682 in Castle Chapel, Heidelberg, Germany, and was divorced. Sophia was born on 5 Sep 1666 in Celle Castle, Germany; died on 13 Nov 1726 in Castle of Ahlden, Hanover, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: King of England reigned 1727 to 1760
• Stories and Notes: George II was born in Hanover the son of George I and Sophia of Celle. He married Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1705 an attractive and intelligent woman, and they had 9 children. In 1708 he took part in the Battle of Oudenarde in Belgium against the French. His father became King George I of England in 1714 and he became Prince of Wales. However his father’s treatment of his mother whom he had imprisoned left son George with a hatred of his father and they regularly quarrelled. He was even put under arrest by his father who excluded him from public ceremonies. When his father died in 1727 he became King George II and set about changing his father’s policies. Walpole was expected to be dismissed but survived on the intervention of Queen Caroline. The death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in 1740 led to the European War of Austrian Succession in which the British and Dutch supported Marie Theresa’s claim to the Austrian throne against the Prussians and French. George II personally led his troops at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, becoming the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, in which Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) landed in Scotland and marched with a Highland army into England, was defeated at Culloden in 1746 and Scottish opposition brutally suppressed by George’s second son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Like his father he quarrelled with his eldest son Frederick, Prince of Wales, over his marriage but Frederick died suddenly in 1751. The final years of his reign saw George retiring from active politics; however it was a period in which British dominance overseas grew. William Pitt became Prime Minister during the Seven years war against France which spread to India and North America. Robert Clive secured the Indian continent for Britain at the Battle of Plassey, and General Wolfe captured Quebec in Canada. George II died in 1760 of an aneurysm while seated on his water closet. He was succeeded by his grandson also called George.
• To Lady Kathleen: 10 x cousin 10 times removed

George married Caroline Von Brandenburg on 22 Aug 1705 in Schloss Herrenhausen, Hannover, Germany. Caroline was born on 1 Mar 1683 in Ansbach, , Bayern, Germany; died on 20 Nov 1737 in St. James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall & Gloucester & Rothesay & Edinburgh, Marquess of the Isle of Ely, Earl of Eltham, Viscount of Launceston, Baron of Snowdon, Earl of Chester

Frederrick married Augusta, of Saxe - Gotha on 8 May 1736 in Chapel Royal, St.James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom. Augusta was born on 30 Nov 1719 in Gotha, Germany; died on 8 Feb 1772 in Carlton House, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: Kign of England Reigned 1750 to 1820
• Stories and Notes: George III, unlike his father and grandfather, was born in England. He became heir to the throne when his father Frederick, Prince of Wales, died in 1751 from a lung abscess (believed to be caused by a blow on the chest from a cricket ball) before he could succeed his father. George was shy and stubborn but well educated in science and arts. He became King George III in 1760 following the death of his grandfather. In 1761, after an official search for a suitable wife, he married Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz whom he first met on his wedding day. The couple enjoyed a happy marriage and he never took a mistress. They had 16 children including George (later George IV) and William (who became William IV) and they were married for 57 years. In 1762 he purchased Buckingham House in London which later became Buckingham Palace. George had high moral standards, and appalled by the loose morals of his brothers introduced the Royal Marriage Act in 1772 which made it illegal for members of the Royal Family to marry without the consent of the Sovereign. He was interested in agricultural improvement, and during his reign there were advances in manufacturing mechanisation including the spinning frame and steam engine. George was determined to be thrifty with his own and public expenses. He handed Parliament the right of income from Crown Estates in return for a Civil List annuity for the support of his household and expenses, an arrangement that continues today. Britain had been fighting a colonial war against France since 1756 with military success but at high financial cost. George appointed Lord Bute to negotiate the Treaty of Paris in 1762 to end the Seven years war. This caused patriotic outrage for the concessions it gave to the French including the rights of French colonists in North America to remain in Quebec and New Orleans. Lord North became Prime Minister determined to make the colonies pay for their own security. The Stamp Act of 1765 levied a tax on every official document in the British colonies and high customs duties introduced. These were mostly repealed in the face of American protests, with the exception of the tax on tea. In 1773 colonists threw chests of tea overboard in Boston harbour in a protest know as the ‘Boston tea party’. The American War of Independence began in April 1775 when colonists fought British troops at Lexington. George Washington was appointed commander of the Continental Army. On 4 July 1776 the Continental Congress under leadership of John Hancock declared independence. Fighting continued until 1781 when the British were defeated by Americans and French at Yorktown. In the Treaty of Paris in 1783 Britain agreed to recognise American independence. King George took the loss badly and considered abdication before facing the political and military realities. 1788 he suffered his first attack of insanity (now believed to be the result of the inherited disease porphyria) which was to plague him for the rest of his life. His son George, Prince of Wales, was made temporary regent an arrangement which became permanent in 1810. In 1789 France was shaken by revolution and King Louis XVI guillotined in 1793. Britain was once more at war with France. Attempted revolution by Catholics and French troops in Ireland was crushed and eventually union with Ireland was passed in 1801. By 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte was assembling a fleet for the invasion of England, but the French fleet was defeated by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle Trafalgar in 1805. Napoleon defeated the Russians at Austerlitz but was forced to withdraw from Moscow by the Russian winter. The battles continued with the Peninsular War in which the British fought to drive the French from Spain. Napoleon was eventually defeated by British and German forces at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. George III died at Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820, after a reign of almost 60 years - the third longest in British history, and was succeeded by his son George IV.
• Stories and Notes: Movie Title: The Madness of King George Starring: Nigel Hawthorne as King George III, and Helen Mirren as Queen Charlotte Released: 1994 Production: Channel Four Films
• To Lady Kathleen: 12 x cousin 8 times removed

George married Duchess of Mecklenburg Sophia on 8 Sep 1761 in Chapel Royal, St.James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom. Sophia was born on 19 May 1744 in Mirow, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany; died on 17 Nov 1818 in Kew Palace, Kew, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]