The Hanover Kings & Queens Vaught-Jasper-Trusty-Molloy, Genealogy Tree George 1   Born: Osnabruck, Hanover, 28 May (7 June NS) 1660. Titles: George Louis, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke and elector of Hanover (from 1698). Crowned: Westminster Abbey, 20 October 1714. Ruled: I August 1714-11 June 1727. Married: 21 November 1682, at Celle Castle, Germany, Sophia Dorothea (1666-1726), dau. George William, Duke of Brunswick-Luneberg-Celle; marriage anulled 28 December 1694: 2 children. George also had at least three illegitimate children by Ehrengard Melusine von Schulenburg (1667-1743), who may subsequently have married George. Died: Osnabruck, Hanover, 11 June 1727, aged 67. Buried: Leinschloss Church, Hanover.   The Act of Settlement passed in 1701 formalised the succession should neither William III and Mary II or Anne have any surviving children. It was imperative that the line passed to a Protestant heir, and the act excluded all Catholics, which was why James (the old Pretender), a legitimate son of James II was not allowed to rule. At the time the act was concluded, the nearest living Protestant heir was Sophia, the seventy year-old daughter of Frederick, king of Bohemia and Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Her mother, Elizabeth, was the eldest daughter of James I (at that time still James VI of Scotland). Sophia died six weeks before Queen Anne in the summer of 1714 and the succession passed to her eldest son, George, who had succeeded his father, Ernst August, as duke and elector of Hanover on 23 January 1698. When George came to the British throne he was fifty-four, older than any previous English heir, though Robert II and Donald III of Scotland had been older. Prior to 1701 there had been little thought that he would become king of England, and even during the last years of Queen Anne's reign efforts were made for James Stuart to convert to Protestantism, but the likelihood of George's succession became increasingly inevitable in the last few years. Whilst he had never learned English, he rapidly struggled to master key sentences, but preferred to communicate in French, the diplomatic language of the day. He also relied on his son, George Augustus, to help translate.   Before his elevation to king of England, George had already led an eventful life. He was the eldest child with five brothers and a sister. He outlived them all except his youngest brother Ernst. He had been a handsome youth, and still retained something of a cherubic if fat face, though his seeming inability to smile made him appear surly. He was not tall, but was fit and athletic, though he later became rather stout. He was well educated but delighted most in riding, hunting and military exercise. He first saw military service in 1675, and was involved in the Dutch and Turkish wars, distinguishing himself at Neerwinden in 1693. He developed a good relationship with John Churchill, the future duke of Marlborough, during the War of the Spanish Succession and commanded the Imperial Army on the Upper Rhine from 1707 to 1709. He was elevated to the College of Electors of the Empire in 1708 and became arch-treasurer of the Empire in 1710. He was resourceful and much respected, but was also highly ambitious, vindictive and used to having his own way. He had already demonstrated this by his treatment of his wife, which had become something of a scandal in Europe. He had married the beautiful sixteen year-old Sophia Dorothea of Celle in 1682. The marriage was at first happy and they had two children: George Augustus and Sophia Dorothea. Sophia soon tired of her boorish husband, however, who seemed to have little respect for women, and she began an affair with Philip von Konigsmark, a Swedish colonel of dragoons. When George discovered this in July 1694 he was furious. Sophia was imprisoned in the Castle of Ahlden for the rest of her life, forbidden to remarry and denied access to her children. Divorce proceedings were concluded in December 1694. Konigsmark disappeared and it was widely believed that George had ordered his death. His body was supposed to have been discovered years later buried under the floorboards at the elector's palace. However, Konigsmark had earlier had an affair with Clara, the Countess von Platten, and it was believed that she may have lured the Colonel to his death. This becomes even more sordid when we learn that Clara had also been the mistress of George's father, Ernst, and had borne him at least four children, one of whom, Sophia Charlotte, was rumoured to be George's mistress, even though she was his half-sister. It is more likely that the two simply enjoyed each other's company. Sophia Charlotte was not an attractive lady; in fact she grew to be excessively corpulent, so that when she and the king were seen together they were nick-named the Elephant and Castle. She became a naturalised British subject and was raised to the peerage as baroness of Brentford and countess of Darlington in 1722. George's one public mistress was Ehrengard Melusine von Schulenburg, an extremely thin lady whom the Germans called "the scarecrow" and the British dubbed "the Maypole". There is a strong belief that George may have subsequently married Melusine in secret, especially as in later years she was created Princess von Eberstein by the Emperor Charles VI who would not have done so had she not had some royal status. Robert Walpole also regarded her "as much queen of England as anyone ever was." She was generally known by the title duchess of Kendal, which she was given in March 1719. George had already had two children by her before he divorced his wife, which only emphasises his hypocritical attitude when he discovered her affair. England's Queen Anne had taken a dislike to George when he visited her as far back as 1680 pursuing a possible marriage alliance, and from his subsequent sexual adventures one can only imagine what the outcome might have been for Anne and England had they married.   The English and Scots did not warm to George either when he paraded through London in September 1714. He had already taken nearly eight weeks to come to Britain, revelling in his new found glory in a series of parties across Europe. He was jeered by Londoners, who never quite took him seriously. By this time the power of the king was waning against the growing power of Parliament and, while the authority of the king retained a certain mystical aura, this was not what it had been before the Civil War and the English were already starting to regard the monarch as a figurehead. While they had taken Mary and Anne to their hearts, they did not like these foreigners who kept turning up to claim the throne - first William of Orange and then George of Hanover. This seriously damaged the acceptability of the monarchy in the eyes of the public. The Scots liked this "wee German laddie" even less. The Jacobite supporters of James 11 and his son James Edward Stuart grew in strength and in September 1715 the first Jacobite rebellion erupted at Braemar. It could have been far more serious than it was if the Old Pretender had not turned out to be such a discouraging pessimist. The rebellion fizzled out, but George still exacted a vicious penalty upon those who had taken part. Despite what his amorous adventures might suggest (in fact they probably support it), George was shy and tended to keep out of the limelight when he could. He was not one for intellectual pursuits, though he did have a love for music and it was through George that the composer George Frederic Handel came to England. His Water Music was composed for a royal water-party on 22 August 1715, and George's love of Handel's work led to the foundation of the first Royal Academy of Music in 1720. George's shyness and inability to communicate well in English made him all the more blunt and short-tempered. He had been used to getting his own way in Hanover and could not adapt to the English parliamentary system where he needed to seek approval for his actions, especially when this affected his foreign policy and his wish to protect Hanover's interests. Because of the language problems, especially after the rift with his son in 1717 which meant the younger George no longer attended cabinet meetings to help translate, George needed another minister to represent him. This was the start of the post of Prime Minister, but it also reduced George's direct sphere of control. George had previously allied himself with Peter the Great of Russia and was keen to ensure that he benefitted from Peter's war with Sweden. To do so he needed to have control over his foreign policy and he could not do this with the Whig government that had come to power under Robert Walpole in 1715 after the failure of the Jacobite rebellion. In 1716 the Septennial Act had been passed, which postponed the opportunity of the Tories to return to power for four years. George distrusted the strong-minded and exceedingly able Walpole who would not sanction the funds George needed for his new campaign against Russia. George, however, rapidly appreciated that he could influence who led the Whigs. George set one faction against another within the party and succeeded in aiding the weak and malleable earl of Sunderland and Lord Stanhope to oust Walpole in 1717. George was now able to dictate his terms to Stanhope and gain an alliance with Holland and France against Russia. However in opposing Walpole he made a dangerous enemy. Walpole allied himself with George's son, George Augustus (later George II), who served as regent on his father's many forays back to Hanover. George despised his father because of his treatment of his mother, and would have been only too happy to depose him. He established a clique, known as the Leicester House Set, with the sole intention of frustrating the king's plans, and Walpole became part of the group. Walpole also became friends with Prince George's wife, Caroline, princess of Wales, an intelligent and influential lady who gave Walpole her stolid support. King George soon realised that he could not prevail against such opposition and was forced to be reconciled with Walpole. This was precipitated by the economic disaster known as the South Sea Bubble. The South Sea Company had been established in 1711, trading with the Spanish colonies in South America in anticipation of benefits that would arise from success in the War of the Spanish Succession. King George was made governor of the company in 1718 and it became fashionable to invest, especially once the Company took over the management of the National Debt in 1720. Senior officials in the company began to issue false stock to meet the demand and in September 1720 this bubble burst. Thousands of speculators found that their investment was worthless, including most of the country's leading nobility. When it was found that cabinet ministers and court officials had been involved in the dirty dealings it became a national scandal, threatening the Hanoverian dynasty. George was forced to rely on Walpole's skill in resolving the affair and restoring order. From then on Walpole was in supreme power and dominated English affairs. George's relationship with his politicians and the general state of English religious and cultural society at this time was lampooned by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels (1726). Because of the supremacy of Parliament, George removed himself further from public affairs. It made the king less of a target, although the jacobites still wished to restore the Stuart Pretender. In 1722 a plot was uncovered to do just that, known as the Atterbury Plot after one of its leading conspirators Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester. Where once he would have been executed, Atterbury was imprisoned and then banished, and all his possessions confiscated. Generally, though, plots against the king diminished because Walpole had him under control. George's excesses were by and large eradicated, although the relationship with Spain remained poor, resulting in a dispute over Gibraltar and a fruitless expedition against Spain's American colonies. George liked to spend the summer and autumn in Hanover, and it was while travelling there in June 1727 that he died of a cerebral haemorrhage. His son and the British government were happy to leave him there and he was buried in the Leinschloss Church at Hanover, the first ruling British monarch to be buried abroad since Richard I. Although his brusqueness and pomposity caused him to be generally disliked, George had a considerable influence on the British parliamentary system and brought in (by default not design) the constitutional government that has dominated British politics ever since. George I (Louis) King of Hanover and the Molloys are 10th cousins 9 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet.

