Last of the Stuarts; First of the Hanoverians

     300 years ago today, a Queen died and was succeeded by a King.

     But this was no ordinary change of the guard for the British monarchy. Indeed, this day marks one of the most significant turning points in the history of Britain and its ancient and venerable institution. It marked the end of one royal dynasty which had gone through much social, political, and religious upheaval, and the beginning of another, which paved the way to the development of the modern pattern of British governance that we know today.

Statue of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, outside of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Image Credit: Peter Weis via Wikimedia Commons cc

     It had been over twelve years since Queen Anne had acceded her brother-in-law, William III & II, to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. During that period, her armies had won many a great victory in Continental Europe during the War of the Spanish Succession under the command of her leading captain-general - John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, whose greatest triumph was arguably the defeat of the French at the Battle of Blenheim.

     However, Anne's finest hour may have been the moment when two of her kingdoms - England and Scotland - were joined together to form a new country under the name of Great Britain, and it was the United Kingdom of Great Britain that rose to new heights to become the greatest power in Europe, and which was on its way to becoming a world power.

     But for all of the public achievement, Anne was unable to do the one thing required of every sovereign: producing an heir to the throne. Having gone through 17 pregnancies (from 1684 to 1700) via her husband, Prince George of Denmark, only one child - Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, survived infancy, but he was in precarious health throughout his life, and died aged 11 in 1700. The result was that there was nobody to succeed Anne, who was heir to the throne following her brother-in-law King William.

William III & II and Mary II.

     William himself became King during the Protestant-led Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, in which William's Catholic father-in-law and uncle - James VII & II - had fled Britain and was more or less deposed. Under the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right, William and his wife, Mary (James' eldest daughter) were made joint monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland. If they died without heirs, then the crowns would pass on to Anne - the younger daughter of King James - and her heirs. The point was to prevent the restoration of James and (after his death in 1701) his only surviving son, James Francis Edward Stuart, who were now exiled in France.

     In 1694, Queen Mary died aged 32 without having produced an heir, and William ruled alone until his death in 1702. With the passing of Prince William two years earlier, the prospect of a Catholic Stuart restoration seemed imminent, so in 1701, the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, which barred Catholics from succeeded from the throne, as well as anybody married to a Catholic. It also provided that in lieu of any legitimate heirs by either William or Anne, Sophia of Hanover and her heirs would inherit the throne of England.

The Act of Settlement, which largely governs succession to the British Crown to this day.
Image Credit: Torsten Bätge via Wikimedia Commons cc

     Sophia of Hanover was a daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, who in turn was the only surviving daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England and Ireland. She was married to the German Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Elector of Hanover and had a grown son, Georg Ludwig, who by this time had succeeded to his hereditary titles and offices. Though there were over 50 Catholic's ahead of them, Electress Sophia and her son were the first Protestant's on the list, and that was all that mattered.

     In England the issue of the succession was settled, but in Scotland, whilst there were similar feelings towards having a Catholic king, there was also a sense of loyalty to the Stuart family, who had originated from Scotland and reigned in that country since 1371.

Flag of Scotland

     In response to the English, the Scots Parliament passed – and Queen Anne granted Royal Assent to – the Act of Security in 1703, which declared that the next monarch of Scotland should be Protestant and of the royal line, but should not be the same person who succeeded Anne to the Crown of England (probably in the hope that James Stuart would convert), unless the English granted freedom of trade to Scottish merchants within England, Ireland, and the overseas colonies.

Flag of England

     With the ball back in England’s court, it then passed – with Anne’s assent – the Alien’s Act of 1705, which declared that all Scots were to treated as aliens in England (save for those already living there) unless Scotland either repealed the Act of Security or agreed to a union with England. The Scots chose the latter option, and a set of commissioners from both countries were appointed by the Queen, who met in London to hash out an agreement.

     The result was the 1707 unification of Britain into a single country under a single parliament and a single crown, which was governed under the terms of the Act of Settlement - ensuring that there would be a Protestant Hanoverian succession throughout the island nation.

The original Union Flag of Great Britain.

