George I Read online

  On the Hanoverian succession, indispensable are Edward Gregg’s excellent biography of Queen Anne (London: Ark Paperbacks, 1984) and Howard Nenner’s The Right to be King: The Succession to the Crown of England 1603–1714 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995).

  Still essential for the court is John M. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), and see also his article ‘The Court of George I and English Politics, 1717–1720’, English Historical Review, 81, 318 (January 1966). These can be supplemented by Barbara Arciszewska, The Hanoverian Court and the Triumph of Palladio: The Palladian Revival, Hanover and England c.1700 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2002); Lucy Worsley, Courtiers: The Secret History of Kensington Palace (London: Faber, 2010); Claudia Gold, The King’s Mistress: The True and Scandalous Story of the Woman who Stole the Heart of George I (London: Quercus, 2012); and Joanna Marschner, Queen Caroline: Cultural Politics at the Early Eighteenth-Century Court (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014). Especially illuminating is Hannah Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture 1714–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). On the buildings, see H. M. Colvin, J. Mordaunt Crook, Kerry Downes and John Newman, The History of the King’s Works, vol. 5 (London: HMSO, 1976), and Edward Impey, Kensington Palace, revised edition (London and New York: Merrell, 2012).

  On the financial revolution which made both George’s inheritance so favourable and his foreign policy possible, see Peter Dickson’s trailblazing The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit 1688–1756 (London: Macmillan, 1967), a work of great distinction. This can be supplemented by John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State 1688–1783 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), and Martin Daunton, ‘The wealth of the nation’, in Paul Langford (ed.), The Short Oxford History of the British Isles: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  On domestic politics, still helpful is A. W. Ward, ‘Great Britain under George I’, in A. W. Ward, G. W. Prothero and Stanley Leathes (eds), The Cambridge Modern History, vol. 6: The Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), and still indispensable is J. H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, vol. 1: The Making of a Statesman and vol. 2: The King’s Minister (London: Cresset, 1956 and 1960). There are numerous good articles in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; see especially Edward Gregg on the Pretender, Henry L. Snyder on Sunderland, A. A. Hanham on Stanhope, Matthew Kilburn on Robethon, Andrew C. Thompson on Bothmer, Stephen Taylor on Walpole, W. A. Speck and Matthew Kilburn on the promoters of the South Sea Bubble, Linda Frey and Marsha Frey on Townshend, and John Cannon on Carteret. On the Tories there is much to be found in H. T. Dickinson, Bolingbroke (London: Constable, 1970). On Jacobitism, a topic which still attracts polemical writing which tends to generate more heat than light, there are judicious assessments by Dickinson in his article ‘The Jacobite challenge’, in Michael Lynch (ed.), Jacobitism and the ’45 (London: Historical Association, 1995); Christopher Duffy, ‘The Jacobite wars 1708–1746’, in Edward M. Spiers, Jeremy Crang and Matthew Strickland (eds), A Military History of Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014); and Gabriel Glickman, ‘Jacobitism and the Hanoverian monarchy’ in the collection edited by Gestrich and Schaich listed above. On ecclesiastical politics, very helpful and much more general than the title suggests is Geoffrey Holmes, The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973). Also illuminating is G. V. Bennett, ‘Jacobitism and the rise of Walpole’, in Neil McKendrick, Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in Honour of J. H. Plumb (London: Europa, 1974). Two influential monographs by Linda Colley are In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party 1714–60 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) and Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992).

  On foreign policy the best general history is Derek McKay and H. M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers 1648–1815 (London: Longman, 1983), which is both lucid and scholarly. Fundamental is G. C. Gibbs, ‘The Revolution in foreign policy’, in the collection Britain after the Glorious Revolution edited by Holmes and listed above. The contribution by J. F. Chance, ‘The foreign policy of George I’, to Ward, Prothero and Leathes (eds), The Cambridge Modern History, vol. 6 is immensely detailed, but so densely textured and turgid as to be almost unreadable. Two substantial and distinguished biographies which also reveal a great deal about the international relations of the period are Basil Williams, Stanhope: A Study in Eighteenth-Century War and Diplomacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932) and Janet Hartley, Charles Whitworth: Diplomat in the Age of Peter the Great (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). Two important monographs are Andrew C. Thompson, Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest 1688–1756 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006) and David Denis Aldridge, Admiral Sir John Norris and the British Naval Expeditions to the Baltic Sea 1715–1727, edited by Leos Müller and Patrick Salmon (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2009). Very helpful is Robert Frost, The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721 (Harlow: Longman, 2000).

  There is a formidable amount of writing on Scotland and Ireland in the period. Good introductions are David Hayton, ‘Contested kingdoms, 1699–1756’, in Langford (ed.), The Short Oxford History of the British Isles; T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation 1700–2000 (London: Allen Lane, 1999); T. W. Moody and W. E. Vaughan (eds), A New History of Ireland, vol. 4: Eighteenth-Century Ireland 1691–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600–1972 (London: Penguin, 1989); Ian McBride, Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2009); and Thomas Bartlett, Ireland: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

  Picture Credits

  Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to correct in future editions any omissions brought to their attention.

  1. Godfrey Kneller, portrait of George I in his coronation robes, 1716 (Granger Collection/Alamy)

  2. Map of the electorate of Hanover (Enacademic.com)

  3. View of the gardens at Herrenhausen, c.1708 (Wikimedia Commons)

  4. Elector Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, seventeenth century (Bomann-Museum, Celle/ Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

  5. Electress Sophia of Hanover, late seventeenth century (S. K. H. Erbprinz Ernst August von Hannover, Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg, Schloss Marienburg)

  6. Godfrey Kneller (attr.), portrait of George when Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, c.1680 (© Residenzmuseum im Celler Schloss/Bomann-Museum, Celle/Fotostudio Loeper)

  7. Jacques Vaillant (attr.), portrait of Sophia Dorothea with her children Georg August, the future George II and Sophia Dorothea, the future Queen of Prussia, c.1690 (© Residenzmuseum im Celler Schloss/Bomann-Museum, Celle/Fotostudio Loeper)

  8. English school, A Royal Hunting Party at Göhrde, 1725 (Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016/Bridgeman Images)

  9. George I with his son Georg August, the future George II, and daughter-in-law Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, later Queen Caroline (De Agostini Picture Library/A. Dagli Orti /Bridgeman Images)

  10. Johann Sebastien Müller, The Hanoverian Line of Succession, c.1748 (Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016/Bridgeman Images)

  11. English school, A View of the Royal Palace of Kensington, nineteenth century (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Library, London/Bridgeman Images)

  12. Richard Paton, The Battle of Cape Passaro, 11 August 1718, 1767 (Greenwich Hospital Collection © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)

  13. James Thornhill, rear wall painting of the Upper Hall glorifying George I and the House of Hanover, 1718–24 (Royal Naval College, Greenwich © James Brittain/Bridgeman Images)

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  First published 2017

  Copyright © Tim Blanning, 2017

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  Cover design by Pentagram

  Jacket art by Rachel Ann Lindsey

  ISBN: 978-0-141-97684-6