George II   Born: Schloss Herrenhausen, Hanover, 30 Oct 1683. Full name and titles: George Augustus, king of Great Britain and Ireland, duke and elector of Hanover, duke and marquess of Cambridge (from 1706), earl of Milford Haven (from 1706), duke of Cornwall and Rothesay (from 1714), prince of Wales and earl of Chester (from 1714). Crowned: Westminster Abbey, 11 October 1727. Ruled: 28 May 1727-25 October 1760. Married: 22 August 1705, at Schloss Herrenhausen, Hanover, Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline (1683-1737) dau. of John Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach: 9 children (I stillborn). George probably had one illegitimate child. Died: Kensington Palace, 25 October 1760, aged 76. Buried: Westminster Abbey.   George was the only son of George I. He had been born in Hanover before the Act of Settlement had nominated the Hanoverian line of succession, but after this was passed in 1701, when George was seventeen; the youth was tutored in both the English language and the English way of life. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1705 and received a flock of British titles. There was a considerable rift between George and his father after the imprisonment of his mother in 1694, and the elder George refused to grant his son any local responsibilities. Even though he proved his valour at the battle of Oudenarde in 1708 in the War of the Spanish Succession, his father failed to recognize his abilities. This drove George more towards his future British subjects, and in later years he would state that he regarded himself as more British than German, even if he said it in a strong German accent.   George had a passion for the strict rules of etiquette and probity which at times became obsessive and made him irritating at official functions, but at least it meant he strove to get things right, which made him a more acceptable monarch to the British than his father - at least at the outset.   In 1705, when twenty-one, George married Caroline of Ansbach, who was just seven months his elder. It was a good match. Caroline more than matched George in intelligence and canniness, and also softened his German preciseness. She had an earthy charm and was attractive in a beguiling way rather than in her looks. Both partners recognized the need to flirt: George simply because of his sexual desires; Caroline as a way of influencing men of power. It was Caroline who became the power behind the throne, firstly during the reign of her father-in-law when, in the absence of a Queen, she took on the role of first lady as princess of Wales; and certainly when George inherited the crown.   When George's father became king, George and Caroline accompanied him to England and took up residence in London. George aided his father in understanding English, often translating at meetings of the cabinet or the Privy Council, and serving as regent during his father's regular summer returns to Hanover. However at the close of 1717 an argument erupted between George and his father over a misunderstanding that happened during the christening of the prince's latest son. The young George did not like the choice of the duke of Newcastle as godfather, and the duke misunderstood George's comments at the font as a threat. When the prince refused to apologise, the king first threatened to have the son imprisoned and then banished him from St James's Palace. George and Caroline set up home at Leicester House near St Martin-in-the-Fields and here established what became almost a rival court, often giving audience to the king's political enemies, most especially Robert Walpole. It was at Leicester House that Caroline used her wiles and influence to win over the men of authority whom she preferred. The consequences of this rift were significant. It meant that the king no longer felt comfortable at the cabinet meetings without his son and therefore handed over the management of them to his preferred minister, which was how the formal role of the Prime Minister emerged. It also meant that George and Caroline were able to have a trial run at their own cabinet meetings which were a solid grounding for the real thing.   What does seem surprising is that George, given the poor relationship with his father, should have been so hostile towards his own son, Frederick Louis. By all accounts he regarded Frederick as an imbecile, almost from birth, although Frederick was no such thing. George and Caroline left Frederick in Hanover when they came to England, and he was not allowed into England until 1728, when they did their best to ignore him. It rather irritated them both when they discovered that the young man, who they reluctantly created Prince of Wales in 1729, became something of a favourite among London society. With little parental control Frederick became a dandy and a man-about-town, often going on the razzle and ending up drunk. He frequently gambled and built up huge debts that his father refused to acknowledge, let alone pay. Frederick had all the qualities of being a cultured man if his father had paid him any attention: he had a love of sport, art and the theatre. But his father liked none of those things and regarded his son as a wastrel. When Frederick died of a ruptured aneurysm in March 1751, aged 44, his father rather callously remarked that he was glad. It is quite likely that George had hoped Frederick might have died younger and that his heir would have been his younger and favourite son, William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, who shared his father's Germanic ruthlessness. However Frederick lived long enough to marry and father nine legitimate children, amongst them the future George III. Frederick also lived long enough to become a major thorn in George's side, always opposing his father's plans and siding with the opposition in government. Had he become king, he would have settled down and been moderate and compassionate, but his father brought out the worst in him. It was a real-life example of "like father, like son".   When George became king in 1727, England was under the strong political control of Robert Walpole. George had little need to interfere, but that did not stop him wanting to give the impression of being in charge. He sought to change his ministers much like his father, but his preferred minister, Sir Spencer Compton, admitted he was not up to forming an administration. George was thus forced to continue with Sir Robert Walpole, who accommodated George by voting him a larger share of the Civil List.   Like his father, George had a passion for war and it was all that Walpole could do to stop George involving himself in a number of hostilities throughout Europe, particularly the War of the Polish Succession. Matters began to change after the death of Caroline in 1737. George genuinely loved his wife and sorely missed her. He never remarried, but he now lived more openly with his mistress, Amalia von Walmoden. With Caroline's influence and support gone, Walpole's star began to wane. George's desire for war was granted when hostilities broke out with Spain in September 1739 and then with France in 1742 in the War of the Austrian Succession. Even though nearing sixty, George took the opportunity to lead an army into the field at Dettingen on 16 June 1743. This was the last occasion that a British sovereign would command an army in battle. He served valiantly, fighting beside his men, and it gave his popularity a boost.   Interestingly also serving in the battle of Dettingen, on the side of the French, was Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. Charles's desire to win back the Scottish and English thrones caused him to invade Scotland in 1745 and on a wave of popularity brought an army as far south as Derby. It was as a consequence of the Jacobite rebellion that the first recorded singing of the National Anthem occurred at Drury Lane on 28 September 1745, in a patriotic reaction to the rebels. George sent his second son, William, against Charles. William, Duke of Cumberland, defeated the Scots at Culloden in April 1746 and followed this with a vicious culling of the jacobites, which earned him the name of "Butcher Cumberland". This did not endear the Duke or the king to the Scots. William was not, in fact, an especially good commander. At the battle of Fontenoy in France, the previous May, Cumberland had suffered a humiliating defeat and heavy losses. He was defeated again by the French at Laffeldt in 1747 and in 1757, when Britain became unnecessarily involved in the Seven Years' War; Cumberland was forced to surrender the Hanoverian army at Klosterseven. George was so humiliated by this that he stripped his son of his military commands.   Walpole had stepped down as prime minister in 1742 and George's attempts to appoint a capable one proved uneven over the next few years. Control passed mostly to Henry Pelham, who sanctioned the funds for George's wars but who was not an especially gifted administrator. In the end George was forced to consider William Pitt (the elder), who had been a supporter of his son Frederick and had formed a clique known as the "Patriot Boys", a kind of "brat pack" of the 1740s.   