BRITISH MONARCHY AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS

in turn, responsible to an electorate. At that time, the system was far

from truly democratic; the electorate was essentially the voice of wealthy

landowners and mercantilists. The Whig party was firmly in control,

although legitimist Tories attempted one last Jacobite rebellion in 1745,

by again trying to restore a Stuart to the throne. Prince Charles Edward

Stuart, known as the Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed in

Scotland and marched as far south as Derby, causing yet another wave of

Anti-Catholicism to wash over England. The Scots retreated, and in 1746,

were butchered by the Royal Army at Culloden Moor. Bonnie Prince Charlie

escaped to France and died in Rome. The Tories became suspect due to their

associations with Jacobitism, ensuring oligarchic Whig rule for the

following fifty years.

Walpole managed to keep George out of continental conflicts for the first

twelve years of the reign, but George declared war on Spain in 1739,

against Walpole's wishes. The Spanish war extended into the 1740's as a

component of the War of Austrian Succession, in which England fought

against French dominance in Europe. George shrank away from the situation

quickly: he negotiated a hasty peace with France, to protect Hanover. The

1750's found England again at war with France, this time over imperial

claims. Fighting was intense in Europe, but North America and India were

also theatres of the war. Government faltering in response to the French

crisis brought William Pitt the Elder, later Earl of Chatham, to the

forefront of British politics.

Thackeray describes George II and Walpole as such, in The Four Georges

"... how he was a choleric little sovereign; how he shook his fist in the

face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked his coat and wig about in his

rages; and called everybody thief, liar, rascal with whom he differed: you

will read in all the history books; and how he speedily and shrewdly

reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom he had hated during his

father's life, and by whom he was served during fifteen years of his own

with admirable prudence, fidelity, and success. But for Robert Walpole, we

should have had the Pretender back again."

GEORGE III (r. 1760-1820)

George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of

Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He became

heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his

grandfather, George II, in 1760. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and

the first one to be born in England and to use English as his first

language.

George III is widely remembered for two things: losing the American

colonies and going mad. This is far from the whole truth. George's direct

responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. He opposed their

bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies (such

as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper and

other products) which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of

Parliament. These policies were largely due to the financial burdens of

garrisoning and administering the vast expansion of territory brought under

the British Crown in America, the costs of a series of wars with France and

Spain in North America, and the loans given to the East India Company (then

responsible for administering India). By the 1770s, and at a time when

there was no income tax, the national debt required an annual revenue of Ј4

million to service it.

The declaration of American independence on 4 July 1776, the end of the

war with the surrender by British forces in 1782, and the defeat which the

loss of the American colonies represented, could have threatened the

Hanoverian throne. However, George's strong defence of what he saw as the

national interest and the prospect of long war with revolutionary France

made him, if anything, more popular than before.

The American war, its political aftermath and family anxieties placed

great strain on George in the 1780s. After serious bouts of illness in 1788-

89 and again in 1801, George became permanently deranged in 1810. He was

mentally unfit to rule in the last decade of his reign; his eldest son -

the later George IV - acted as Prince Regent from 1811. Some medical

historians have said that George III's mental instability was caused by a

hereditary physical disorder called porphyria.

George's accession in 1760 marked a significant change in royal finances.

Since 1697, the monarch had received an annual grant of Ј700,000 from

Parliament as a contribution to the Civil List, i.e. civil government costs

(such as judges' and ambassadors' salaries) and the expenses of the Royal

Household. In 1760, it was decided that the whole cost of the Civil List

should be provided by Parliament in return for the surrender of the

hereditary revenues by the King for the duration of his reign. (This

arrangement still applies today, although civil government costs are now

paid by Parliament, rather than financed directly by the monarch from the

Civil List.)

The first 25 years of George's reign were politically controversial for

reasons other than the conflict with America. The King was accused by some

critics, particularly Whigs (a leading political grouping), of attempting

to reassert royal authority in an unconstitutional manner. In fact, George

took a conventional view of the constitution and the powers left to the

Crown after the conflicts between Crown and Parliament in the 17th century.

