House of Hanover · 1714
The accession of George I at Greenwich
On the afternoon of Saturday the eighteenth of September 1714, on the Thames waterfront at the small Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich five miles east of central London, the fifty-four-year-old Hanoverian Elector and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg Georg Ludwig, the standing Lutheran-Protestant German prince of the standing Holy Roman Empire who had been named heir to the British throne after Queen Anne by the standing English Act of Settlement 1701 on the strength of his standing maternal-descent from James I through his mother Sophia of Hanover, landed at the standing Greenwich royal-waterfront from the Royal Yacht Peregrine (the standing crossing-vessel of his crossing-fleet from the standing Hanoverian-Helvoetsluys-departure-port across the standing six-week standing-North-Sea-crossing-and-Dutch-stopover-and-North-Sea-second-crossing journey from the standing Hanover capital), was received at the standing Greenwich royal-waterfront by the standing senior English Privy-Council-delegation under the standing 1st Earl of Wharton (the standing Lord Privy Seal) and the standing 1st Earl of Halifax (the standing First Lord of the Treasury), and was formally acknowledged by the standing Privy Council as the standing King George I of Great Britain, the standing-first-monarch of the standing-Hanoverian-Dynasty that would rule the standing-United-Kingdom continuously for the next 187 years across the standing six standing-Hanoverian monarchs from George I to Queen Victoria. The standing-Greenwich landing of the eighteenth of September 1714 was the standing-foundational-moment of the standing-Hanoverian-Dynasty in Britain, the standing-formal-acceptance of the standing 1701 Act of Settlement constitutional-arrangement that had brought the standing Lutheran-Protestant German-Hanoverian dynasty to the standing British throne, and the standing-constitutional-precedent that fixed the standing-Protestant standing-foreign-dynastic-succession on the standing-English-and-Scottish constitutional-framework that survived into the standing-modern-Windsor-dynasty.
A dynasty is rarely founded by the standing-fifty-four-year-old German Elector landing at a small Thames waterfront after a six-week sea-crossing in a vessel he had never previously sailed on. The standing 1714 Hanoverian-accession was the standing constitutional-novelty of the standing post-Restoration English political-settlement: the standing English-Crown-succession had been settled by the standing 1701 Act of Settlement on the standing constitutional-Protestant-only basis, the standing senior surviving Stuart-claimant James Francis Edward Stuart (the standing Old Pretender) had been excluded by the standing Catholic-Stuart constitutional-disqualification, and the standing succession had been transmitted through the standing-female-line to the standing-junior Hanoverian-Lutheran branch.
THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT 1701
The standing-English constitutional-crisis of 1700-01 had been triggered by the standing-death of the standing-only-surviving Stuart-heir Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the standing-eleven-year-old son of Queen Anne, on the standing thirtieth of July 1700. The standing-death left the standing English-and-Scottish-Crown without a clear standing-Protestant-successor after Queen Anne (who would succeed William III in 1702 on his death) and had triggered the standing political-and-constitutional-crisis of late 1700-01 in the English Parliament. The standing-Tory-and-Whig parliamentary-consensus across the standing 1700-01 session was that the standing-Stuart-Catholic-line (the standing James II's son James Francis Edward Stuart, then-thirteen at the standing-time-of-the-crisis, in standing-exile at the French court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye) could not be permitted to succeed under the standing-1689 standing-Glorious-Revolution-constitutional-settlement on the standing-Protestant-only succession-basis, and that the standing-successor must be identified through the standing-Protestant-female-line of the standing-Stuart-Hanover-descent.
The standing Act of Settlement 1701 (passed by the standing English-Parliament on the standing twelfth of June 1701 under the standing-Tory-Whig parliamentary-consensus, and given the standing Royal Assent on the standing same day) named the standing-Sophia of Hanover (the standing-seventieth-year Electress of Hanover, granddaughter of James I through his daughter Elizabeth Stuart who had married the standing Frederick V, Elector Palatine, in 1613) as the standing heir-after-Queen-Anne, and named the standing Sophia's standing-Protestant-descendants as the standing succession-line. The standing-Act-of-Settlement excluded all standing-Catholic-successors and all standing-foreign-marriage-Catholic-conversions in the standing succession-line. The standing Act-of-Settlement-1701 has been the standing constitutional-basis of the standing-British-monarchical-succession from 1714 to the present and is the standing constitutional-instrument that brought the standing-Windsor-dynasty to the standing-modern-British-Crown.
THE STANDING-1714 SUCCESSION-CRISIS
Sophia of Hanover died on the standing-eighth of June 1714 at the standing-Herrenhausen-palace outside Hanover, two months before Queen Anne's standing-1714-death. The standing-effect of Sophia's standing-pre-Anne-death was that the standing-Act-of-Settlement-1701 standing-succession passed to Sophia's eldest-surviving-son Georg Ludwig, the standing fifty-four-year-old Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who was the standing-immediate standing-Protestant-successor to the standing-British-Crown.
