Katana VentraIP

George II of Great Britain

George II (George Augustus; German: Georg August; 30 October / 9 November 1683[a] – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.

George II

11/22[a] June 1727 – 25 October 1760

11/22[a] October 1727

30 October / (1683-11-09)9 November 1683[a]
Herrenhausen Palace,[2] or Leine Palace,[3] Hanover

25 October 1760(1760-10-25) (aged 76)
Kensington Palace, London, England

11 November 1760

(m. 1705; died 1737)

George's signature in cursive

Born and brought up in northern Germany, George is the most recent British monarch born outside Great Britain. The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707 positioned his grandmother Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants to inherit the British throne. In 1705, George married Princess Caroline of Ansbach, with whom he had eight children. After the deaths of George's grandmother and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, in 1714, George's father, the Elector of Hanover, ascended the British throne as George I. In the first years of his father's reign as king, Prince George was associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party in 1720.


As king from 1727, George exercised little control over British domestic policy, which was largely controlled by the Parliament of Great Britain. As elector he spent twelve summers in Hanover, where he had more direct control over government policy. He had a difficult relationship with his eldest son, Frederick, who supported the parliamentary opposition. During the War of the Austrian Succession, George participated at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, and thus became the most recent British monarch to lead an army in battle. In 1745 supporters of the Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart ("The Old Pretender"), led by James's son Charles Edward Stuart ("The Young Pretender" or "Bonnie Prince Charlie"), attempted and failed to depose George in the last of the Jacobite rebellions. Prince Frederick died suddenly in 1751, nine years before his father; George was succeeded by Frederick's eldest son, George III.


For two centuries after George II's death, historians tended to view him with disdain, concentrating on his mistresses, short temper, and boorishness. Since then, reassessment of his legacy has led scholars to conclude that he exercised more influence in foreign policy and military appointments than previously thought.

Titles, styles and arms[edit]

Titles and styles[edit]

In Britain:

(1998) The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens. London: Robinson. ISBN 1-84119-096-9

Ashley, Mike

(1995) The Kings and Queens of England. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-83487-8

Best, Nicholas

(2001) Walpole in Power. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-2523-X

Black, Jeremy

Black, Jeremy (2007) George II: Puppet of the Politicians? Exeter: University of Exeter Press.  978-0-85989-807-2

ISBN

(2004) "George II (1683–1760)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, retrieved 16 August 2011 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10539 (subscription or UK public library membership required)

Cannon, John

Dennison, Matthew (2017), The First Iron Lady, London: Harper Collins Publishers,  978-0-00-812199-0

ISBN

Haag, Eugène; Haag, Émile; Bordier, Henri Léonard (1877), (in French), Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher

La France Protestante

Huberty, Michel; Giraud, Alain; Magdelaine, F. et B. (1981) L'Allemagne Dynastique. Volume 3: Brunswick-Nassau-Schwarzbourg. Le Perreux-sur-Marne: Giraud.  2-901138-03-9

ISBN

Kilburn, Matthew (2004) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, retrieved 30 November 2012 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28579 (subscription or UK public library membership required)

"Wallmoden, Amalie Sophie Marianne von, suo jure countess of Yarmouth (1704–1765)"

; Pinches, Rosemary (1974) The Royal Heraldry of England. Slough, Buckinghamshire: Hollen Street Press. ISBN 0-900455-25-X

Pinches, John Harvey

Thompson, Andrew C. (2011) George II: King and Elector. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.  978-0-300-11892-6

ISBN

(1973) George II. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-0481-X

Trench, Charles Chevenix

(1997), George II and Queen Caroline, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0-7509-1321-5

Van der Kiste, John

(1996) Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9

Weir, Alison

Bultmann, William A. (1966) "Early Hanoverian England (1714–1760): Some Recent Writings" in Elizabeth Chapin Furber, ed. Changing views on British history: essays on historical writing since 1939. Harvard University Press, pp. 181–205

Dickinson, Harry T.; introduced by (1973) Walpole and the Whig Supremacy. London: The English Universities Press. ISBN 0-340-11515-7

A. L. Rowse

Hervey, John Hervey Baron (1931) Some materials towards memoirs of the reign of King George II. Eyre & Spottiswoode

Marshall, Dorothy (1962) Eighteenth Century England 1714–1784

(1911) England under the Hanoverians. London: Methuen

Robertson, Charles Grant

Smith, Hannah (2005) "The Court in England, 1714–1760: A Declining Political Institution?" History 90 (297): 23–41

Smith, Hannah (2006) Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760. Cambridge University Press

; revized by C. H. Stuart (1962) The Whig Supremacy 1714–1760. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Williams, Basil

at the official website of the British monarchy

George II

at the official website of the Royal Collection Trust

George II

at BBC History

George II

at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Portraits of King George II