Hammering the Scots Again & Stuff

Soon public opinion began to frown at the Dowager Princess of Wales.  Freddy had been BFFs w/ John Stuart, Earl of Bute. 

John Stuart, Earl of Bute

Bute decided to take an interest in the education of Freddy's fatherless lads & Augusta engaged him as their tutor.  It wasn't long b4 rumors were swirling that Augusta & John were knocking butes LOL I slay me.  Bute was married & had 9 brats of his own, but he was spending an inordinate amt of time at Leicester House just the same.  The Hanoverian Hoochies got wind of it & pretty soon twas in all the tabloids.  They insisted they weren't, but no one believed em.  Augusta sighed & eventually withdrew to Kew, where she was responsible for starting the ginormous tourist attraction gardens there.

Kew Palace

Meanwhile, George II was doing a lot more than just glaring at the late unlamented Freddy.  He granted a charter to James Oglethorpe to start the colony of Georgia so that the Brits would have some place for transportation.  This is when the jails got really full & they picked the peeps w/ the pettiest offenses for a free 1-way boat ride to the colonies to make room for the more felonious offenders.

Then George got into the War of Jenkins' Ear.  This silly name for a war came about when a British merchant ship captain, Robert Jenkins, came to Parliament to show off his severed ear, which had been removed by Spanish privateering peeps boarding his ship. 

At the same time the Holy Roman Emperor demised leaving no male heirs & peeps were all um NO Salic Law when his daughter Maria Theresa said MY THRONE.  MT sighed & said FINE I get Daddy's other goodies & my DH Francis can be the emperor then.  This was met w/ more um NOs b/c there were plenty of other peeps who wanted the job & the territory.

Empress Maria Theresa

The War of Jenkins' Ear soon merged into the War of the Austrian Succession.  In the colonies it was called King George's War.  This pitted Great Britain & Austria against Spain, France, & Prussia & dragged on for 8 yrs.  Frederick the Great of Prussia started the whole thing by invading the Austrian province of Silesia.

Frederick II "the Great" of Prussia

There was lots of invading everywhere across Europe & mini-wars in it in Sweden, Russia, Silesia, & Italy, too.  George II became the last English king to lead troops into battle & he trounced the Frenchies at the battle of Dettingen.

George II at the Battle of Dettingen

Finally this got to be tedious after so many yrs & the war ended w/ the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle, where Maria Theresa got exactly what she wanted.  Imagine how peaceful it would've been if the rest of the peeps had just said OK at the start.

In the midst of all this continental chaos, the Stuarts decided it might be a good time to give it another go.  This was known as the '45 b/c this Jacobite rising occurred in 1745 & natch assisted by the Scots.  Fav son Billy was now an Army peep & his role in putting down the rebellion earned him the nickname of "Butcher Cumberland". 

William, Duke of Cumberland

The Old Pretender stayed in Italy whilst Bonnie Prince Charlie went off to Scotland to get Daddy his throne.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, off to war

At 1st it seemed like they might indeed have a shot at it, as the Jacobite forces trounced the British at the battle of Prestonpans.  Then Bonnie Prince Charlie had the brill notion of chasing em back across the border.  The Jacobites got as far as Derbyshire w/ little resistance, but no rallying of support, either.  George II heard what was going on & sent peeps back from France under Billy's command to deal w/ this nuisance.  BPC wanted to press on to London, but his peeps were um NO there's way more of them than there are of us, & turned round to head back over the wall.

Billy followed not by land but by sea.  Whilst the Jacobites were wearing themselves out marching all the way back to Glasgow, he took a leisurely sail to Aberdeen w/ a mix of British & Hessian troops.  Hessians came from the Hanoverian province of Hesse FYI.  B4 he got there, the Jacobites won another victory at the battle of Falkirk & were chuffed w/ themselves.  But then Billy disembarked & began pushing em north.  Most of the Jacobites were Highlanders & volunteers, not trained army peeps.  There were, as always, some Frenchies in the mix to honor the Auld Alliance, in the form of the Royal Scots Regiment AKA en francais Royale Ecossois.  They done good to do all that marching & win 2 battles, considering the shoddy, old-fashioned weaponry they had to use. 

In this midst of all this shoving the Jacobites back to Inverness, Billy celebrated his 25th BD by passing out rations of brandy to his peeps.  BPC was all come over unnecessary when his spies got wind of this & was all for a surprise attack at night when all Cumberland's forces would be hammered.  The Jacobite commander, Lord George Murray, was grinding his teeth at BPCs total lack of military common sense & said um NO the ground's too marshy round here, forget about it.  BPC pouted & sulked.  He was like that.  Pity Murray didn't let him go on to London & get a Tower Fun Pass.