The war against the French had other consequences. In India, the daring adventures of Robert Clive at Madras (in 1746) and Arcot (in 1751) stirred the blood, and his subsequent achievements at Calcutta, Chandernagore and Plassey in 1756/7, saw the defeat of the French and the emergence of the British control of India. Soon afterwards, in Canada, General James Wolfe (who had served at Dettingen and Culloden) succeeded in capturing Quebec in September 1759 and fulfilling Pitt's plan to expel the French from Canada. There were further territorial gains in the West Indies and Africa. Thus as George's reign drew to a close, the British Empire was expanding on both sides of the globe. Had George lived another eight years he would have seen Australia added to the map. The 1750s thus saw an increase in national pride and a restoration, to some degree, of George II in the national affection although, as with his father, the British found it difficult to take any Hanoverian to their hearts.   George's reign must ultimately be seen as a success, though a clouded one at that, but certainly better than the results of either the Old Stewart Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie gaining the throne. George's successes outweighed his failures, thanks mostly to his choice of prime ministers, and Britain became prosperous and an increasing world power. George himself died in a rather undignified fashion - he had a heart attack while sitting on the lavatory. George II England and the Molloys are 11th cousins 8 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet. CHARLES (III) "BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE"  "THE YOUNG PRETENDER". Proclaimed Prince Regent, 12 August 1745; defeated Culloden 16 April 1746. Styled himself Charles III, 1 January 1766-31 January 1788. Born: Rome, 31 December 1720. Died. Rome, 31 January 1788, aged 68. Buried: St Peter's, Rome. Married: 17 April 1772, at Marefischi, Ancona, Italy, Louise (1752-1824) dau. Gustavus Adolphus Prince of Stolberg-Gedern (separated 1780): no children. Charles was the eldest son of James (see JAMES VIII the old pretender,) and regarded himself as the rightful claimant to the throne of Scotland (and to a lesser degree England). Unlike his father he was not a staunch Catholic, but supported the Jacobite cause. Also, unlike his lugubrious father, he had a good sense of humour and was a dashing, sporting individual. He was involved in the siege of Gaeta in 1734 and served well at Dettingen in 1743 in battle against George II. He made himself available to Louis XV of France who sought to use the Jacobite resistance in an invasion of England during the War of the Austrian Succession. Louis's expedition was prevented by bad weather and, in the end, Charles went it alone, losing one ship en route, and arriving in Eriskay in the Hebrides on 23 July 1745 with just seven companions. His resolve, passion and optimism soon fostered support amongst the Highlanders and he was declared prince regent on 12 August. A week later he raised his father's standard at Glenfinnan. His army grew. He entered Edinburgh without opposition and established himself at Holyrood. An army sent against him under the command of Sir John Cope was rapidly despatched. After a brief pause Charles marched south, reaching as far as Derby on 4 December, without opposition. At this point it seemed that England was his for the taking. George II was preparing to flee to France. However, although there was no resistance, Charles did not find any support amongst the English and it was considered prudent to return to Edinburgh. Thereafter the army became dispirited. The duke of Cumberland followed in pursuit, regaining ground and establishing a base at Inverness in February. By now Charles's lack of ability as a leader was showing, as his army became weakened and ill. The showdown between the two forces happened at Culloden on 16 April 1746. The Jacobites were soundly defeated by Cumberland. This was the last battle fought on British soil. Charles escaped. Aided by Flora MacDonald, and disguised as a spinning-maid, Charles remained a fugitive throughout the Highlands for five months, during which period Cumberland took revenge on any Jacobite nests remaining in Scotland. Realising his cause was lost Charles left Scotland in 18 September 1746 never to return. While in Scotland he had met the twenty-five year old Clementina Walkinshaw, who became his mistress and followed him to Europe. They had a daughter, Charlotte, born in 1753, who became duchess of Albany. Charles lost his verve and spirit and sank into drunkenness. He lost Clementine because of his cruelty, and had a short, unhappy and unfruitful marriage with Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern. His daughter, who was later legitimised, was his only companion in his final, sad years. He long regretted he had not died at Culloden with his supporters.

George III Born: Norfolk House, London, 24 May 1738. Full name and titles: George William Frederick, King of Great Britain and Ireland (and nominally of France, a title relinquished in 1801), Duke and elector of Hanover (King from 1814), Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Marquess of Ely, Earl of Eltham, viscount of Launceston, Baron of Snowdon, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester (from 1751). Crowned: Westminster Abbey, 22 September 1761.  Ruled: 25 October 1760-29 January 1820 (declared unfit to rule 5 February 1811). Married: 8 September 1761, at St James's Palace, Sophia Charlotte (I 744-1818), dau. Charles, duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz: 15 children. It is alleged that George had previously married Hannah Lightfoot in secret on 17 April 1759, but this remains to be proven.  Died: Windsor Castle, 29 January 1820, aged 81. Buried: Windsor Castle.  George was the grandson of George II and the son of Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales, whom his grandfather despised so much. It seems that something of both passed on to the new king. He had a strain of obstinacy, like his grandfather, but in other matters he was flexible and conciliatory. He was the first of the Hanoverian kings to be born and raised in England and to speak English without a strong German accent, which helped the British warm to him. He had a binding sympathy with the English and never visited Hanover, even though he remained their ruler (and their king from 1814). He was good-hearted with a deep religious conviction, lacking, at least in his youth, the vicious streak that had been prominent in the first two Hanoverian kings. What George also lacked, however, was sound judgement, a fault inherited from his father. He was too trusting and was dominated by his mother. This contributed to some of the bad decisions that darkened his reign. George was well educated and did not have the wayward streak of his father. The only skeleton in his youthful cupboard was his relationship with Hannah Lightfoot, the daughter of a shoemaker from Wapping. George allegedly married Hannah in secret in 1757 (or 1759, records vary) and she was supposed to have borne him three children. Although documentation exists which purportedly proves the marriage, it has been kept in the Royal Archives since 1866 and its authenticity has not been proven. The likelihood of three children is remote. Although Hannah may have been a momentary infatuation, George soon fell in love with Lady Sarah Lennox, a daughter of the duke of Richmond and great-granddaughter of Charles II by his mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth. George was advised that he should not marry a British subject but should look to the eligible German princesses. The final choice was the charming seventeen-year old Charlotte of Mecklenburg. The coronation was delayed until after their wedding on 8 September 1761, so that a joint coronation could be held two weeks later. George was twenty-two when he was proclaimed king. He was keen to do what was right and one of his first actions was to put out a proclamation against immorality. He also wanted to get control back over the Government which had gradually leeched power from the monarch over the last sixty years. George did not like Pitt or the Whig philosophy. His preferred premier was John Stuart, Earl of Bute, who had been a close friend of his mother's and had assisted in his education. Bute was a Whig, but being of Scottish descent, had Jacobite sympathies and was a staunch royalist. He was not a good administrator so that while George got his way, the country turned against Bute and he resigned in 1763. Bute remained in the king's confidence for two more years, but in the meantime the king suffered a long series of tedious prime ministers until he eventually found his man in Frederick, Lord North, who became premier in 1770.   