     This island nation of Great Britain - Britannia - would go on to emerge as a leading world power, but Queen Anne would not long savor this triumph. Plagued by ill health throughout her life, she became increasingly corpulent and lame in her later years, and her end finally came on August 1, 1714. Her heir, Electress Sophia of Hanover, had died on May 28th of that year following a collapse resulting from running to shelter during a storm.

     This meant that Sophia's eldest son, Georg Ludwig (with his name Anglicized as George Louis) was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland. George I - great-grandson of James VI & I - arrived in Britain on September 18th and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on October 20th.

First of the Hanoverian's - George I of Great Britain and Ireland

     His accession and coronation marked the end of the House of Stuart - which had ruled for 343 years - and with it, the theory of Divine Right, in which many of its members believed. It was this belief in Divine Right and Absolutism, and the very rejection of these principles by the British people, which arguably cost Charles I and James VII & II the throne, and led to the creation of a limited - or constitutional - monarchy in which the monarch respects the will of Parliament and observes limitations on his or her authority.

     With George I being German, not knowing English, and more interested in foreign affairs and the affairs of his native Hanover, he left the day-to-day business of running Britain to trusted and capable ministers, one of whom, Robert Walpole, emerged in 1721 as the first Prime Minister. As the century went on, it would be relationships between the early Hanoverian monarchs (George I, his son - George II, and great-grandson - George III) and Parliament that would decisively change the way Britain was governed.

     The monarchy itself took on a German identity, and even though every monarch beginning with George III was born and raised in Britain and spoke English as their first language, members of the Royal Family continued marrying Germanic royalty and practiced German customs. This would continue for the next 200 years until the House of Windsor was born in 1917, and it was from this royal line begun by George I that we have the reigning monarch - Elizabeth II.

     Indeed, the arrival of the Hanoverian's in 1714 changed the trajectory of the monarchy and of Britain.

Royal Profile: Robert II of Scotland

Robert II of Scotland

     On this day in 1371, Robert Stewart, Earl of Strathearn ascended to the Scottish throne as King Robert II – the first Stewart monarch of Scotland.

     He was the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and Marjorie Bruce, the daughter of Robert the Bruce, the Scottish king who had decisively defeated Edward II of England and his army at Bannockburn in 1314 as part of Scotland's quest for independence.

     Robert Stewart's early life was mostly occupied by conflict with England. Scotland’s independence was recognized in 1328, but the English – led by Edward III – continued to exert influence on Scottish affairs and backed the claim of Edward Balliol, the son of John Balliol, who was the Scottish king best remembered for his weakness and incompetence against Edward I of England during the Wars of Scottish Independence. At times during this period, Stewart was a Guardian of Scotland during the minority of his uncle, David II (who was eight years his junior), which meant that he was the de facto head of state in Scotland. He was also a Guardian when the King was held captive by the English following the Battle of Neville’s Cross.

     At the time of his accession as King of Scots, Robert II had already begun a program of centralizing power to the Scottish Crown and to end the feudal strife that had stopped Scotland from advancing as a modern state. This aim of consolidation and building up Scotland continued as Robert II had his nobles gradually recapture land still dominated by the English, ended trade with England, and renewed the strategic alliance with France known as the Auld Alliance. However, King Robert wished to avoid all-out war with England, and when the English and French entered into peace negotiations, he wanted to be a party to it. This move was unpopular with the Scottish nobility, and he faced a mutiny that included his own sons, and which resulted in the King having his power stripped away.

     Robert II died in 1390, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John Stewart, Earl of Carrick as Robert III of Scotland.

     One of his lasting legacies is the establishment of the House of Stewart, which continued to preside over Scotland’s transformation from a loose collection of fiefdoms to a unified and modern nation-state. Power was consolidated to Edinburgh as the Scottish Crown gained more authority and influence over the nobility, especially in areas populated by Scandinavians and Gaels.

British Royal Coat of Arms under Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch

     In 1603, the Stuarts extended their dominion with the accession of James VI to the thrones of England and Ireland as James I, thanks to the 1503 marriage between James IV and Margaret Tudor (the eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and sister to Henry VIII), which made King James the closest living Protestant relative of the childless Elizabeth I. The Stuart dynasty would rule the Anglo-Celtic (British) Isles until 1714 upon the death of Queen Anne, during which significant advances in the arts and sciences took place, and institutions such as the Royal Mail and the Royal Society were established.