Lord George Murray, Scots Jacobite commander

The next morn, sans hangovers apparently, Billy's forces were on the move & caught up w/ the Jacobites at Culloden Moor.  Murray didn't like the ground there, either, & urged BPC to keep moving.  BPC was all pffft we can take em MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Billy opened by bombarding the Jacobites w/ artillery rounds OW.  BPC kinda stood there w/ his mouth open for a while & peeps nudged him & said well?  Now what?  So BPC gave the order to charge the British lines instead of going RUN AWAY!  RUN AWAY! & twas a disaster from the word CHARGE!

The Battle of Culloden

Murray was right about the soggy ground, an impediment for cavlary & foot soldiers alike, plus Billy's troops had the advantage of gravity due to the slope of the moor.  The MacDonalds were insulted at the position they were put in & refused to play.  The Royale Ecossois got caught up in "friendly fire" from the Campbells.  Twas a mess & pretty soon the Jacobites were surrounded on 3 sides.  The head of BPCs personal guard was all RUN AWAY!  RUN AWAY! & BPC didn't need to be told twice, galloping off.  

No quarter was given to the fleeing Highlanders, who were hemmed in by the British & massacred.  Tis said (& don't you Outlander lovers hurt Scarlet, now) that Fraser of Lovat, whose clan had been holding a bridge over the river Ness that was the Highlanders' sole means of getting the hell outta there, turned his coat at the last second.  Not only were the Highlanders chased until they dropped, Billy sent more troops into the Highlands on punitive expeditions to wipe out that nest of Jacobites once & for all.

After Culloden

British soldiers hunting down Scots rebels

Houses were burned, livestock taken, kidlets left to starve, women raped, & any man bearing arms kilt on sight.  Billy said twas b/c he'd found orders from Murray stating no quarter was to be given to the government troops, but it turned out he just made that up b/c such a paper has never been seen.  The jails in Inverness were full to overflowing & peeps were taken to hulks on the Thames to await trial & execution.  Hulks were old ships that were made into prisons when there were too many peeps for the regular prisons to hold.  Tower Hill got lots of traffic, esp as Billy insisted there should be no pardons for the rebellious Scots nobles he'd coralled, & nigh on 1,000 peeps were transported to the colonies.  By Act of Parliament, wearing of clan tartans was banned under penalty of death, & any lord or clan chief who'd supported the rebellion had their lands & properties seized & sold by the crown to Englishmen.  All Highlanders had to swear oaths of allegiance to George II or else.  The Hanoverians were going to make damn sure there was never a rising in Scotland in support of those pesky Stuarts again.

Meanwhile, BPC had to hie all the way to the Hebrides & there were STILL peeps after him.  This is where the legend of Flora MacDonald comes from.

Flora MacDonald

She lived on the isle of Skye & supposedly hid BPC & helped him escape by dressing him up as a woman & passing him off as her Irish maid, Betty Burke, so that he could island-hop & eventually get away on a waiting Frenchie frigate.  Flora got a nice Tower Fun Pass for it but was eventually released, married, & went to go live in North Carolina (mayhap next door to Jamie & Claire?).

The Scots wanted naught to to w/ the Stuart cause ever again, what w/ the debacle of Culloden & its aftermath.  There was never another rising to restore them to the throne.  The 25 yo BPC did get a nice Scots GF out of it & lived w/ Clementina Walkinshaw in exile for yonks.

Clementina Walkinshaw

They had a bastard daughter, Charlotte, who grew up to be a notorious slut & had a few bastards of her own.

Charlotte Stuart

BPC offered to convert to the Anglican faith if it would help him get the throne back, but peeps were all meh we don't care, Charlie, get over it already, ain't happening.

Bonnie Prince Charlie

George II was quite fussed w/ Billy's grand military success in really trouncing those irksome Scots 4ever & went round calling him his "Sweet William".  There were also some nice inroads being made in India from that jumping-off spot of Bombay that had come as Catherine of Braganza's dowry, w/ lots of coin to be made there.  George had everyone scratching their heads going "What day is it?" when he decided to join in w/ the rest of Europe & switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one.  This meant peeps lost 11dy6 (meh really 11) days in September when the change took place.  The English, tho they celebrated New Year's Day on January 1st, technically still had it in their calendar as Lady Day, which was March 25th & the Feast of the Annunciation.  Lady Day was when the peasants got their yrly wages & such from the landowners.  Twas confusing for a while & then peeps got used to it.