The first ten years of George's reign were thus difficult ones for him in getting to grips with the reins of government. Issues, which in hindsight seem positive, such as securing peace with France and Spain in 1763, at the time were seen in a darker light. Bute was accused of receiving bribes from France, and the king was accused of selling out to the enemy. The Stamp Act introduced in 1765 met with considerable opposition and had to be repealed the following year. Throughout this period the king was subjected to constant abuse and libel from the renegade politician John Wilkes who published material, which in previous generations would have led to his execution for treason. The strain on the king told and in early 1765 he suffered a physical collapse, which may have been a precursor of his later mental affliction. Though not as severe as the bout of 1788 or the final decline of 1810, it was sufficient for Parliament to rush through a Regency Act. It was further fodder to George's opponents to denigrate him, and so much stigma has attached to him as king that it becomes difficult to see the real man and his achievements. Lord North has likewise been criticised and is regarded by some as the worst of all prime ministers. To his premiership belongs the American War of Independence. The American revolution had its roots before North's administration. The colonies had been free of taxation, but also had no parliamentary representation. When a tax was re-imposed on molasses in 1764 and the stamp duty on legal documents and newspapers in 1765 there was an outcry. Although both of these measures were subsequently repealed, a new tax on tea, introduced in 1773, sparked off more antagonism and led to the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, when tea held in Boston Harbour was thrown overboard. The British closed the port at Boston and sent in troops, with the inevitable consequence that hostilities broke out on 19 April 1775 with battles at Lexington and Concord. The US Congress issued its Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776 and thereafter George III became the figurehead for American hostility. George was intent upon bringing America to its knees and approved any measure that would cause the Americans the utmost distress, though the allegation that he would make them all slaves is an exaggeration. The worst defeat for Britain came at Saratoga on 17 October 1777, when General John Burgoyne was forced to surrender his entire army. This action turned the balance of the war, as France now recognized the independence of the colonies and sent support. The last major battle was at Yorktown where George Washington, with the aid of the French, defeated Lord Cornwallis, who surrendered on 19 October 1781. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 3 September 1783. Whereas peace might have been concluded earlier and the colonies saved, George insisted on fighting to the bitter end and took the consequences. George's reputation suffered irreparably while Lord North resigned. It was some years before George again found a minister with whom he could work, William Pitt the Younger. George clashed with Pitt over Catholic Emancipation. Such measures had been the downfall of past kings, especially James II, and even the merest hint of equality had resulted in the Gordon Riots of June 1780 when the MP, Lord George Gordon, incited disorder throughout London, leading to widespread destruction of property and about three hundred deaths. The king remained remarkably calm during the riots and through his own resoluteness restored order. The memory of the riots burned bright for many years so that when Pitt tried to issue a Catholic Emancipation Act in 1801, George violently opposed it and Pitt resigned. Pitt's measure had been his way of controlling the Irish rebellion, which erupted in 1798, encouraged by the success of the French Revolution. There had been unrest generally throughout Britain since 1795 and the king's popularity declined. Pitt introduced several repressive measures, including suspending habeus corpus, and sought to negotiate with France in 1797, which angered George. Despite efforts by later ministers George refused to entertain any consideration of emancipation for Catholics. For an exceedingly pious and generally good-natured man, this obstinacy verged on bigotry. Pitt was, however, able to force through the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland, which came into force on I January 1801. On the same day George relinquished the anachronistic title of king of France, which all English kings had maintained since 1340. A measure of the times is reflected in the two assassination attempts upon George by the public. Margaret Nicholson, a house-maid, threatened him with a dessert knife on 2 August 1786, while James Hadfield fired a shot at the king at Drury Lane on 15 May 1800. Both would-be assassins were pronounced insane. George's reign was not short of its scandals. There was the trial of Warren Hastings for corruption and cruelty in the Indian administration, which ran from 1788 to 1795. There was the private and illegal first marriage of his son (the future George IV) to a commoner in 1785, followed by the immoral conduct of his legal daughter-inlaw, Caroline of Brunswick, the wife he had forced upon his son, who deserted her in 1796. A committee of enquiry was set up in 1806 to undertake the "delicate investigation", as it was called, into Caroline's affairs. Caroline was eventually sent on a grand tour of Europe. There was the duel between the war secretary, viscount Castelreagh, and the foreign secretary, George Canning, in September 1809, in which Canning was wounded. Finally there was the assassination of the prime minister, Spencer Perceval, in May 1812, by John Bellingham. To set against this were the great victories of Horatio Nelson in the Napoleonic Wars, especially at Copenhagen in April 1801 and Trafalgar in October 1805, and the victories of Wellington in the Peninsular War, leading to the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in June 1815. These victories abroad helped raise the morale of a country where the nobility and middle classes were clearly benefitting from the nation's commercial prosperity, but where the ordinary man and woman were discovering how repressed and neglected they were. Most of the angst, however, was aimed at the Government and not directly at George who, despite his obstinacy and occasional lapse of judgement, remained popular amongst his subjects. In fact he was often viewed, especially by the middle classes, as their champion against the Government. He gave the royal assent to William Wilberforce's act to abolish the slave trade, which became law in 1807 (though it was another twenty-six years before slaves in the British colonies were granted their freedom). George was a man of wide interests and intellect. He became fascinated in agriculture and botany, giving some of the land at Windsor over to farming, hence his nickname of "Farmer George". It was an appropriate epithet since the name George means "farmer" or "landworker", so George genuinely lived up (or down!) to his name. He wrote pamphlets on agriculture under the pseudonym of Ralph Robinson. He became more tolerant in his later years about the moral state of the nation, especially in the theatre and literature, just as the most sensational literature emerged. The gothic horror novel The Castle of Otranto (I 764) by Horace Walpole and the salacious The Monk (I 795) by M.G. Lewis, could never have been published in earlier times. Literature flourished during George's reign - this was the era of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. There were many scientific advances during this period, which was the dawn of the age of invention. The best remembered were the perfection of the steam engine by James Watt in 1769 and the use of the steam engine by Richard Arkwright to perfect his spinning machine in 1790. These inventions laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution but also led to such outbursts as the Luddite riots of 1811, a culmination of considerable unrest amongst textile workers to the new machines which would rob them of their livelihood, but which also ushered in a new class of industralists. The last ten years of George's reign, however, were spent in sad decline. His recurrent bouts of "madness" became more severe. In November 1788 he suffered a particularly violent bout where he attacked the Prince of Wales and began talking incessantly. He was forcibly restrained and removed to Kew where he underwent humiliating treatment by ignorant and not altogether well meaning doctors. Remarkably he had recovered by April 1789, but there were further bouts in 1801 and 1804 and the final decline in November 1810, precipitated by the death of his youngest daughter Amelia. By then the king was also blind. His son was made "Prince Regent" with powers of sovereignty from 5 February 181 1. The old king was confined to Windsor Castle, where he was more or less neglected, his hair and beard growing long and white. Just what lucid moments he had during these years is not known. Recent assessments have judged that George was not mad in the psychological sense but suffered from porphyria, a blood disease which upsets the body's chemical balance and can produce symptoms akin to madness. It has been called "the royal malady" and may have affected George's predecessors as far back as Charles VI of France. Charles's daughter, Katherine, married Henry V and through her it passed on to Henry VI. There are even suggestions that it may have afflicted the Saxon kings. The two "facts" that most people remember about King George was that he was mad and that he ruled longer than any other monarch besides Victoria. In fact neither are true, as George's reign effectively ended when his son was made regent. What fewer people recall was that he had a genuine desire to do the best for his country during an especially violent period. The fact that he remained king, while the French monarchy was abolished, is some testament to how he was regarded and that he had learned how to manipulate the system of government. George III (William Hanover and the Molloys are 13th cousins 6 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet.

