61 



GEORGE II. 



GEORGE II. 



63 



Sophia, wife of Baron Kilmansegg, countess of Platen in Germany, 

 and created Countess of Leinster in Ireland, 1721, and Countess of 

 Darlington in England, 1722, who died in 1730. 



A fair share of the courage and obstinacy of his race, steadiness to 

 his engagements and his friendships, and considerable sagacity in the 

 management of aff.iirs, were the marked qualities in the character of 

 this king. He was to the end of his life however, in all his views 

 ami notions, and in his conduct, much more elector of Hanover than 

 king of England ; and his excessive anxiety about not merely the 

 safety but the extension of his hereditary dominions, undoubtedly 

 helped to involve this country in the net of continental politics to an 

 extent not before known. Other circumstances of the time however 

 also contributed to this result. George I. was a coarse-minded man, 

 with little taste for literature, science, or the fine arts ; but the country 

 is indebted to him for the foundation in 1724 of a professorship of 

 modern history in each of the universities. 



It is impossible within the limits to which we are confined to attempt 

 even the most general account of the changes made in the law by the 

 many hundred pages of legislation which were added to the Statute- 

 Book in the course of this reign. Among the most remarkable of the 

 new Jaws may be mentioned the 1 Geo. I. st. 2, c. 5, commonly called 

 the Riot Act ; the 6 Geo. I. c. 5, which declared that the " kingdom 

 of Ireland hath been, is, and of right ought to be subordinate unto and 

 dependent upon the imperial crown of Great Britain ; and that the 

 British parliament had, hath, and of right ought to have, power and 

 authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to 

 bind the kingdom and people of Ireland," but which was repealed by 

 the 22 Geo. III. c. 53; the 9 Geo. I. c. 22, commonly called the Black 

 Act (from the name of the ' Blacks ' taken by one of the descriptions 

 of depredators against which it i directed) ; and the 11 Geo. I. c. 

 titled 'An Act for the more effectual disarming the Highlands 

 in Scotland, and for the better securing the peace and quiet of that 

 part of the kingdom.' The commencement of this reign also forms 

 an important era in the history of the national finances, from the 

 establishment in 1716, under the government of Walpole, of the first 

 inking fund on a great scale, by the 3 Geo. L c. 7. The national 

 debt, which amounted to about 52,000,0001. at the commencement of 

 this reign, underwent no reduction in the course of it ; but the interest 

 was reduced from about 3,350,0002. to 2,217,000/. The power of 

 effecting this reduction as principally obtained through the effects of 

 an act passed in the last year of the preceding reign (the 12 Anne, st. 

 2, c. 16), by which the legal interest of money was reduced from six to 

 ore per cent. 



GKOKOE (AUGUSTUS) II., King of Great Britain, the only son 

 of George L and his queen Sophia Dorothea, was born at Hanover, 

 >ctober 311, 1 ;>:). On the 22nd of August 1705 he married Wilhelmina 

 Caroline, daughter of John Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg Anspach. 

 On the 9th of November 1706 he was created a British peer by the 

 title of Duke of Cambridge ; bat he never received a writ of summons 

 to the House of Lords, nor indeed did he visit England till his father 

 succeeded to the throne. The project that was at one time entertained 

 of bringing him over has been noticed in the preceding article. In the 

 war with France he served with his father in the army of the allies, 

 and distinguished himself at the battle of Oudenarde, gained llth of 

 July 1708 by the Duke of Marlborough over the French forces 

 commanded by the Duke of Burgundy. 



On the death of Queen Anne he accompanied his father to England, 

 and was declared Prince of Wales at the first privy council held by 

 George I., 22nd of September 1714. The heir-apparent was immedi- 

 ately seized upon aa an instrument of political intrigue. In the debates 

 on the civil list in May 1715, one of the propositions of the Tories was 

 to settle an independent revenue of 100,0002. per annum on the Prince 

 of Wales, but the motion to that effect was negatived in the House of 

 Commons by a great majority. The same sum however was allowed 

 to the prince by the king out of the income of 700,0004. voted to his 

 majesty by parliament On the 5th of Hay 1715 the prince received 

 the appointment of Captain-General of the Artillery Company, and on 

 the 6tn of July 1716 be was constituted guardian of the realm and 

 lieutenant of the king during the king's absence in Hanover. While 

 thus left to administer tho government, he was present on the 6th of 

 December at Drury Lane Theatre, when a lunatic of the name of 

 Freeman, a man of property in Surrey, suddenly rushed towards the 

 box where he was, fired at the sentinel who endeavoured to stop him, 

 and severely wounded him in the shoulder, and wu not secured 

 without great difficulty, when three other loaded pistols were found 

 about his person. In the general confusion and alarm the prince is 

 said to have shown perfect presence of mind and self-possession. A 

 quarrel between the -king and the prince broke out on the 28th of 

 November 1717, on occasion of the baptism of a son of which the 

 Princess of Wales had been delivered on the 3rd of that month : the 

 immediate cause of the rupture was the displeasure expressed by the 

 prince at the Duke of Newcastle standing godfather with the king, 

 instead of the king's brother, the Duke of York, whom be wished to 

 have been appointed. The prince, as soon as the baptismal ceremony 

 was over, addressed some very strong language to the duke ; and the 

 king, incensed at this public want of respect to himself, ordered the 

 prince to keep his own apartment till his pleasure should be further 

 known. Soon after the prince was desired to quit St. James's, on 



which his royal highness and the princess went to the house of the 

 Earl of Grantham in Albemarle-street. The children however, by the 

 king's order, remained at St. James's; and shortly after the judges 

 being consulted, decided, by a majority of ten to two, that the care of 

 the education of the royal family belonged of right to the king. (See 

 an account of the proceedings in Hargrave's ' State Trials,' xi. 295-302.) 

