Erik Visits a Non-American Grave, Part 2,009

This is the grave of King George II.

Born in 1683 in Hanover, Germany, George had no idea he would become the King of England when he was a child. It was also pretty messy. His parents were both experts at infidelities. But being a man, the future George I could get away with it. His mother, Sophia Dorothea? She was thrown in a prison for the last three decades of her life. But since no one in the British royal line could have any children that survived, after the death of Queen Anne, the line went to the nearest Protestant relatives, which was the Hanovers of Germany. So George became a English citizen in 1705 and learned English. George I took over in 1714 and the future George II became Prince of Wales.

Now, George I was not super comfortable with his new settings, but George II totally embraced it, talked about what a great city London is, and tried to ingratiate himself with his future subjects. Later, he would force the court to speak English instead of German. In fact, his son became so popular that it annoyed George I and their relationship went downhill. They saw politics very differently and George was banned from the royal court. He effectively became a political opposition figure as Prince of Wales and became close to Whig leaders, as opposed to the Tories who were closer to George I and usually the monarchy whoever was in charge.

When George I died in 1727, the newly christened George II didn’t even go to Germany for the funeral. What he really wanted as king was war. War was fun and it’s not like he was going to do the fighting or most certainly the dying. But his advisors–Walpole especially–suggested against this, noting the financial cost of war. George became known as a weaker king, really under Walpole’s spell, increasingly not just on domestic policy, but foreign policy too. He developed something of a bad reputation later for this, but I don’t really see why–you don’t want an idiot king fucking everything up with his whims. Trust me as dealing with a president who is a wannabe king, this ain’t what you want. You’d rather have the king, if you have to have one, be willing to listen to experts and be that figurehead, especially in a parliamentary republic, which doesn’t quite describe mid-18th century Britain, but isn’t that far off.

Unfortunately, George ignored Walpole’s advice because he was so excited to get involved in the War of the Austrian Succession. The monarchs of the 18th century so very much loved war and of course this would never really get resolved in the 1740s as it was happening and so it laid the groundwork for the Seven Years War that would spring up in the mid 1750s and eventually lead to the catastrophic defeat for the French by the English at the beginning of the 1760s, which was itself toward the end of George’s reign. George spent a lot of time in these years in the Hanover lands since it was easily to keep his hands involved in the European military cookie jar from that more central location. George also had to deal with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the last rebellion to return a Catholic to the throne and which naturally enough the French encouraged. The government crushed it. The British military struggled through much of this. The nation hadn’t fought much in the twenty years prior to this and the state of the military wasn’t great.

George’s relationship with his ambitious son was no better than the relationship he had with his father. In fact, it was kind of the same thing–an aggressively masculine son who wanted a different politics than his father. Some of the tension went back to George I, who had set up his grandson with duties in Hanover as a way to avoid his annoying son. Things got so bad that when Prince Frederick’s wife gave birth to their son, the future George III, he forced her out of the palace while going through birth so his parents wouldn’t be there. He was banned from court for that stunt and then died of a cricket injury and so George III became Prince of Wales and the British were saved from a king with an obvious German name.

Now, George was an absolute rounder. He wasn’t very good at policy issues. He cheated on his wife all the time, even compared to other royals. His interests were war, women, and hunting. He was by all accounts a total asshole who had a super short fuse. But when you visit Kensington Palace in London, it is done to look like the George II era and they totally play that period up as a very fine time in the royal family, the perfect time to experience the glories of Hanover England. It’s not like historical fantasies surprise me. And the palace tour is pleasant enough I suppose. But they make George II out to be a real hero, the guy who really worked to be an English king instead of a German king (leaving out all the time he spent back in Hanover, which was a lot). I don’t think this is totally untrue or anything, but it’s a rather, uh, chosen narrative.

Oh, also, when George’s wife Caroline died in 1737, on her death bed, she told him to remarry and he replied that why would he since he had so many mistresses. Now that my friends is pure class. George barely hid the kids from these mistresses.

During the Seven Years War, George was sure to ally England with his Prussian relatives. Frederick the Great was his nephew. George and William Pitt the Elder hated each other, but Pitt was just about the indispensable man, so George tried to get rid of him, but you couldn’t really do that. When George’s son William commanded troops and made a peace deal on his own, George was ashamed of his loser son and just about disowned him, reneging on the deal. But George himself was about done. He was aging and his health failing by the 1750s. In 1760, he had a massive heart attack and died. He was 76 years old.

George II is buried in Westminster Abbey, London, England.

If you would like this series to visit American kings, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. The actor King Baggot is in East Los Angeles, California and the razor capitalist King Gillette is in Glendale, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.