Although he was careful not to exceed his powers, George's limited

ability and lack of subtlety in dealing with the shifting alliances within

the Tory and Whig political groupings in Parliament meant that he found it

difficult to bring together ministries which could enjoy the support of the

House of Commons. His problem was solved first by the long-lasting ministry

of Lord North (1770-82) and then, from 1783, by Pitt the Younger, whose

ministry lasted until 1801.

George III was the most attractive of the Hanoverian monarchs. He was a

good family man (there were 15 children) and devoted to his wife, Charlotte

of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom he bought the Queen's House (later

enlarged to become Buckingham Palace). However, his sons disappointed him

and, after his brothers made unsuitable secret marriages, the Royal

Marriages Act of 1772 was passed at George's insistence. (Under this Act,

the Sovereign must give consent to the marriage of any lineal descendant of

George II, with certain exceptions.)

Being extremely conscientious, George read all government papers and

sometimes annoyed his ministers by taking such a prominent interest in

government and policy. His political influence could be decisive. In 1801,

he forced Pitt the Younger to resign when the two men disagreed about

whether Roman Catholics should have full civil rights. George III, because

of his coronation oath to maintain the rights and privileges of the Church

of England, was against the proposed measure.

One of the most cultured of monarchs, George started a new royal

collection of books (65,000 of his books were later given to the British

Museum, as the nucleus of a national library) and opened his library to

scholars. In 1768, George founded and paid the initial costs of the Royal

Academy of Arts (now famous for its exhibitions). He was the first king to

study science as part of his education (he had his own astronomical

observatory), and examples of his collection of scientific instruments can

now be seen in the Science Museum.

George III also took a keen interest in agriculture, particularly on the

crown estates at Richmond and Windsor, being known as 'Farmer George'. In

his last years, physical as well as mental powers deserted him and he

became blind. He died at Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820, after a reign

of almost 60 years - the second longest in British history.

GEORGE IV (1820-30)

George IV was 48 when he became Regent in 1811. He had secretly and

illegally married a Roman Catholic, Mrs Fitzherbert. In 1795 he officially

married Princess Caroline of Brunswick, but the marriage was a failure and

he tried unsuccessfully to divorce her after his accession in 1820

(Caroline died in 1821). Their only child Princess Charlotte died giving

birth to a stillborn child.

An outstanding, if extravagant, collector and builder, George IV acquired

many important works of art (now in the Royal Collection), built the Royal

Pavilion at Brighton, and transformed Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace.

George's fondness for pageantry helped to develop the ceremonial side of

monarchy. After his father's long illness, George resumed royal visits; he

visited Hanover in 1821 (it had not been visited by its ruler since the

1750s), and Ireland and Scotland over the next couple of years.

Beset by debts, George was in a weak position in relation to his Cabinet

of ministers. His concern for royal prerogative was sporadic; when the

Prime Minister Lord Liverpool fell ill in 1827, George at one stage

suggested that ministers should choose Liverpool's successor. In 1829,

George IV was forced by his ministers, much against his will and his

interpretation of his coronation oath, to agree to Catholic Emancipation.

By reducing religious discrimination, this emancipation enabled the

monarchy to play a more national role.

George's profligacy and marriage difficulties meant that he never

regained much popularity, and he spent his final years in seclusion at

Windsor, dying at the age of 67.

WILLIAM IV (1830-37)

At the age of 13, William became a midshipman and began a career in the

Royal Navy. In 1789, he was made duke of Clarence. He retired from the Navy

in 1790. Between 1791 and 1811 he lived with his mistress, the actress Mrs

Jordan, and the growing family of their children known as the

Fitzclarences. William married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in 1818,

but their children died in infancy. The third son of George III, William

became heir apparent at the age of 62 when his older brother died.

William's reign (reigned 1830-37) was dominated by the Reform crisis,

beginning almost immediately when Wellington's Tory government (which

William supported) lost the general election in August 1830. Pledged to

parliamentary reform, Grey's Whig government won a further election which

William had to call in 1831 and then pushed through a reform bill against

the opposition of the Tories and the House of Lords, using the threat of

the creation of 50 or more peers to do so. The failure of the Tories to

form an alternative government in 1832 meant that William had to sign the

Great Reform Bill. Control of peerages had been used as a party weapon, and

the royal prerogative had been damaged.