George IV Born: St James’s Palace, 12 August 1762. Full name and titles: George Augustus Frederick, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew and Lord of the Isles (from birth), Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester (from 1762). Crowned: Westminster Abbey, 19 July 1821. Ruled: 29 January 1820-26 June 1830, with restricted powers as Prince Regent from 5 February 1811. Married:(1) 15 December 1785, at Park Lane, Mayfair, London, Maria Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837) dau. Walter Smythe of Brambridge: no children; marriage not recognized under British law, (2) 8 April 1795, at St James's Palace, London, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth (1768-1821) dau. of Charles II, duke of Brunswick: I daughter. George also had at least two illegitimate children that he acknowledged, and probably many more. Died: Windsor Castle, 26 June 1830, aged 67. Buried: Windsor Castle.   George IV was the eldest son of George III, but in looks and manner he was more like his grandfather, Frederick, Prince of Wales. He was tall and handsome in his youth, though became fat in middle age, and above all he was a spoilt child and a libertine. He had no care at all for his duties as prince of Wales or later as king, enjoying only the privileges and the money that came with them. His lifestyle resulted in many debts, which he managed to get the king and Parliament to pay. He had many mistresses and probably had more illegitimate children than he ever acknowledged. He was generally a profligate and ill-mannered man. Yet, like most such rascals, he could turn on the charm and dignity when he needed to, and he knew how to live and celebrate in style. London society therefore adored him, and today the re is an idealised romantic view of the prince. The "Regency", strictly the period between 1811 and 1820 when he served as Prince Regent during his father's final mental decline, has become a by-word today for dazzling society gatherings and exciting court intrigue. It was also the period of the Napoleonic Wars, and the height of fame for Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Beau Brummell and the great poets and essayists of the day - Lord Byron, Robert Southey, John Keats, Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt and many others. The period holds much fascination and interest, and this has influenced our image of the Prince Regent. In simple terms, had Parliament not been there to run the country, it is almost certain that George IV, seeking to operate outside the rules, would have brought the country to ruin and would quite possibly have been assassinated or deposed. Much of George's life story is a catalogue of his romantic affairs, at least one of which endangered his succession to the throne. All of the Hanoverian monarchs were highly sexed, but George IV was probably the most profligate. It is not entirely clear why this should have been so. Unlike the relationship between George II and his son, George IV was not despised from birth. Quite the opposite. George III doted on him, and was reluctant for him to grow up. He was certainly spoiled but had an excellent education and was a quick learner. Perhaps this precocity, mixed with his good looks, made him too assured and confident of himself with a total disregard for how others viewed him. He was only sixteen when he had his first affair with the actress Mary 'Perdita' Robinson whom he saw in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale in 1779. They remained together for a short while before George fell in love with another, and found he had to pay Mary a princely sum to keep her quiet. He worked his way through at least a dozen other mistresses over the next seven years, of varying degrees of high and low birth, and all costing him or the king a small fortune, until he encountered a young widow, Maria Fitzherbert, who was six years his senior. She became the one true love of his life. She refused to be his mistress, however, and George, in a typical immature tantrum, threatened to stab himself if she did not return his love. She eventually agreed to marry him. George knew that this was not possible. Not only was she already a widow (twice over) and pretty much a commoner (the grand-daughter of a baronet), but worst of all she was a Roman Catholic. The Act of Settlement of 1701 barred any Catholic from inheriting the throne, and it would effectively have barred George's accession. Moreover the Royal Marriages Act, which George's father had introduced in 1772, made any marriage by members of the royal family aged under twenty-five void unless it had received the formal approval of the king and the Privy Council. George acquired no such approval, but went ahead with the marriage anyway in December 1785. Under English law, George's marriage to Maria was void. The pope, however, regarded it as valid. George continued to have many more affairs, the most torrid of which was with the countess of Jersey. George III made every effort to control his son's debaucheries, for the prince, who now drank and ate to excess, was also becoming violent. He had spent to excess in building his own home at Carlton House in London, and as part of the arrangement for helping finance the debt, the king and Parliament insisted that George marry a proper wife. The King selected his niece, Princess Caroline of Brunswick. He must have been blind to her reputation, for not only was she not that attractive, and took little heed for her own personal hygiene, she was already supposed to have had one affair during her youth and, like George, she had wild tantrums. When the two first met three days before their wedding in April 1795, George felt sick at the sight of her and asked for a brandy, and Caroline called him fat and unhandsome. The Prince was drunk throughout his wedding ceremony and spent most of the wedding night in a stupor by the fire, but he must have done his duty, for nine months later to the day the Princess gave birth to their one and only child, Charlotte Augusta. George and Caroline separated soon after the birth and George denied Caroline any involvement in the raising of her daughter. Caroline established an orphanage in Kent in August 1797, whilst George went back to his mistresses. Mrs Fitzherbert returned to live with George for a while after 1800, still regarding herself as his lawful wife. With the outbreak of the Napoleonic War, George applied several times for military service, jealous of the commands held by his brothers, but he was always refused. This was realistic, because the heir to the throne would no longer be put at such risk, but it was also pragmatic, as George had no military training and the government were fearful of what damage he might cause. Frustrated, George became mischievous at home. A dispute arose in 1804 over the custody of his daughter with the result that Charlotte was handed over to George 111. Annoyed at this, Prince George cast aspersions over the conduct of his estranged wife, alleging that one of the orphans in her care, William Austin, was her own son. This led to a "delicate investigation" by Parliament in 1806 which, though it cleared Caroline of the charge, revealed that her conduct was far from becoming. In 1810, George III sank into his final decline and George was made Prince Regent, with certain restricted powers. Nevertheless from 1811 he acted as if he was the sovereign. His extravagance, even though curtailed by Parliament, was still lavish. During this period the Royal Pavilion at Brighton was completely rebuilt on the mock-Oriental style designed by John Nash. Under instruction from the Prince, Nash also redesigned Central London, which is why Regent's Park and Regent Street are so named. The streets of the City of London were lit by gas from 1814. Waterloo Bridge was opened in 1817 and Southwark Bridge in 1819. The Prince Regent continued to entertain lavishly, especially after the victory of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars, when England played host to the emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia in June 1814. The Regency period however was not all glitter. Soldiers returning from war were not fully recompensed and did not find gainful employment. There was considerable unrest which found little sympathy from the government, especially from Lord Liverpool and Lord Sidmouth, who had previously dealt harshly with the Luddites. A gathering at Spa Fields in North London in December 1816, when manufacturers sought to present their views to the Prince Regent, turned ugly and was dealt with severely. Sidmouth used this as an opportunity to undertake what became called the Green-Bag inquiry in February 1817 when a series of secret committees looked into a number of alleged cases of sedition. As a result of this habeus corpus was suspended. A gathering in St Peter's Field in Manchester in August 1819 alarmed the authorities because of its size - the military dispersed the meeting, causing over four hundred injuries and eleven deaths. This incident became known as Peterloo (after Waterloo) and led to even more repressive legislation outlawing public assemblies. The populace were not happy and within only a few weeks of the Prince Regent becoming king in January 1820, a plot was unearthed, known as the Cato Street Conspiracy to assassinate the members of 'he Cabinet and overthrow the Government. George had other things on his mind, however. He had been grief-stricken when his only daughter, Charlotte, who had married in May 1816, died due to complications after childbirth in November 1817. He now had no heir to the throne, and his wife, Caroline, who was now approaching fifty, was past childbearing age. In fact George did every-thing to keep Caroline out of the country. She had gone on a grand tour of Europe after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and was by all accounts romantically involved with an Italian courtier, Bartolomeo Pergami. However, on George's accession to the throne Caroline was determined to return and take her place as queen. George offered her £50,000 a year to stay away, but she brushed this aside and returned to Britain in June 1820. George introduced a parliamentary bill, called the Bill of Pains and Penalties, which was an enquiry into Caroline's conduct. Since Caroline appeared in the House of Lords, the enquiry has come to be regarded as her trial, though she never spoke in her defence. The bill was dropped and Caroline exonerated with much public rejoicing. George still refused to admit her and went to great pains to exclude her from his coronation in July 1821. George had ensured no expense was spared over this event which he planned for over a year and it remains the most extravagant coronation ever held in England. To George's relief, but also his shame, Caroline died just three weeks later on 7 August 1821 of inflammation of the bowels. The public had always been very supportive of the queen and voiced strong opposition to the king. A few weeks later George went on a royal progress through the kingdom, visiting Ireland and, at the urging of Sir Walter Scott, Scotland (the first Hanoverian to do so). He put on all his charm and elegance and was remarkably well received. One might question how much the populace were celebrating the continuance of the monarchy as distinct from the individual. The institution of the monarchy suffered considerably under George IV, but survived sufficiently due to the fond memory of George III to enter a golden phase under Victoria. George's reign as king lasted for just over ten years and it advanced the country but little. George had a succession of prime ministers, most of whom he tried to oppose, especially as regards their foreign policy. Both he and the duke of Wellington vigorously opposed any political reform and it was only with reluctance on their parts that, at last, in April 1829 the Catholic Emancipation Act became law, restoring to Catholics the right to public office. It did not meet with the riots accorded earlier attempts to do this. There were greater troubles besetting the nation than religion, and it required a much stronger government than George IV and his ministers to tackle them. George died on 26 June 1830 of respiratory problems, aged sixty-seven. For all his dandyism and extravagance he was at the end a sad and lonely man, who had damaged the stature of the monarchy and whose only lasting legacy is the Brighton Pavilion. He was succeeded by his brother, William IV. George III (William Hanover and the Molloys are 13th cousins 6 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet.

