GEORGE II (1683–1760), king of Great Britain and Ireland, only son of George I by Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George William, duke of Lüneburg-Celle, born at Herrenhausen on 10 Nov. (N.S.) 1683 and christened George Augustus, remained under the care of his mother until her divorce on 28 Dec. (N.S.) 1694. Thenceforward he lived with his grandparents, Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover, and his consort, the Electress Sophia, granddaughter of James I, and was instructed in history and the Latin, French, and English languages. He is said to have cherished the memory and believed in the innocence of his mother, and on one occasion to have made an attempt, frustrated by the vigilance of her guards, to penetrate into her prison (Lebensbeschreibung, 4-7; Walpole, Memoirs, iii. 314; Walpoliana, i. 59; Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, 1845, i. 290; Coxe, Walpole, i. 269, 270). When the Electress Sophia and her issue were placed in the order of succession to the English throne (1701), the whigs proposed to invite the electress and her grandson to England. The project was defeated by the tories, but the Electress Sophia and her issue were naturalised by act of parliament (1705), and the prince was invested with the order of the Garter and created Baron of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, Viscount Northallerton in Yorkshire, Earl of Milford Haven in Wales, and Marquis and Duke of Cambridge (9 Nov. 1706). Meanwhile he had married at Herrenhausen on 2 Sept. (N.S.) 1705 Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline, daughter of John Frederic, markgraf of Brandenburg-Anspach [see Caroline, 1683-1737]. In June 1708 he joined the army of the allies, under Marlborough, at Terbanck, and on 11 July (N.S.) distinguished himself at the battle of Oudenarde, heading a cavalry charge, being unhorsed, and more than once in imminent peril of death (Lebensbeschreibung, 7-11; Parl Hist. v. 1237, 1294; Klopp, ix. 144, 260, xi. 36, 297; Lords' Journ. xvii. 132; Nicolas, Hist. of British Knighthood, vol. ii., Chron. List, lxix; Rimini Memoirs of the house of Brunswick, 413, 421; Coxe, Marlborough, ed. Wade, ii. 237; Luttrell, Relation of State Affairs, v. 626, vi. 33, 338, 359, 434; Pöllnitz, Neue Nachrichten, 1739, Erst. Th. 116; Pöllnitz, Maison de Brandebourg, 1791, i. 306; Marlborough Despatches, ed. Murray, iv. 71, 104, 272). On 22 Dec. 1710 he was installed knight of the Garter, Lord Halifax acting as his proxy. In 1711 an act of parliament was passed giving him precedence as Duke of Cambridge before all the nobility of Great Britain. Prince Eugene now strongly urged him to visit England, but the elector forbade the journey. The Electress Sophia, however, applied through Schütz, the Hanoverian minister at London, for the writ necessary to enable the prince to take his seat in the house of peers. This was done with the concurrence of the principal whig and opposition tory lords. Schütz was informed by the lord-chancellor (Harcourt) that Queen Anne, though surprised, would not refuse the application. The news was well received by the nation, and the prince was eagerly expected. Anne, however, wrote to the elector, the Electress Sophia, and the prince in terms which left no doubt of her dislike to the proposal, which was dropped after a reply of cold politeness from the prince. After the death of Anne (1 Aug. 1714) the prince accompanied his father to England, was declared Prince of Wales at the first council held by the new king (22 Sept.), and so created by letters patent on 27 Sept. The princess followed with her two daughters, Anne and Amelia, in October. On 29 Oct. the king, accompanied by the prince and princess, dined
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and of the events connected with them has been elaborated at great length by Klopp in Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, of which vols. ix-xiv. (1881-8) contain plentiful materials for the history of George I; for a review of recent literature on the subject see the English Historical Review for July 1886, art. 'The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession.' For the reign of George I the standard modern authorities are the Histories of Lord Stanhope and Lecky (the former of which is here cited as 'Stanhope' in the 5th edit. 1858), with Coxe's Life of Walpole (here cited as 'Coxe' in the edition of 1816). Ranke's Englische Geschichte, vol. vii., summarises the foreign policy of the period. Detailed annalistic information will be found in (Boyer's) Political State of Great Britain, of which vols. viii-x. treat the opening period of the reign. Many facts of interest in the earlier half of the reign are narrated in the Diary of Lady Cowper (1714-20) (1864), and in that of her husband the lord chancellor (1833). Two amusing papers on the court and state of affairs after the accession, with details concerning the king's ministers and mistresses, are printed in vol. i. of the Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1861). Horace Walpole's (Lord Orford) Eeminiscences, written in 1788, here cited from vol. i. of Cunningham's edition of the Letters (1856), furnish further touches. See also Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, vol. iv. (1846); the Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. (1831); and for anecdotal history Thomas Wright's England under the House of Hanover, illustrated from the caricatures and satires of the day, 2 vols. 1848, republished 1867; Jesse's Memoirs of the Court of England from the Revolution of 1688, vol. ii. (2nd edit. 1846), and Dr. Doran's London in the Jacobite Times (2 vols. 1877).]