     Altogether, the House of Stewart/Stuart reigned for 343 years – longer than any other royal house in British history, and it produced fourteen monarchs (though an eleven-year interregnum occurred in the 1650’s, during which monarchy was abolished as a result of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms). By the end of the Stuart period, England and Scotland had been formally and politically united into the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Photo Credit: Sodacan via Wikimedia Commons cc

Royal Birthday Profile: Mary, Queen of Scots

Queen Mary I of Scotland

     On this day in 1542, Mary Stewart was born to King James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. She was James’s only surviving legitimate child, and became Queen of Scots upon his death six days later, making her the youngest monarch in British history. She was also one of the most consequential, for without her, the monarchy and Britain as we know it today, may not have come into existence.

     Throughout the annals of history, Mary, Queen of Scots has been portrayed in a negative yet captivating light – as an adulteress, seductress, possible accomplice to murder, and figurehead of a conspiracy against her cousin, Elizabeth I of England and Ireland.

     Whereas Elizabeth became Queen in her 20's, Mary succeeded to the Scottish throne when her father was killed in battle. She was eventually sent to live in France because she was married as a child to the heir to the French throne. Mary was briefly Queen consort of France upon her husband's accession as Francis II in July 1559. On his death the following year, she returned to Scotland, where she eventually married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, with whom she had a son named James. Their marriage became estranged, in part due to Darnley's unreliability, vanity, and violent streak aggravated by a drinking problem. When Darnley was assassinated, there was suspicion that Mary might have been an accomplice - especially after she married (for the third time) the man who was suspected of plotting the murder. Mary was forced to abdicate the throne and fled to England to seek sanctuary. There, she was held prisoner and a trial was held on the issue of Darnley's death, which resulted in no definitive ending. Mary was kept in England for the remainder of her life, which was hardly a comforting prospect for Elizabeth I.

     Queen Elizabeth had feared her royal cousin, for Queen Mary 

Elizabeth feared that her Scottish cousin would
become the figurehead of Catholic opposition to her.

had a legitimate claim to the English and Irish thrones through her grandmother – Margaret Tudor – who was the eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and sister to Henry VIII, who had Elizabeth through his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Mary was also a Catholic, and became a focal point around the opposition toward the established Protestant church, of which Elizabeth was Supreme Governor. Elizabeth’s fear was that Mary would lead a Catholic uprising against her, with the ultimate goal of attaining the throne for herself. When Mary was implicated in the Babington plot to depose Elizabeth, she was put on trial, convicted of treason, and beheaded in 1587. 

     In contrast to Mary, Elizabeth is viewed as a just, stable, and moral leader who put her country before her personal life. She was the Virgin Queen who commanded the respect of people throughout Europe (including the pope who had excommunicated her) and inspired men to fight in her name. And yet, Queen Mary succeeded in one area where Queen Elizabeth did not: producing an heir.

James VI & I

     Her only child, James Stuart, became King of Scots in 1567 at barely over one year old following his mother’s forced abdication. In 1603, Elizabeth I died and James VI of Scotland, as her closest Protestant relation (first cousin, twice removed), became James I of England and Ireland – thereby uniting the crowns of the British Isles under a single monarch for the first time. This eventually resulted in the political mergers of England (including Wales), Scotland, and Ireland into a single country – the United Kingdom. 

     So in an ironic twist of fate, though Mary, Queen of Scots had failed to gain the English throne, her son did so, and in so doing had helped to forge a new, unified, and modern Britain with a single royal line. To this day, the current royal family is directly descended from Queen Mary I of Scotland – with Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom being Mary’s 10^th great-granddaughter. 

Ironincally, Elizabeth II's direct ancestor - Mary, Queen
of Scots - was executed on the orders of Elizabeth I.

     Simply put, without Mary, Queen of Scots, the British monarchy and the British nation as we know them today may never have come into existence. For all of her personal faults, she did produce an heir to the Scottish throne, who eventually went on to succeed to the other thrones of Britain, and in doing so, changed the course of British history.