 At this time the family of the Prince of Wales consisted of a son, 

 Frederick Lewis, born in 1707, and three princesses, Anne, born 1709, 

 Amelia, born 1711, and Caroline, born 1713, besides the iufant prince 

 George William, who died in the beginning of the following year. On 

 the 21th of December his majesty's pleasure was formally signified 

 to all the peers and peeresses, and to all privy-councillors and their 

 wives, that all persons who should go to see the Prince and Princess 

 of Wales should forbear coming into his majesty's presence ; such 

 persons also as had employments both under the king and prince were 

 obliged to quit the service of one of them. The prince, on his part, 

 took up his residence in Leicester-House, where he kept his own court, 

 and lived in open resistance to his father. The king formed a house- 

 hold for the young princesses, and on the 10th of January 1718 he 

 created his grandson, Prince Frederick Lewis, duke of Gloucester. 



The king paid another visit to Hanover in May 1719. On this 

 occasion " the Prince and Princess of Wales," says Tindal, " not being 

 appointed regents, retired into the country, and appeared no more 

 till the king's departure, a few days after which they came to St. 

 James's to see the young princesses, who kept a levee twice a week ; 

 and to them it was that the lords-justices and a numerous appear- 

 ance of foreign ministers, nobility, and gentry, made their compli- 

 ments on the king's birthday." It is believed that the famous Peerage 

 Bill of this year [GEORGE 1.] was brought forward chiefly in conse- 

 quence of the quarrel between the king and his son, an<l with the 

 view of limiting the powers of the latter when he should come to the 

 throne. In the final discussion which it underwent in the House of 

 Commons in November, Sir John Packington observed that some 

 persons had through indiscretion occasioned an unhappy difference 

 in the royal family, and he was apprehensive if that bill, so prejudicial 

 to the rights of the next heir, should pass into a law, it might render 

 that difference irreconcilable. The allusion here was understood to 

 be to the Earl of Sunderland, then first lord of the treasury and 

 prime minister, the mover and most zealous promoter of the bill. 



The reconciliation of the king and the prince was at last effected 

 in April 1720, chiefly by the endeavours of the Duke of Devonshire 

 and Mr. Walpole, who had for some time past attached themselves to 

 the court of his royal highness. On the 23rd of that mouth an 

 interview took place between the father and son ; and the termination 

 of their difference was immediately announced to the public by the 

 prince, on his return to Leicester-House, being .attended by a party 

 of the yeomen of the guard and of the horse-guards, and by the foot- 

 guards beginning to mount guard at his house. Tho reconciliation 

 however was probably never very cordial. It may be observed that 

 when the king immediately after this set out to pay another visit to 

 his continental dominions, he left the government in the hands of the 

 lords-justices, as on the last occasion. A story is told by Horace 

 Walpole which appears to show that the king's animosity lasted to 

 the end of his lite. After having destroyed two wills which he had 

 made in favour of his son, he had intrusted a third, supposed to have 

 been of an opposite character, to the keeping of Wake, archbishop of 

 Canterbury, who on the accession of George II. presented it to the 

 new king. To the surprise of every one present, his majesty, putting 

 it into his pocket, stalked out of the room, and the will was never 

 beard of more. Lord John Russell, in relating this story (' Memoirs 

 of Affairs of Europe,' ii. 396), observes that " Dy the law of England 

 the will would not have been valid ; all property, real as well as 

 personal, of the king, descends with the crown. " It does not appear 

 to be now understood that this is law. Walpole states that another 

 copy of the will, which is believed to have bequeathed large legacies 

 to tiie Duchess of Kendal and her niece Lady Walsingham [GEOROE I ], 

 had been deposited with the Duke of Brunswick, but that the silence 

 of the duke was secured by a subsidy, and that the acquiescence of 

 Lord Chesterfield (the husband of Lady Walsingham, who threatened 

 a suit in chancery), waa obtained by a payment of 20,0002. (VVal- 

 pole's 'Memoirs,' ii., 459, and see Mahon's 'England,' close of 

 chap, xiv.) 



George II. succeeded his father, June 10, 1727. It was at first his 

 intention to place at the heal of the government Sir Spencer Comp- 

 ton (afterwards Earl of Wilmington), who was then the speaker of the 

 House of Commons ; but when that person received the royal com- 

 mands to draw up the declaration to the privy-council, he was obliged 

 to call in Walpole to assist him. Queen Caroline, whose influence 

 with her husband wa very great, now interposed ; and the result was 

 that Walpole was continued in office. The war with Spain was 

 finally terminated by the treaty of Seville, concluded !>th of November 

 1729; and for ten years from this time Walpole contrived to preserve 

 peace. New causes however of dissatisfaction with Spaiu arose, 

 principally out of alleged interferences of that power wicn the free- 

 dom of English commerce ; and the minister at last found it impos- 

 sible to resist the cry of the country for a new war. Hostilities were 

 commenced in the close of 1739 ; and the reduction of Portobello, 

 on the isthmus of Darien, by Admiral Vernon, in tha beginning of 



