300 years ago today, at around 7.30 a.m. on 1 August 1714, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland died at the age. As the Queen had lost eighteen children and Catholics had been disinherited by the Act of Settlement of 1701, Queen Anne was succeeded by her second cousin, Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover, who became King George I.
Thus today also marks the tercentenary of the current British royal house. Although the Hanoverians are frequently viewed as separate from the Windsors it is the same dynasty despite the name having been changed and the crown having passed to junior lines within the dynasty in 1830, 1837 and 1936.
Friday, 1 August 2014
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Is it not rather strange to consider the house of Windsor to be a branch of the house of Hanover. All British monarchs have been ruling because of their descendance from that house but does it make them Hanoverians? There are numerous persons in line to the British throne who are not Hanoverians, like the monarchs of Norway and Sweden.
ReplyDeleteAfter the death of Queen Victoria and until 1917 when the name Windsor was introduced I think the ruling house was considered to be Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. If the house of Windsor is to be considered a branch or a line of another house it must as I see it be of Saxe-Cobrg and Gotha.
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The House of Windsor is clearly a branch of the Hanoverian dynasty (like the Houses of Orléans, Bourbon and Valois were part of the Capetian dynasty). Unlike in 1714 (or 1603 or 1485) there was no dynastic rupture in neither 1830, 1837, 1901 nor 1936; the crown passed by hereditary right, not by political choice or military conquest, to the nearest heir of the same family. What happened in 1917 was that they decided to adopt a new name (which no-one was quite sure what was), which was merely a cosmetic change. The royal houses of Sweden and Norway do indeed descend from the Hanoverians (in multiple ways), but unlike Queen Elizabeth neither King Carl Gustaf nor King Harald possess their crown by right or inheritance/descent from the Hanoverians; therefore they do obviously not belong to the Hanoverian dynasty.
DeleteI should have entered my name!
ReplyDeleteMartin Rahm
Thank you Trond. I am not very certain of the most common definition of the notion dynasty. It seems the term has various meanings. One of the meanings being the important time in history that a country has been ruled by members of a certain family or group of persons. In that sense Great Britain is still under the dynasty of Hanover.
ReplyDeleteIf on the other hand by dynasty one means almost the same thing as a princely house, Great Britain is as I see it since 1917 ruled by the house of Windsor, which is a British branch of house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha which succeded to the throne at the death of Queen Victoria. It is difficult to apply modern rules of gender neutral succession to events in the passed. The Almanach de Gotha between the death of Queen Victoria and 1917does not make any mention of Hanover for the her descendants only for her cousin the Grand Duchess og Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
For dynasties however, it might be quite possible to redefine the lines since the historians themselves define the dynasty.
Martin Rahm
"Dynasty" and "house" are not always synonyms, although they are often used as synonyms. There are also two schools of thought about when the name of a house changes in the case of a female monarch - upon her accession/marriage or upon the accession of a child born of that marriage. For instance, Lord Mountbatten (who was obviously an interested party!) claimed that the House of Mountbatten had supplanted the House of Windsor upon Elizabeth II's accession, but on the other hand no one claims that the House of Oldenburg reigned in Britain from 1702 to 1714. But then again, the line is often drawn at 1837 for the House of Hanover, leaving Queen Victoria out. This might have something to do with the end of the personal union with Hanover in that year, but also with Victoria's attempts to distance herself from her wicked uncles. David Cannadine has written a very interesting essay on the latter topic (including how the attempts backfired): "The last Hanoverian sovereign?: The Victorian monarchy in historical perspective, 1688-1988", which may be found in the book "The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone".
DeleteA little off the topic, but Hanover plays an important if little known chapter in the life of Carl Johan. Marshal Bernadotte was sent by Napoleon to be military governor of Hanover where Bernadotte governed as a humane administrator in contrast to more aggressive French marshals elsewhere. This enhanced his reputation and later useful in his election as Crown Prince a few years later.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Trond, I use an article you wrote a couple years ago in the bibliography in my new "fictional" book about Bernadotte. I'd love to send you a PDF file if you're interested. --Roy Everson
I would not call that a "little known chapter in the life of Carl Johan" - it is covered by all of his biographers. As you say it benefited his reputation, but was also of some significance as it provided him with the experience of governing a state and as it brought him into contact with Scandinavia, including a meeting with his future adversary Christian Frederik.
DeleteI do not normally read historical novels, but if you send it to trond.noren.isaksen (a) gmail.com I shall have a look at it.