Royal Surnames and House Names: Part I

     In a my posting about why the Duchess of Cambridge is not "Princess Catherine", I stated that Prince Philip’s surname is Mountbatten, which he adopted from his maternal relatives in the United Kingdom. This raises the issue of the royal family’s surname. The royal house is called Windsor but Prince Philip’s surname is Mountbatten. What’s going here? Why isn’t there a surname for William, Kate, and George on the birth certificate? Has royalty ever used surnames?

     Well, to explain this requires some background information on surnames in general. Up until the 12^th and 13^th centuries, surnames were generally rare and given (first) names were used. But people also became known by their profession (Miller, Smith, etc.), location or place (Stirling, Farmworth, O’Brien, etc.), nickname based on appearance, temperament, and personality (Gutman, Daft, etc.), or in relation to somebody else (McDonald, Fitzgerald, Johnson, etc.). Eventually, these became the surnames used to differentiate people with the same given name from one another, so that John the Miller, Thomas of Stirling, and Henry, John’s son became John Miller, Thomas Stirling, and Henry Johnson.

Kenneth MacAlpin, the man whose family would usher in a more united Scotland.

     With regard to the history of the monarchy, royal house names (which may or may not be used as a personal family surname) followed in much the same way, with locations, place names, nicknames, achievements, and relations being used to name royal families.  The first royal house in my British monarch’s timeline, the Scottish House of Alpin was named from Kenneth I’s father, Alpin. Kenneth is known today as Kenneth MacAlpin, which means “Kenneth, son of Alpin.” 

William II was known as William Rufus.
Rufus means "red", and William
had a red-faced appearance.

     In England, its first royal family was the House of Wessex,  named from the Kingdom of Wessex, whose kings came to dominate the other English kingdoms and established a unified English state. Similarly, the Normans were known from their ancestral land, Normandy. Yet these were not surnames, and individual members of the early royal houses were known by personal epithets, nicknames, and territorial designations (Edmund Ironsides, Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, William Rufus, Stephen of Blois, John Lackland, etc). But the members of 

Richard Plantagenet, the founder
of the House of York.

the House of Plantagenet became the first royal family in England to be known by a surname in their own time. It was a nickname given to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou – the father of Henry II of England – because his emblem was a planta genista (or Scotch broom shrub). He is retroactively referred to as Geoffrey Plantagenet, but it was not until the 15th Century when the name was used by Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, as a personal surname. During his time, the Plantagenet dynasty was divided between two rival braches – Richard’s House of York and Henry VI’s House of Lancaster, but members from both factions continued to use the Plantagenet name as a means of emphasizing  their status and claims to the throne.

     Meanwhile in Scotland, the Stewart family ascended to the throne in 1371. The Stewart name was derived from the family’s hereditary office of High Steward of Scotland. A steward was a 

Robert II, seen here with his
second wife Euphemia, was the first
Stewart monarch of Scotland.

position like that of a modern-day governor or deputy, who was appointed by the monarch to represent them in certain situations and act in their stead, if necessary. The first man to hold the title was Walter Fitz-Alan, whose surname meant “son of Alan.”  He was succeeded by his son, Alan Fitz-Walter (“son of Walter”), who was in turn succeeded by his own son, Walter, who decided to adopt the name of his title as his personal surname, which became Steward and eventually, Stewart (Stiùbhairt in Gaelic). It was Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland who married Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I of Scotland, and had a son through her named Robert. Robert Stewart, Earl of Strathearn – a title now held by Prince William – eventually became the heir to the Scottish throne after his uncle, David II, and succeeded him as Robert II, the first monarch of the House of Stewart (which probably became the first royal house in Britain to derive its name from a personal family surname).

     Back in England, the Wars of the Roses ended with the defeat of the Yorkist king, Richard III by the Lancastrian claimant, Henry 

Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII
of England, founded the House of Tudor.