William IV   Born: Buckingham Palace, London. 21st August 1765. Titles: William Henry, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Duke of Clarence. Crowned: Westminster Abbey, 8th September 1831. Ruled: 26 June 1830-20 June 1837. Married: 13 July 1818, at Kew Palace, Adelaide Louise Theresa Caroline Amelia (1792-1849), dau. George, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen: 6 children (4 stillborn). William also had at least eleven illegitimate children, ten by Dorothea Bland (1761- 1816). Died: Windsor Castle. 20th June 1837. Aged 71. Buried: St George's Chapel Windsor   William was the third son of George III and had not expected to become king. It was the death of George IV's daughter Charlotte in 1817, followed by the death of George's brother, Frederick (the "Grand Old Duke of York" of the nursery rhyme), in 1827 that made William the heir presumptive. Until then he had led a life fairly distanced from the extravagant carousel of his brother. William entered the Navy in 1779 at the age of fourteen and served at the relief of Gibraltar. He received few concessions initially because of his status, but served first as an able seaman, rising to midshipman and then rising through the ranks. He served under Nelson during 1786/7 in the West Indies, and was given the command of his own frigate, the Andromeda, in 1788 and the next year was appointed the Rear Admiral of HMS Valiant. He was made duke of Clarence in 1789 and thereafter regularly attended the House of Lords. He was made Admiral of the Fleet in 1811 and delighted in the official duties that imposed.   Like his brothers, William was an inveterate womaniser. During a visit to Hanover in 1784 he was supposed to have seduced and even entered into a secret marriage with Caroline von Linsingen. The marriage was unlikely (though it seemed to be a tradition amongst the Hanoverians) but the seduction was very likely and she bore him a son called William, who drowned in 1807. A typical sailor, Prince William had a girl in every port, but in 1790 William fell in love with the actress Dorothea Bland, better known by her stage name Dorothea Jordan. Although they did not marry, they lived happily together for twenty years. She bore him ten children who adopted the surname Fitzclarence. Their descendants live to this day. William suddenly abandoned Dorothea in 181 1, probably because she had become an alcoholic and was no longer attractive. She tried to return to the stage, without success, and died following a mental collapse in France in 1816. William's callous treatment of her was out of character with his past actions, but probably a true representation of the real man. William did not marry until after the death of his brother's heiress, the Princess Charlotte. He was fifty-two when he married the twenty-five-year-old Princess Adelaide, but despite the age difference the two became devoted to each other and she became a devoted stepmother to William's illegitimate flock. Unfortunately none of their children survived infancy. William was nearly sixty-five by the time he became king and by then he had become a bad-tempered, miserly old man who delighted in being obstinate. He refused to have an extravagant coronation like his brother's, but insisted that it be simple, and he thereby abandoned much of the tradition that had accompanied the ceremony. He felt rather that he was a caretaker monarch, holding the throne for his niece Victoria and determined to survive long enough to avoid her mother, the duchess of Kent, becoming regent. He had no interests in art, science or literature, though he did establish a Royal Library at Windsor because it seemed strange without one. His single most significant contribution to the advance of the nation came in 1832 when, against his own personal judgement, he supported Earl Grey and encouraged the Tory peers to abstain from voting against the Reform Bill, securing its passage. This was the start of modern democracy in Britain, reforming the representation of the people. This opened up the opportunity for a series of reforms, most of which would come to fruition in Victoria's reign. Others of importance were passed in 1833 - the Factory Act, against child labour, and the Abolition Act, which emancipated slaves in the British colonies. The Poor Law of 1834 was a well-intentioned piece of legislation, institutionalising the workhouse. Much of the administration of Britain was still at the level where it could transport the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia in 1834 for calling a trade union meeting of agricultural workers. Public reaction to their sentence added fuel to the growing Chartist movement for political and social reform. William found all of this reform rather distressing, as if the whole moral structure of the nation was collapsing. He died of pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver on 20 June 1837, the last of the Hanoverian kings. Little did he realise that his successor, Victoria, would rule for the rest of the century and rule over the greatest empire the world had seen. William IV Henry England and the Molloys are 14th cousins 5 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet.

Victoria   Born: Kensington Palace, London.24th May 1819. Titles: Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Empress of India (from 1 May 1876). Crowned: Westminster Abbey,28th June 1838. Ruled: 20 June1837-22 January1901 Married: 10 February1840, St James's Palace, London, Albert (1819-61) son of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coberg-Gotha: 9 children. Died: Osborne House, I.O.W. 22nd January 1901. Aged 82 years. Buried: Frogmore, Windsor.   Victoria might never have been born had not George IV's daughter, Charlotte, died following childbirth in November 1817. At that time there was no legitimate heir to the throne in the next generation amongst the descendants of George III. This sent George IV's remaining unmarried brothers scurrying to find wives and produce an heir. Edward Augustus, duke of Kent, married Mary Louise Victoria, the daughter of Franz I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield on 29 May 1818. Edward was fifty years old and had not previously been married, though he did have several illegitimate children. Mary Louise (who was always known as Victoria) was thirty-one and had recently been widowed following the death of her husband, the Prince of Leiningen, in 1814. She already had two children, Karl (1804-56), who became the next Prince of Leiningen, and Anne (1807-72). Her brother was Prince Leopold, the husband of George IV's ill-fated daughter Charlotte. Leopold remained in London after his wife's death to help support his sister. Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent, died on 23 January 1820 when she was only nine months old, so she never knew him, which was probably all to the good as he was a sadistic man with a vicious temper and no scruples. Uncle Leopold thereby became the mainstay of the family, helping his sister and providing a father figure to the young Victoria. She missed him tremendously when he became the king of the Belgians in 1831. When George IV died in 1830, her uncle, William IV became king and Victoria became the heir presumptive. When she was shown a genealogical chart, it brought home to her how close to the accession she was, and this occasioned her famous comment "I will be good." William IV died in the early hours of the 20 June 1837, so that Victoria learned she was queen in the middle of the night. Under the Salic Law, women could not rule the kingdom of Hanover which passed to her Uncle Ernst, and thereafter (in 1851) to her cousin George, who was just three days younger than Victoria. Had Victoria not been born, then her uncle and cousin would have become the next two kings of England. At the time that Victoria became queen, the monarchy was not popular. The post-Napoleonic period had seen considerable distress amongst the English working folk and the country was well in need of reform. The high and wild living of George IV and his brothers had not helped respect for the monarchy and there had been several assassination attempts on him, as well as many riots across the country which had been put down with customary military zeal. The Whig government, with the reluctant aid of William IV, had succeeding in passing the Reform Act along with other much needed legislation, but it was still very early days and the Hanoverian dynasty, up until now, had shown little interest in such progress. There was a general attitude of "Why bother?" amongst both the royal family and many leading politicians. All this would change under Victoria, though at the outset the public could never have anticipated the scale of change that would happen or, for that matter, the length of reign that Victoria would have, a reign that would change the face of Britain and, to a large extent, the globe. In the first few years of her reign Victoria, as the symbol of a corrupt and profligate monarchy, was as unpopular as her predecessors. There were three assassination attempts in the first four years, the first on 10 June 1840, by Edward Oxford, and then two within a few weeks of each other in May and July 1842, when shots were fired at the queen. Victoria had to face a scandal within the first year of her reign. During her youth she had always disliked Sir John Conroy, who was close to her mother (some felt too close) and who some believed wished to become the power behind the throne. When she became queen Victoria expelled Conroy, but believed that he continued to exert an influence through one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings. She believed Conroy and Hastings had become lovers and that Hastings was pregnant with his child. In fact poor Lady Flora had cancer of the liver and the tumour had swollen her stomach. Victoria subjected Lady Flora to an examination which proved she was still a virgin, though Victoria retained her doubts. Lady Flora died soon after. This episode caused her considerable unpopularity and she was heckled at Ascot races. She was jeeringly called Mrs Melbourne because of her close association with the Prime Minister. Melbourne, who had himself been the subject of a scandal in 1836 over his friendship with the Honourable Mrs Caroline Norton (and had never really recovered from the association between his wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Lord Byron from twenty years earlier), was a close friend and adviser to Victoria in the first few years of her reign. He instructed her on political matters and provided an avuncular role in the absence of her Uncle Leopold. In 1839 Melbourne resigned and Victoria invited Robert Peel to form a government. As part of the arrangements Peel determined that the ladies in the royal household who had been Whig appointments should be replaced by Tory nominees. Victoria refused and Peel declined to form an administration. Melbourne returned. Victoria had flexed her muscles, albeit over a storm in a teacup and though she had won, she subsequently reconsidered the circumstances and allowed some changes when Peel was returned to power following the general election in 1841.   