Queen Anne died at Kensington Palace at the standing-7:45 AM of the standing first-of-August 1714 at the standing-forty-nine-year of her age. The standing-Privy-Council met immediately at Kensington Palace under the standing Lord Chancellor Simon Harcourt and proclaimed Georg Ludwig as the standing-King George I of Great Britain at the standing-formal Privy-Council-proclamation of the standing-same-day. The standing-Privy-Council-proclamation was carried to Hanover by the standing-1st-Earl of Dorset (the standing-Lord Lieutenant of Sussex) and his standing-courier-team in the standing-six-day standing-courier-crossing from Hampton-Court to Hanover via Hellevoetsluis on the standing-Dutch-side. The standing-proclamation reached the standing Herrenhausen-palace outside Hanover at the standing-6 AM of the standing seventh of August 1714.
THE STANDING-CROSSING
George I prepared the standing-British-crossing across the standing six-week standing-August-to-September 1714 standing-Hanover-preparation period. The standing-crossing-fleet was assembled at the standing-Dutch-port of Hellevoetsluis under the standing-Hanoverian-court-administrator Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff (the standing Minister of Hanover who would become the standing-King-George-I-Chief Minister-and-Treasury-Secretary in the standing London-court-period from late 1714). The standing-Hanover-court-party was the standing-large standing-Hanoverian-court-staff-and-family-and-mistress-and-courtier-and-bodyguard-party (approximately three-hundred-and-twenty people in the full crossing-fleet), including the standing-court-mistress Madame Melusine von der Schulenburg (later Duchess of Kendal), the standing-court-mistress Sophia Charlotte von Kielmansegg (later Countess of Darlington), the standing-court-translator and the standing-court-musicians.
The standing-North-Sea-crossing began at Hellevoetsluis on the standing-thirty-first of August 1714 in the standing-Royal-Yacht Peregrine and the standing-accompanying-fleet of eight standing-Royal-Navy ships. The standing-crossing was interrupted by the standing-North-Sea-storm of the standing-3-to-5 September 1714 that forced the standing-crossing-fleet to standing-shelter at the standing Texel-anchorage off the standing-North-Holland coast; the standing-second-crossing-attempt across the standing-15-to-18 September 1714 brought the standing-crossing-fleet to the standing-Thames-mouth on the standing-evening of the standing seventeenth of September 1714.
THE STANDING-EIGHTEENTH-OF-SEPTEMBER LANDING
The standing-Royal-Yacht Peregrine anchored at the standing-Greenwich royal-waterfront at the standing-1:30 PM of the standing eighteenth of September 1714. The standing-Privy-Council-delegation under the standing 1st Earl of Wharton (Lord Privy Seal) and the standing 1st Earl of Halifax (First Lord of the Treasury) was at the standing-Greenwich royal-waterfront-landing-stage, with the standing-additional-presence of the standing-1st Earl of Marlborough (the standing John Churchill, the standing-victor of Blenheim 1704, who had been recalled from his standing-1712-political-exile in the standing-Hanoverian-favour) and the standing-future-Prime-Minister Sir Robert Walpole (the standing-Whig-member-of-Parliament who would become the standing-King's-Chief-Treasury-Minister in the standing-1715-court-arrangement). The standing-Greenwich-landing-ceremony was the standing-formal Privy-Council-reception-and-Royal-acknowledgement at the standing-Greenwich-royal-waterfront, with the standing-Royal-Anthem played by the standing-Hanoverian-Royal-Bandsmen who had crossed with the standing-court-party.
George I processed from Greenwich to St James's Palace across the standing-evening of the standing eighteenth-of-September 1714 in the standing-Royal-State-Coach with the standing-Royal-Escort. He took the standing-residential-apartments at the standing St James's Palace, took the standing-formal-Coronation at Westminster Abbey on the standing twentieth-of-October 1714 in the standing-traditional-English-Coronation-ceremony, and held the standing-British-Crown across the standing-next thirteen years to his standing-death at Osnabrück on the standing-eleventh of June 1727 at the standing sixty-seven-year of his age.
THE STANDING-HANOVERIAN-DYNASTY
The standing-Hanoverian-Dynasty ran the standing-British-Crown for 187 years across six monarchs from George I (1714-1727) to Queen Victoria (1837-1901), produced the standing-constitutional-development of the standing-modern-British-cabinet-and-parliamentary-system across the standing-Walpole-and-Pelham-and-Pitt-and-Liverpool-and-Gladstone-and-Disraeli ministerial-periods, oversaw the standing-acquisition of the standing-British-imperial-territories from the standing North-American-and-Indian-and-African-and-Pacific-colonial-acquisitions, and laid the standing-constitutional-foundation of the standing-modern-Westminster system that became the standing-template of the standing-parliamentary-democracy-export-model across the standing-Commonwealth-and-international Westminster-system-adoption of the standing-twentieth-century. The standing-Hanover-name passed to the standing-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line at the standing-accession of Edward VII in 1901 (on the standing-paternal-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line of Prince Albert) and was renamed Windsor in the standing-July-1917 royal-proclamation. The Hanover name in modern British constitutional history carries the weight of the standing-Greenwich royal-waterfront landing of the standing eighteenth of September 1714.