Tudor. The Tudor surname was of Welsh origin (and a variant of "Theodore"), and Henry was a matrilineal descendant of Rhys ap Tewdwr, an 11^th Century Welsh king. It was Owen Tudor (Owain ap Tewdwr), Henry’s grandfather, who had a relationship with Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois, which produced Edmund Tudor, who was therefore a half-brother of Henry VI. Edmund married Lady Margaret Beaufort, a great-great-granddaughter and Lancastrian descendant of Edward III. This union produced Henry Tudor, who escaped into exile in France after what seemed to be the final defeat of the Lancastrians by their Yorkist cousins, who know controlled the throne of England. But in 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, mounted an invasion which would eventually oust Richard and result in him being proclaimed Henry VII of England and establishing the House of Tudor, which would rule in England until 1603. 

James VI & I brought the Stuart's to new heights by
uniting the crowns of Britain...

     In that year, Queen Elizabeth I, Henry’s granddaughter by his son and successor Henry VIII, died without an heir to the English and Irish thrones. She was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, a great-great-grandson of Henry VII through his eldest daughter, Margaret Tudor who had married James IV of Scotland. Now, James VI of Scotland became James I of England and Ireland, thereby bringing the British Isles under the personal rule of a single monarch for the first time. The Stewarts of Scotland had by this time changed the spelling of their name to the French form – Stuart, to symbolize the Auld Alliance with France. James’ first son was Henry Fredrick Stuart, who was Prince of Wales, Duke of Rothesay, and heir to James’ thrones. But he predeceased his father, so his younger brother Charles Stuart 

...but his son Charles I lost it all (including his head).

became their father’s heir, and he was proclaimed as Charles I in 1625. Charles of course, is infamous for being the only British monarch to be tried and executed by his subjects. In his death warrant, signed by the leading English parliamentarians (including Oliver Cromwell), he was referred as Charles Steuart, King of England, having stood and been convicted of high treason. The Stuarts lost their thrones, first in England, then in Ireland and Scotland as the parliamentarians and their army took over the British Isles and abolished the monarchy in favor of a republic. For 11 years, they were in exile in continental Europe before being restored to their British kingdoms in 1660 under another Charles Stuart, Charles II. 

     The Stuart family held on to the thrones of Great Britain (England and Scotland merged in 1707) and Ireland until 1714, 

George I, the first British monarch of the House of Hanover,
which would reign in Britain for nearly 200 years.

when Queen Anne died without an heir. She was succeeded by her German cousin and great-grandson of James VI & I, Georg Ludwig, who became King George I of Great Britain and Ireland. Even though George was 52nd in line to the throne upon his accession, he was the first Protestant in the line of succession. In Germany, George was Prince-Elector of Hanover, and his dynasty in Britain became known as the House of Hanover (or the Hanoverians). Yet Hanover was not their surname, and it’s doubtful that they ever had one. Contemporary historians have applied the name Guelph as the Hanoverian surname, because it is the name of their 

Queen Victoria, the last British Hanoverian monarch,
whose surname through Prince Albert was likely Wettin.

ancestral house, the House of Welf (with Guelph being the English translation of the German Welf). Queen Victoria was the last monarch of this house, and she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, resulting in their children being members of Albert’s house, which was named for his territorial designation and ancestral homeland. But once again, this was not a personal surname, which the College of Heralds determined to be Wettin (or von Wettin), the name of the royal house from which the Saxe-Coburg’s descended. Victoria never used it, and neither did her son, Edward VII, who reigned as the first monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha when he acceeded to the throne in 1901.

     In short, personal surnames were used by some, but not all, royal families in Britain, and surnames were inconsistently, if ever, used. Everyone belonged to a royal house, but the name of the royal house was not necessarily the personal family surname (i.e., members of the Houses of York and Lancaster referring to themselves as Plantagenet), if indeed a surname existed at all. Certainly the Hanoverians – who brought in a formal system of titling members of their house as prince or princess by birth from their native Germany – eschewed surnames altogether since it was believed that persons with such a dignity did not need to have one anyway. It was also assumed that royalty married each other, and that once again, surnames were not required as birthright princely titles were handed down from generation to generation. In other words, members of a royal house were to be individually referred to by their titles, and collectively by the name of the royal house to which they belonged. But beginning with George V during the slaughter of the World War I, this would change.

I discuss this change and more in Part II, which concerns the reigning House of Windsor.

Photo Credit: Tastepaper123 Wikimedia Commons cc