The Reform Bill abolished some of the worst abuses of the electoral

system (for example, representation for so called 'rotten boroughs', which

had long ceased to be of any importance, was stopped, and new industrial

towns obtained representation). The Reform Act also introduced standardised

rules for the franchise (different boroughs had previously had varying

franchise rules) and, by extending the franchise to the middle classes,

greatly increased the role of public opinion in the political process.

William understood the theory of the more limited monarchy, once saying

'I have my view of things, and I tell them to my ministers. If they do not

adopt them, I cannot help it. I have done my duty.' William died a month

after Victoria had come of age, thus avoiding another regency.

VICTORIA (1837-1901)

Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819. She was

the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. Her

father died shortly after her birth and she became heir to the throne

because the three uncles who were ahead of her in succession - George IV,

Frederick Duke of York, and William IV - had no legitimate children who

survived. Warmhearted and lively, Victoria had a gift for drawing and

painting; educated by a governess at home, she was a natural diarist and

kept a regular journal throughout her life. On William IV's death in 1837,

she became Queen at the age of 18.

Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial

expansion, economic progress and - especially - empire. At her death, it

was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.

In the early part of her reign, she was influenced by two men: her first

Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and her husband, Prince Albert, whom she

married in 1840. Both men taught her much about how to be a ruler in a

'constitutional monarchy' where the monarch had very few powers but could

use much influence. Albert took an active interest in the arts, science,

trade and industry; the project for which he is best remembered was the

Great Exhibition of 1851, the profits from which helped to establish the

South Kensington museums complex in London.

Her marriage to Prince Albert brought nine children between 1840 and

1857. Most of her children married into other royal families of Europe:

Edward VII (born 1841, married Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX of

Denmark); Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (born

1844, married Marie of Russia); Arthur, Duke of Connaught (born 1850,

married Louise Margaret of Prussia); Leopold, Duke of Albany (born 1853,

married Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont); Victoria, Princess Royal (born 1840,

married Friedrich III, German Emperor); Alice (born 1843, married Ludwig

IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine); Helena (born 1846, married Christian

of Schleswig-Holstein); Louise (born 1848, married John Campbell, 9th Duke

of Argyll); Beatrice (born 1857, married Henry of Battenberg). Victoria

bought Osborne House (later presented to the nation by Edward VII) on the

Isle of Wight as a family home in 1845, and Albert bought Balmoral in 1852.

Victoria was deeply attached to her husband and she sank into depression

after he died, aged 42, in 1861. She had lost a devoted husband and her

principal trusted adviser in affairs of state. For the rest of her reign

she wore black. Until the late 1860s she rarely appeared in public;

although she never neglected her official Correspondence, and continued to

give audiences to her ministers and official visitors, she was reluctant to

resume a full public life. She was persuaded to open Parliament in person

in 1866 and 1867, but she was widely criticised for living in seclusion and

quite a strong republican movement developed. (Seven attempts were made on

Victoria's life, between 1840 and 1882 - her courageous attitude towards

these attacks greatly strengthened her popularity.) With time, the private

urgings of her family and the flattering attention of Benjamin Disraeli,

Prime Minister in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880, the Queen gradually resumed

her public duties.

In foreign policy, the Queen's influence during the middle years of her

reign was generally used to support peace and reconciliation. In 1864,

Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene in the Prussia-Austria-

Denmark war, and her letter to the German Emperor (whose son had married

her daughter) in 1875 helped to avert a second Franco-German war. On the

Eastern Question in the 1870s - the issue of Britain's policy towards the

declining Turkish Empire in Europe - Victoria (unlike Gladstone) believed

that Britain, while pressing for necessary reforms, ought to uphold Turkish

hegemony as a bulwark of stability against Russia, and maintain bi-

partisanship at a time when Britain could be involved in war.

Victoria's popularity grew with the increasing imperial sentiment from

the 1870s onwards. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the government of India

was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown with the position

of Governor General upgraded to Viceroy, and in 1877 Victoria became

Empress of India under the Royal Titles Act passed by Disraeli's

government.