Victoria met her future husband, Prince Albert, in 1836 when his father (the brother of Victoria's Uncle Leopold) brought him to London. She was immediately attracted to him and on their second meeting in 1839 Victoria asked him to marry her. The marriage took place on 10 February 1840. They were both twenty years old, with Victoria the senior by three months. Albert had not had a happy childhood. His parents had separated. Both his father and his brother were notorious womanizers, while Albert was the more studious, making the best use of his education. It was Albert and not Victoria who had the stronger moral values and he steadily impressed these upon her. Although they had nine children, Albert saw this more as his duty than as pleasure, whereas Victoria treasured the memory of their lovemaking. Nevertheless Victoria was only too aware of the scandalous sexual adventures of her uncles as almost all of her cousins were illegitimate, and many of her uncles' mistresses still held a place in society. Albert believed that the royal family should set an example. Although at the start of their marriage Victoria maintained her role as the queen with Albert as no more than her husband, and not the master of the house, she soon deferred to his judgement, and Albert's strong moral standpoint was forced upon the government of the day. Ministers soon knew that any unbecoming conduct would be severely criticised by the queen. The stern views of Albert and the queen began to change the moral climate of the country, at least on the surface, though it repressed much. Nevertheless the queen was not such a prude as she is often portrayed, since she was prepared to accept that men might have affairs. She denied ever using the phrase "we are not amused", which was attributed to her late in life after seeing someone giving an impression of her. Although they argued like any young couple, Victoria and Albert were ideally matched and intensely in love. Apart from their official residences in London and Windsor, the queen had Osborne House built for them on the Isle of Wight, which was completed in 1851. While it was under construction, the queen also purchased Balmoral House in Scotland in 1852. These became their two main country retreats. Albert also took an interest in the social conditions of the country. It was his genuine concern for the condition of children and of workers that gave the reform movement a political acceptability that it had hitherto lacked. With the right ministers in place, especially Robert Peel at the outset, social reform gathered a pace during the mid-nineteenth century. The extent of social and cultural reform during   Victoria's reign was immense, much of it due to improved educational standards (especially after the Education Act of 1870), public health (with a series of acts in 1848, 1872 and 1875), and technology. In the last case it was Prince Albert's own initiative for Britain to hold a Great Exhibition in 185 1, effectively the first World's Fair, for the display of technological knowledge and advances. The Exhibition was held in the famous Crystal Palace, designed and built by Joseph Paxton, which was later relocated to the park at Sydenham in South London. The Exhibition made a resounding profit which the Prince planned to spend on establishing the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington. There is little doubt that the improvement in the working man's lot during the nineteenth century helped the monarchy by reducing social unrest. When Europe was wracked by a wave of revolutions in 1848, the British monarchy remained intact, although the Chartists took advantage of the general unrest to stage a demonstration. Britain had become a more democratic country than others in Europe and this process was strongly supported by Albert and to a slightly lesser degree by Victoria. She maintained that the European monarchs (many of whom were relatives) should stand together in mutual support. To this end she encouraged royal visits between monarchs, undertaking several herself. Her first had been to Louis-Philippe of France in September 1843, the first visit between an English and French sovereign since Henry VIII visited Francois I in 1520. Her relationships with other European nations did much to stabilise Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Her involvement, for example, in keeping Prussia out of the war between Austria and Sardinia in 1857, and subsequently convincing her ministers to remain neutral, certainly stopped hostilities from escalating and brought a quick peace. She also strove to dampen down anti-Indian hysteria during the years of the Indian Mutiny (1857/8) and called for leniency in retribution in India. Victoria also urged neutrality in the American Civil War, although the incident over the British mailship Trent, which was boarded by the Federal Navy, taking prisoner two Confederate envoys on diplomatic business (later released), might have escalated into a British involvement in the war, had not Prince Albert intervened in a tactful rewording of the British government's despatch. Albert was only ever "Prince Consort", the title of which was confirmed in 1857, although Victoria would have liked to have made him king. The two were a formidable pair and, through Albert, the nation became endeared to the monarchy. The whole of Britain was devastated by the death of Albert (probably from typhoid) on 14 December 1861, and Victoria was wracked by grief. She went so far as to consider suicide, and spent the rest of her life dressed in mourning. The Albert Hall and Albert Memorial were built in his memory. After Albert's death, Victoria took a less prominent part in public affairs though she kept in touch with everything via her Prime Minister. Her relationship with her government had always been on a personal basis. Some prime ministers she could instinctively trust; and even though she did not like Robert Peel at first, she developed a high regard for him. She never trusted Lord Palmerston, although she eventually supported his action in the Crimean War of 1854/6. She instituted the Victoria Cross for valour in the Crimea; it was made from iron cast from the guns captured in the war. She never liked William Gladstone, whom she found patronising and obstinate, but she had her best relationship with Benjamin Disraeli. Their views were similar and he knew how to flatter her. His greatest coup was making her empress of India in 1876. She sorely missed Disraeli when he died in 1881. Throughout the second half of her reign, Victoria interceded in foreign affairs only in an effort to maintain peace and remain neutral. Generally she was successful, though at times this went to the brink as with the declaration of war between Russia and Turkey in 1877. Victoria and Disraeli's stand almost caused a war between Russia and Britain until terms were agreed at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Victoria was horrified at the activities in the Sudan in 1883/4 and censured her ministers when they did not follow her orders and send relief to General Gordon in Khartoum in time to save him. Also throughout her reign there were continuing problems between Britain and Ireland. In 1886 Gladstone introduced a Home Rule Bill which would have restored the Irish parliament in Dublin and repealed the 1800 Act of Union. Victoria would have none of it and the discussion split Gladstone's Liberal Party, with the Unionists emerging on their own. A second attempt in 1893 was passed by the Commons but rejected in the Lords. While there was every reason to hold Victoria in high respect for her abilities as a monarch, she came in for some criticism. The public believed her extended mourning for Albert was becoming unhealthy and affecting her judgement. She had found some consolation in a new shoulder to cry on, that of a Scottish estate worker and attendant John Brown, who was blunt and honest but caring. His concern for her welfare convinced Victoria that the working class often had better standards and morals than the aristocracy. This was not helped by the profligate behaviour of her son the Prince of Wales (see Edward VII). Her assssociation with John Brown was interpreted as something more serious than it was, with newspapers referring to her as "Mrs. Brown". She was in danger of reducing respect once more for the monarchy and there was even some discussion in 1871 of abolishing the monarchy, but it came to nothing. Brown remained her faithful attendant and stalwart until his death in 1883. Towards the end of her reign Victoria was seen as the grandmother of Europe, and with her Golden and Diamond Jubilees in 1887 and 1897 there was much celebration. Through her daughter Victoria, who had married the future Friedrich III of Prussia, she was the grandmother of the future Kaiser Wilhelm II. Through her second daughter, Alice, her grandaughter (also called Alice) married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Her second son, Prince Alfred, was elected king of Greece in 1862 but declined the throne. His daughter Marie married King Ferdinand of Romania. There was scarcely a royal family in Europe who did not have some matrimonial link with Victoria, and most of them were present at her Diamond Jubilee. At that time the British Empire was also at its greatest extent and it would have seemed to Victoria's subjects that Britain ruled the world. It was not true, as would soon be seen, but it was a great feeling to the British while it lasted and brought the nineteenth century to a magnificent close. When the queen died at Osborne House on 22 January 1901, she had not only ruled longer than any previous British monarch, but she could count more people as her subjects than any ruler ever. On her own she was not as great a queen as she was in partnership with Prince Albert, or with a strong prime minister, so it is difficult to rank her as a greater monarch than Elizabeth I, but in terms of the changes that happened during her life, she must be accorded the most significant reign in British history. Victoria of England and the Molloys are 15th cousins 4 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet.