Then another war started, this one in the colonies.  The Ohio Territory stood btwn the 13 British colonies & New France, & natch they both wanted it.  In GB it was called the Seven Yrs' War but in the colonies twas known as the French & Indian War.  This is b/c the British had a nice alliance w/ the Iroquois Confederation against the Frenchies.  The Frenchies took Minorca away from the Brits in Europe, but then there was a smashing British victory at Quebec & things were looking peachy for trouncing those annoying Frenchies in the New World.

Alas, George II would never get to see how it all came out.  He went to take his morning constitutional one fine October day & pitched forward off the terlet w/ a loud crash.  His valet stuck his head in to find the king in a most undignified position on the floor.  George gasped out that he wanted his fav daughter Amelia as the valet dragged him into bed, & then abruptly demised.  Twas from an aortic anyeurism (that thing what kilt John Ritter).  Those ain't fun b/c there are 4 layers to one's aortic wall & if all 4 of em rupture at the same time, one can bleed out in like 10 secs flat.  Even 2 or 3 woulda kilt him eventually in those days b4 they had open-heart surgicals to fix such.  Just farting coulda blown it if it was ready to rip.  He got plonked into his puzzle box w/ Caroline at Westminster Abbey.

There was no need for the new Queen Mum, Augusta, to have a nice regency, as George II had demised at the age of 76 & so at age 22 his grandson George was old enough to be king sans Mummy's help....

By George, We Hate that Kid!

Frederick's little sisters, 5 yo Anne, 3 yo Amelia, & 2 yo Caroline, had accompanied their parents to Great Britain upon the accession of their grandfather to the throne.  A brother, Augustus, was stillborn the previous yr, & shortly after arrival in London the new Princess of Wales had given birth to another son, George, who demised aged 3 mos.  There was a brief hiatus in royal childbearing & then when Frederick was 14 his brother William, Duke of Cumberland, was born, folowed by 2 more princesses, Mary & Louise.

Frederick, Prince of Wales, & his 3 oldest sisters,

Anne, Amelia, & Caroline

William was the apple of his parents' eye & could do no wrong.  In fact, at one pt when George & Caroline were really disgusted w/ Freddy, they inquired if they could not just cut him out of the succession entirely & replace him w/ his baby bro!  Freddy hadn't seen his parental units since the age of 7, tho he did hang out lots w/ Grandpa when the old man popped over on his frequent visits to Hanover.  George I influenced the kid's political views & so when he was finally belatedly summoned to England to be invested as POW at age 21, twas like the fights of George & George Augustus all over again.  Freddy's official residence was even Leicester House, where he emulated Dad & set up meetings of the opposition party HA HA.  Deja vu for George & Caro, or what?

The king & queen failed to see the irony.  They openly referred to their elder son as a "foundling" & criticized his party hearty lifestyle.  Cricket had just begun to come into vogue & young Freddy was a passionate devotee of this new British sport, both attending matches & playing himself.  One of his BFFs, who was also into cricket, was Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, a grandson of Charles II thru his liaison w/ Louise de Kerouaille.  However, Richmond had the money to toss away on this hobby, whereas Freddy was kept on a miserly allowance by his parents, on purpose, natch.  They didn't approve of this newfangled sport thing one bit.

His parents were also not amused w/ Freddy setting himself up as a patron of the arts.  One of the 1st things he did was erect a rival to the King's Theatre in Drury Lane, run by Handel.  Frederick's theatre was called the Opera of the Nobility & was built in Lincoln's Inn's Fields.  You have Frederick to thank every time you hear Rule Britannia, as twas composed by Scots poet & playwright James Thomson as part of a masque presented to the POWs court (but not the king's).  It was called Alfred & was a fun piece about Alfred the Great kicking out those Vikings.  The song shot up the Top 40 charts way faster than anything Handel ever composed, irking the king & queen.  As you can see by the pic of Freddy & his sibs, he also played the cello, which ain't an EZ instrument to master.

Frederick, Prince of Wales

Freddy's interests extended beyond cricket & music to art & architecture as well.  The king & queen rolled their eyes when they found out their errant offspring was encouraging the growth of the Rococo movement in buildings (alas, a fine house he had built at Kew for his wife has been demolished) & was tossing coin at foreign artists.  Pffft, they snorted, we don't need no steenking Frenchie painters here!  They cut off Freddy's allowance entirely & no amt of pouting, sulking, yelling, & screaming could move them.

