Abstract
Caroline of Ansbach (1683–1737), Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821), Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (1792–1849), and Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–1861)—the consorts of five successive Hanoverian monarchs, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, and Victoria—shared key attributes and circumstances that shaped the development of the United Kingdom’s constitutional monarchy and the public image of the royal family. In contrast to the Stuart period, where four successive royal consorts were (almost certainly) Catholic, the Hanoverian consorts were all Protestant and their religion was important to their public image, especially during the reigns of George II and George III. The evolution of the British constitutional monarchy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the development of party politics, shaped the role of the royal consort. For the Hanoverian consorts, political and personal conflicts were interconnected.
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Notes
- 1.
Anna of Denmark, Henrietta Maria of France, Catherine of Braganza, and Mary of Modena. See their chapters in: Aidan Norrie, Carolyn Harris, J.L. Laynesmith, Danna R. Messer, and Elena Woodacre, eds., Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
- 2.
See the analysis of “godly queenship” in: Hannah Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 32–37.
- 3.
The Statutes of the Realm: Volume 7, 1695–1701, ed. John Raithby (London, 1820), 636–638.
- 4.
“Royal Marriages Act 1772,” https://www.legislation.gov.uk/apgb/Geo3/12/11/1991-02-01?timeline=true.
- 5.
The most prominent example of the intersection of family conflict and party politics during the Hanoverian period is the conflict between George II and his heir, Frederick, Prince of Wales (the father of George III). As Jeremy Black observes, “Once in Britain, Frederick developed political links with opposition Whigs, being increasingly seen as a ‘Patriot Prince’, and thus as an antithesis to a Hanoverian King.” See: Jeremy Black, The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2004), 105.
- 6.
Peter Gordon and Denis Lawton, Royal Education: Past, Present, and Future (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 188.
- 7.
Jane Ridley, Bertie: A Life of Edward VII (London: Chatto & Windus, 2012), 241n.
- 8.
An exception is Clarissa Campbell Orr, ed., Queenship in Britain, 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture, and Dynastic Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), which encompasses the late Stuart and Hanoverian queens prior to the accession of Queen Victoria. Examples of works that place Hanoverian consorts in the context of wider European queenship trends include Charles Beem, Queenship in Early Modern Europe (London: Red Globe Press, 2020); and Clarissa Campbell Orr, ed., Queenship in Europe, 1660–1815: The Role of the Consort (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
- 9.
For examples of biographies and other resources concerning the Hanoverian, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Windsor consorts, see the further reading list at the end of the introduction to this volume.
- 10.
Jeffrey Richards describes Edward the Seventh (Edward the King) as “one notable exception” to the sympathetic portrayals of Queen Victoria in film. See: Jeffrey Richards, “Gender and Authority in the Queen Victoria Films,” in Rule, Britannia!: The Biopic and British National Identity, ed. Homer B. Pettey and R. Barton Palmer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018), 82.
- 11.
For one example, see Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford (London, 1853), 112, in which a shopkeeper tells his customers, “Queen Adelaide had appeared, only the very week before, in a cap exactly like the one he showed them, trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had been complimented by King William on the becoming nature of her head-dress.”
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Harris, C. (2023). The Hanoverian Consorts: Enlightenment and Empire. In: Norrie, A., Harris, C., Laynesmith, J., Messer, D.R., Woodacre, E. (eds) Hanoverian to Windsor Consorts. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12829-5_2
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