King Over the Water by Desmond Seward

Author:Desmond Seward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

The second Hanoverian

George I died in June 1727. When Georg August of Hanover and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach were crowned King and Queen of Great Britain in October, Handel’s stately anthems gave an impression of age-old tenure of the throne. Their subjects were not deceived. ‘The world is come to a fine pass indeed, if we are all fools except a parcel of Round-heads and Hanover rats,’ Squire Western grumbled in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, published twenty years later. ‘Pox! I hope the times are coming when we shall all make fools of them, and every man shall have his own again.’ (Western is quoting the Jacobite anthem.)

Over thirty before he came to England, an irritable, red-faced, over-dressed little man who spoke English with a thick German accent, exclaiming ‘Dat is one big lie!’ when informed of his father’s death, George II was just as foreign. He much preferred Hanover to England, spending 1729–31 there and paying many further visits. His irritability worsened with age and tormenting piles. As he expressed contempt by turning his back and flicking his coat-tails, he was called ‘Rump’ – ‘Rumper’ also being slang for a Whig. A philistine who loathed the arts and literature, cursing his queen whenever he found her with a book, he became a figure of fun, his blowsy mistresses making him still more ridiculous.

The balladeers laughed:

You may strut dapper George, but ’twill all be in vain;

We know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign –

You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.

Then if you would have us fall down and adore you,

Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you.2

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