So Freddy was forced to bring the issue to Parliament.  After all, a POW couldn't be kept penniless & borrowing from his mates all the time w/ no hope of reimbursing em until his old man cocked up his toes, now, could he?  Parliament agreed & voted Freddy a nice allowance.  The king & queen were furious at this public humiliation & hated Freddy even more.

Caro & George put their heads together & hmmm'd & decided what Freddy needed to settle down & cease being such a PITA was a nice wife to distract him & breed up heirs, since alas, he couldn't be set aside in favor of darling Billy.  They'd already managed a nice match btwn Anne & William IV of Orange. 

Anne, Princess of Orange

Surely there had to be some Protestant chick in some small backwater continental principality who hadn't heard what an arse their elder son had grown up to be?  Caro worked her connections & triumphantly came up w/ 16 yo Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.

Augusta of Saxe-Gotha

Augusta was young, nubile, presumably malleable, & spoke no English.  The engagement was presented to Freddy as a fait accompli.  29 yo Freddy was furious but not mad enough that he didn't see this as an opportunity to get a sizeable increase in his allowance.  His parents glared at him & pried open the privy purse, not wanting him to cause a spectacle by dunning Parliament for groats again.  They did not, however, extend any generosity to a huge public wedding.  Augusta was whisked off the boat into the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace & quietly married to Freddy at once.

Tudor-era main entrance to St James's Palace

Even tho marriage had the desired effect of settling Freddy down some, it wasn't as if Augusta's lack of English was a hindrance when he'd spent the 1st 21 yrs of his life in Hanover.  B4 Caro & George could go WTF?, Augusta had become Freddy's firm ally against them LOL  She was the queen of the Leicester House set & encouraged Freddy in his incessant arrested adolescent rebellion against his parental units.  By this pt, Freddy just irked em b/c he could.  If Mom & Dad said the sky was blue, Freddy would vehemently disagree & insist twas green.  Dad's policies, governing, ideas, & all his peeps sucked on general principles.  Billy just got the stink eye from Leicester House b/c he was the fav kidlet.  And on & on it went.  There wasn't a peep in all of Great Britain who didn't know the king & his heir cordially loathed each other.

By their 1st anniversary, Augusta was breeding up the heir to the throne.  C & G were at least delighted about this, as Anne's 1st pregnancy had sadly ended w/ a stillborn daughter & somebody had to start popping out grandchildren to secure the succession.  Amelia & Caroline never married, dunno if it twas b/c they didn't want to or what, & the other 3 kidlets were still too young for such things.  At least Freddy was good for SOMETHING.  So they pasted on smiles & invited the expectant parents to come stay at Hampton Court for a nice celebration.

The King's Staircase at Hampton Court;

remodeled by William III

Soon it became obvs that C & G fully expected F & A were going to stay put until Augusta spawned the heir & that they were going to manage the whole thing & stand there & watch as well.  Royalty ain't got no privacy for such things, yknow.  Margaret Beaufort made the roolz on it & for yonks peeps just followed em unquestioningly.  That scary old broad haunted em from beyond the grave LOL 

When Augusta whispered to Freddy on a hot summer night that she thunk she was in labor, Freddy said SHHHH!  Augusta said um OW!  Freddy shushed her again & hmmm'd a tad & then grabbed her by the hand & dragged her out of her lying-in chambers.  OW OW OW protested Augusta WTF?  GOTT IN HIMMEL, snarled Freddy, STFU ALREADY & COME ALONG!

He dragged her right out of Hampton Court & over to the next closest palace, St James's, whilst she clutched her belly & OWd some more.  My, weren't the servants there surprised when Freddy hastened in w/ poor Augusta about ready to drop the heir on its head!  Peeps scrambled to get the princess in bed & delivered safely of the royal brat, a daughter who was called Augusta after her mother.  Yup, Freddy dragged his laboring wife to a whole new palace just to piss his parents off & make them miss the birth LOL  That's just HOW MUCH these peeps despised each other. C & G were furious.

By next summer Freddy had gotten a little smarter & the male heir, inexplicably named George (tho I reckon it could've been for Freddy's grandpa), was born in London at Norfolk House w/ no interference.  Little Augusta & George were barely 9 mos apart, her BD being Aug 31st & his June 4th.  Um OW.  Twas said George was a preemie & not expected to live, so mayhap that's why Freddy had him christened George.  Reckon that backfired, huh, b/c the infant Hanover thrived.

Of course, at that time the smart one of the C & G pair had demised.  Barely 3 mos after Freddy pulled that stunt at Hampton Court, Queen Caroline suffered what was noted as "a rupture of the womb". 