Edward VII Born: Buckingham Palace, 9 November 1841. Full name and titles: Albert Edward, King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Lord of the Isles and Baron Renfrew (from birth), Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester (from 1841), Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1861-63). Crowned: Westminster Abbey, 9 August 1902. Ruled: 22 January 1901-6 May 1910. Married: 10 March 1863, at Windsor Castle, Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julie (1844-1925), dau. of Christian IX, King of Denmark: 6 children. Died: Buckingham Palace, 6 May 1910, aged 68. Buried: Windsor Castle.   Albert Edward, and always affectionately known as Bertie, was the second child and eldest son of Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. His parents were very strict with him as a child, determined that he would not become wayward and profligate like Victoria's father and uncles or Albert's father and brother, but it was to little avail. In fact they probably restricted him too much, as by his teens he had developed a cruel streak (which thankfully he lost), threw tantrums just as George IV did in his youth, and showed every tendency of rebelling against his parents. He grew out of this only because his good looks (he looked very much like his father and his maternal grandfather) allowed him to get his own way with women and he was able to enjoy himself as he pleased. His parents did not allow him to play any part in political affairs or undertake ally state visits until much later in life, although he did tour Europe, Canada and America in his teens. Had they done so Edward might have taken his responsibilities more seriously because once he did become king, he became a skilled negotiator. Instead he suffered from the usual Hanoverian trait of parents not trusting their children and so, like his mother's great-grandfather, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the new Prince of Wales (which he was created when he was a month old) led the life of a playboy. Although this made him a frustration to his parents, most people enjoyed his company and the nation took him to its heart, especially after the death of Prince Albert, when the queen went into mourning and became overly sombre. Prince Edward maintained a sense of humour and delighted in practical jokes and kept society bubbling. There was great national concern in 1871 when Edward became seriously ill with typhoid. The Queen, however, never forgave Edward for creating an incident in 1861 which she believed added to Prince Albert's stress and contributed to his early death. Prince Edward was in Ireland involved in army manoeuvres and as a joke a young actress was hidden in his tent. It was thought paramount that Edward should have a wife as soon as possible and on 10 March 1863 he married Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Edward had acquired a house and land at Sandringham in Norfolk in 1862, which became his and his wife's main country retreat. Alexandra was remarkably tolerant of her husband and her flexibility and good nature doubtless contributed, to what is one of the Iongest marriages of any British monarch. They remained married for forty-seven years until Edward's death. Alexandra died on 20 November 1925 in her eighty-first year. Although their marriage was happy and they had six children (though the last died after only a day in 1871), Edward remained a philanderer and enjoyed the company of many women. Perhaps his best-known mistress was the actress Lillie Langtry (real name Emilie Le Breton), but he was regularly seen in the company of many different society ladies. Generally Edward kept these affairs discreet, although most people in society knew about them. Occasionally though they became more public. In 1870 the MP Sir Charles Mordaunt brought a divorce suit against his wife on the grounds of adultery. In her statement, Lady Mordaunt cited the Prince of Wales as one of the co-respondents. During the course of the trial, at which the prince appeared as a witness, it become known that he frequently visited her alone when her husband was in the House of Commons, though nothing more was proved. Prince Edward never acknowledged any illegitimate children, though rumours were rife. Sonia, the second daughter of Alice Keppet, born in May 1900, was widely believed to be the Prince's. She became the grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles. Perhaps the most notorious incident attached to Prince Edward was the baccarat scandal of 1890. The prince had attended a house party at Tranby Croft in Yorkshire where they played the then illegal game of baccarat. One of the party, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, was accused of cheating but the matter was kept quiet, provided Sir William did not play cards again. However word leaked out and Sir William sued others of the party for slander. Again the Prince appeared in court as a witness, and the nation expressed its outrage that the prince should be involved in an illegal gambling game. Such is society that it should express more concern over this than over Prince Edward's affairs. In fact Edward's activities set the fashion in society - how he dressed, where he went, what he did. Society life revolved about him. He was primarily responsible for making Monte Carlo a fashionable location for the elite; he went big-game hunting in India; he loved horse-racing and regularly attended major society meetings three of his horses won the Derby and another the Grand National. Edward also took an interest in yacht racing - the racing yacht Britannia was built for him in 1892. The public followed everything that he did: even leaving the bottom button on the waistcoat undone (because of his increased corpulence) became the height of fashion. Although the queen denied Prince Edward involvement in political affairs, he still held his views. He caused sufficient family unrest in 1864 when the Schleswig-Holstein dispute erupted and Prussia declared war on Denmark. Victoria naturally supported Prussia, but Edward supported Denmark, his wife's country, and this view was shared by the Prime Minister. Edward further angered the queen when he welcomed the Italian revolutionary, Garibaldi, to England in April 1864, when he came to encourage further support for Denmark. In fact Edward proved himself far more tolerant and capable than ever his mother perceived. While she encouraged the nation to remain neutral when hostilities erupted elsewhere in Europe, Edward would, had he been allowed, have exerted his influence to resolve affairs. Instead the queen restricted him to state visits amongst peaceable nations and public ceremonies, such as the opening of the Thames Embankment in 1871, the Mersey Tunnel in 1886 and Tower Bridge in 1894. He performed his public duties with considerable energy and aplomb and applied himself to a number of charity organizations and public committees. In particular he had concern over the condition of housing in Britain and was a member of the Royal Commission on Housing established in 1884. Edward also enjoyed himself helping with the preparations for his mother's Golden jubilee in 1887 and Diamond Jubilee in 1897. In January 1892 his eldest son, Albert, died of pneumonia. Albert (known as "Eddy" to the family) had always been an apathetic child and the prince believed him backward. It was later suspected that he suffered from syphilis of the brain. Rumours attached themselves to "Eddy" and his life style - it was alleged that he had secretly married Annie Crook sometime in the mid-1880s and that the Jack the Ripper murders were committed to silence those in the know, though no evidence but hearsay supports this. One other cloud cast a shadow over Edward and that was an assassination attempt on 4 April 1900, when the prince was fired at while travelling through Brussels on his way to Denmark. The Prince was unhurt. The cause was related to the Boer War in South Africa, which had soured relationships between England and its European neighbours. Edward was welcomed as king in January 1901. Edward's coronation was delayed by six weeks because he developed appendicitis. The food, which had already been prepared, was distributed among the poor of London. The eventual celebrations, held on 9 August, were magnificent. It may not have been the most expensive ceremony, but it was almost certainly the largest, with representatives from all over the world. Although he ruled for fewer than ten years, his lifestyle made sufficient impression for the first decade of this century to be known as the Edwardian period. It was a period of fun and enjoyment. It was a time of major advancement in the welfare of society - trades unions were recognized, old age pensions and national insurance were introduced. Edward took little interest in this. His time was spent becoming what the French dubbed "the uncle of Europe." He undertook regular visits to European monarchs, most of whom were his relatives, and helped Europe maintain a steady peace. All his life Edward had been a Francophile and it was primarily through his relations with France that England was able to conclude the Entente Cordiale alliance in April 1904. Edward became a major symbol of British strength and authority and was highly respected through Europe and the Empire. He was far more a humanist than any of his predecessors, something which he inherited from his father, and despite his reputation for the good life, was also charitable and philanthropic, sparing no energies in support of good causes. He upheld the best of the Victorian values and while not all of his views would accord with today's values (for instance, he opposed women's suffrage) his wish that everyone should lead a good life shaped and influenced English society for fifty years and still remains the image of the "good old days." He died on 6 May 19 1 0 of bronchial complications. His funeral was the last time the monarchy of Europe assembled together as four years later the Great War would rip Europe apart. Edward was succeeded by his only surviving son, George V. Edward VII (Albert) Wettin and the Molloys are 16th cousins 3 times removed. Their common ancestors are John "of Gaunt" Prince of England and Catherine De Roet.