George I 1660-1727
King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover

He was born in Osnabr�ck, Hanover, the eldest son of Ernest August, Elector of Hanover, and Sophia, daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia. Elector of Hanover himself from 1698, he was a great-grandson of James VI and I of Scotland and England, and succeeded to the British throne in 1714 on the death of Queen Anne in accordance with the Act of Settlement (1701). He was the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain and Ireland. As a young man he held a military command in the War of Succession against Louis XIV of France. He married his cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Zell (1666-1726), in 1682, but divorced her in 1694 for adultery and, although he lived openly with his own mistresses, kept her imprisoned in the castle of Ahlden until her death. The Hanoverian succession was unpopular in England, with widespread demonstrations against the new king on his accession, but Whig support for him was strengthened by the unsuccessful Jacobite rising in 1715 to restore the exiled Stuarts, who were debarred from the throne on account of their Roman Catholicism. The '15 was exploited by the Whigs to discredit the Tories in the light of their lukewarm support for the Hanoverian king, while George's own preference for the Whigs served to give them a monopoly of power which was to last for another 50 years. The Septennial Act of 1716 extended the period between parliamentary elections to seven years and further reduced the level of popular participation in the political affairs of the nation. George never learned English, but although he preferred whenever possible to spend time in Hanover, he was no mere figurehead in the government of Great Britain. His reign saw an unprecedented dominance of the court party over parliament, intensified during the premiership of Sir Robert Walpole, from 1721 onwards. His relatively low political profile is attributed to the power and cohesion of the alliance between monarch and ruling oligarchy, rather than any evidence of weakness or indifference on the part of the king.

Bibliography: R Hatton, George I (1978)