During Victoria's long reign, direct political power moved away from the

sovereign. A series of Acts broadened the social and economic base of the

electorate. These acts included the Second Reform Act of 1867; the

introduction of the secret ballot in 1872, which made it impossible to

pressurise voters by bribery or intimidation; and the Representation of the

Peoples Act of 1884 - all householders and lodgers in accommodation worth

at least Ј10 a year, and occupiers of land worth Ј10 a year, were entitled

to vote.

Despite this decline in the Sovereign's power, Victoria showed that a

monarch who had a high level of prestige and who was prepared to master the

details of political life could exert an important influence. This was

demonstrated by her mediation between the Commons and the Lords, during the

acrimonious passing of the Irish Church Disestablishment Act of 1869 and

the 1884 Reform Act. It was during Victoria's reign that the modern idea of

the constitutional monarch, whose role was to remain above political

parties, began to evolve. But Victoria herself was not always non-partisan

and she took the opportunity to give her opinions - sometimes very

forcefully - in private.

After the Second Reform Act of 1867, and the growth of the two-party

(Liberal and Conservative) system, the Queen's room for manoeuvre

decreased. Her freedom to choose which individual should occupy the

premiership was increasingly restricted. In 1880, she tried,

unsuccessfully, to stop William Gladstone - whom she disliked as much as

she admired Disraeli and whose policies she distrusted - from becoming

Prime Minister. She much preferred the Marquess of Hartington, another

statesman from the Liberal party which had just won the general election.

She did not get her way. She was a very strong supporter of Empire, which

brought her closer both to Disraeli and to the Marquess of Salisbury, her

last Prime Minister. Although conservative in some respects - like many at

the time she opposed giving women the vote - on social issues, she tended

to favour measures to improve the lot of the poor, such as the Royal

Commission on housing. She also supported many charities involved in

education, hospitals and other areas.

Victoria and her family travelled and were seen on an unprecedented

scale, thanks to transport improvements and other technical changes such as

the spread of newspapers and the invention of photography. Victoria was the

first reigning monarch to use trains - she made her first train journey in

1842.

In her later years, she almost became the symbol of the British Empire.

Both the Golden (1887) and the Diamond (1897) Jubilees, held to celebrate

the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the queen's accession, were marked with

great displays and public ceremonies. On both occasions, Colonial

Conferences attended by the Prime Ministers of the self-governing colonies

were held.

Despite her advanced age, Victoria continued her duties to the end -

including an official visit to Dublin in 1900. The Boer War in South Africa

overshadowed the end of her reign. As in the Crimean War nearly half a

century earlier, Victoria reviewed her troops and visited hospitals; she

remained undaunted by British reverses during the campaign: 'We are not

interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.'

Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on 22 January 1901

after a reign which lasted almost 64 years, the longest in British history.

She was buried at Windsor beside Prince Albert, in the Frogmore Royal

Mausoleum, which she had built for their final resting place. Above the

Mausoleum door are inscribed Victoria's words: 'farewell best beloved, here

at last I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again'.

SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA

The name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha came to the British Royal Family in 1840 with

the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert, son of Ernst, Duke of

Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. Queen Victoria herself remained a member of the House

of Hanover.

The only British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was King

Edward VII, who reigned for nine years at the beginning of the modern age

in the early years of the 20th century. King George V replaced the German-

sounding title with that of Windsor during the First World War. The name

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha survived in other European monarchies, including the

current Belgian Royal Family and the former monarchies of Portugal and

Bulgaria.

SAXE-COBURG AND GOTHA

1837 - 1917

THE WINDSORS

1917 – PRESENT DAY

VICTORIA = m. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg &

Gotha

(1837-1910) (Prince Consort)

EDWARD VII = m. Princess Alexandra, dau.

of CHRISTIAN IX, King of

(1910 – 1936) Denmark

DUKE OF WINDSOR

GEORGE VI = m. Lady Elizabeth

EDWARD VIII

1936-1952 Bowes-Lyon, dau. of Earl of

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