GEORGE I (GREAT BRITAIN) (1660 – 1727; ruled 1714 – 1727)

GEORGE I (GREAT BRITAIN) (1660–1727; ruled 1714–1727), king of Great Britain and Ireland. George I, who was also elector of Hanover (1698–1727), was the first of the Hanoverian dynasty to rule in Britain. Unlike William III (ruled 1689–1702), who seized power in 1688–1689 and who was familiar with English politics and politicians from earlier visits, marriage into the English royal family, and extensive intervention in English domestic politics, George knew relatively little of England. His failure to learn English and his obvious preference for Hanover further contributed to this sense of alien rule. It was exacerbated by a sense that the preference for Hanover entailed an abandonment of British national interests, as resources were expended for the aggrandizement of Hanover and as the entire direction of British foreign policy was set accordingly. Within five years of his accession, George was at war with Spain, was close to war with Russia, and, having divided the Whigs and proscribed the Tories, was seeking to implement a controversial legislative program. Allied with France from 1716, George pursued a foreign policy that struck little resonance with the political experiences and xenophobic traditions of his British subjects.

On the other hand, George's reign was not so much the wholesale Hanoverian takeover that some feared. Despite periodic rows about Hanoverian interests, George did not swamp Britain with German ministers or systems. Instead, he adapted to British institutions, conforming to the Church of England despite his strong Lutheranism. Even his dispute with his son, later George II (ruled 1727–1760), in 1717–1720 fitted into a parliamentary framework with court and Leicester house parties at Westminster. And the failure of the Jacobite rising of the Old Pretender, James Edward Stuart (1688–1766), in 1715 indicated early in his reign that the establishment on which George depended was determined in turn to maintain his rule.

George's place in politics was not of his choosing but was instead a consequence of the limitations in royal authority and power that stemmed from the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 and subsequent changes. George was sensible enough to adapt and survive. Unlike James II (ruled 1685–1688), he was a pragmatist who did not have an agenda for Britain other than helping Hanover. In part this was a sensible response to circumstances and in part a complacency that arose from diffidence, honesty, and dullness. George lacked the decisiveness, charisma, and wiliness of Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715) of France and Peter the Great (ruled 1682–1725) of Russia.

As an individual George was a figure of suspicion because of the incarceration of his adulterous wife, Sophia Dorothea, and the disappearance in 1694 of her lover, Philipp Christoph von Königsmarch, and because of rumors about his own personal life. His choleric quarrel with the future George II also attracted attention. George I enjoyed drilling his troops and hunting. When he could, he had fought, including in 1675–1678 in the Dutch war against Louis XIV and in 1683–1685 against the Turks in Hungary. He had led forces into Holstein in 1700, led an invasion of Wolfenbüttel in 1702, and commanded on the Rhine against Louis XIV's forces in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714).

George's reliance on the Whigs and antipathy toward the Tories was more important, as it limited his room for political maneuver. In 1720 George had to accommodate himself to Robert Walpole (1676–1745), the leading opposition Whig, but it is also clear that Walpole had to adapt to George. In 1720 George was also reconciled with his son, but only to the extent of a mutual coldness. George refused to have his son as regent in England during his trips to Hanover in 1723, 1725, and 1727, on the last of which he died en route. He also turned down his son's request for a military post in any European conflict that might involve Britain.

George showed both political skills and a sense of responsibility during his reign. An incompetent and unyielding monarch might well have led to the end of Hanoverian rule in Britain, but at George's death in 1727 there was no question that the succession would pass anywhere other than to his son.

See also George II (Great Britain) ; Hanoverian Dynasty(Great Britain) ; Jacobitism .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beattie, John M. The English Court in the Reign of George I. London, 1967.

Hatton, Ragnhild. George I: Elector and King. Cambridge, Mass., 1978.

Marlow, Joyce. George I: His Life and Times. London, 1973.

Plumb, J. H. The First Four Georges. Rev. ed. London, 1974.

Jeremy Black