Caroline of Ansbach

I cannot even begin to speculate on WTF that might be!  She was 54 & hadn't bred in 13 yrs.  Uteri just don't run amuck exploding like that!  All I can think of is mayhap she had one of those gruesome things occur whereby after having 11dy6 kidlets one's uterus decides it's had enough & starts falling out.  Nowadays that won't kill ya b/c they can either remove it if you're done using it or push it back in & sew it up if you're not, but perhaps back in the 1700s they just let it hang there in a repulsive fashion & permitted it to get infected....ick ugh GROSS!  At any rate, sumfin in the poor woman's girly bits kilt her real good.  O the irony considering how much she despised Freddy, huh?

Rumor has it she told George to go ahead & get married again & he said meh I'll just have mistresses LOL  George already had 2.  One was a Hanoverian chick named Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth, by whom he had a bastard son, Johann, & the other was one of Caro's bedchamber ladies, Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk.

Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth

Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk

At least spiting Dad kept Freddy a devoted DH to Augusta, as he was never known to have any GFs after marrying her.  Despite his GFs, George was supposedly devastated at Caroline's demise as he knew she was the smart one & relied upon her for political advice & even made her Regent when he was out of the kingdom (another bone of contention for Freddy to gnaw upon).  George had Handel create new music for the splendid funeral he threw the queen at Westminster Abbey & do you know George also demanded she get a puzzle coffin?

Pray, Scarlet, enlighten us on what such a faskinating device might entail, I betcher sayin'.  Well, George decided that one side of Caroline's coffin would have the ability to pop off & then be attached to his own coffin, which would have the same ability on its opposite side.  This way, they could lollygag together for all eternity AWWWW.  Me, I'm thinkin' of the poor peeps who had to pop off Caroline's side 11dy6 yrs later & hook her up to George's fresh corpse.

Freddy no doubt groaned & said WRONG PARENT when he got word of Mum's demise, as he & his father continued their acrimony.  Augusta was kept quite busy breeding, as little Augusta & George were quickly followed by Edward, Elizabeth, William, Henry, Louisa, & Frederick Jr.  Augusta had not one sad pregnancy so she was a splendid breeder & did her job well, esp w/ 5 male heirs to her credit.  Looked as if the Hanoverians were here to stay.

Augusta was 4 mos pregnant w/ her 9th child, Caroline Matilda (who was always called by both her names due to her unmarried Auntie Caroline still lollygagging round court) when 44 yo Freddy went out to indulge in the 1st cricket match of the spring.  This is why middle-aged males should just give it up already when it comes to competitive sports & go pick up a golf club or something.  Freddy took a cricket ball slammed hard into the chest wall & immediately had the swoons followed by a fast case of the demises.  The post-mortem indicated he had an abcess in his lung that burst.  So doubly stupid to go out & play b/c he must've been having the sicks b/c abcess=infection & they ain't fun in teeth so who knows how horrendous they gotta be in one's lung.  Ya'd think he'd have been having some sort of symptoms.  The whack from the ball must've loosened it up & released 11dy6 pints of pus into his lung & drownded him, I reckon.  Disclaimer: Scarlet ain't no practitioner of medicine so tis all sheer speculation LOL

The king capered w/ glee & immediately invested 12 yo George as Duke of Edinburgh & Prince of Wales.  Augusta, after yonks of listening to Freddy's rants, didn't trust her FIL as far as she could spit, & as the prospective Queen Mum she was able to gather even more peeps to the Leicester House set & there was a movement to make her Regent should George II, who was now 67, demise b4 the new POW was deemed old enough to govern.....

Enter the Hanoverians

55 yo George, the Elector of Hanover, got the usual nice Westminster Abbey coronation in October 1714. 

George Is coronation portrait

He spoke not a word of English & didn't think it necessary to learn.  The British peeps were gobsmacked at his personal life.  Instead of bringing over a queen, he brought over his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, whom he created the Duchess of Kendal posthaste, as well as Duchess of Munster, Marchioness of Dungannon, Countess of Feversham, Baroness Dundalk, & Baroness Glastonbury.

Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal

Lots of titles were good for a mistress b/c she got the rents & profits off the lands of each one, so Mellie raked in a ton of groats.  George had 3 daughters by Mellie, Anna, Melusina, & Margaret.  The middle daughter married a Brit, Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, whilst the other 2 married German peeps.  Mellie was known as "the Maypole" in England b/c she was thin & tall; the Hanoverians just sniggered & called her "the Scarecrow".  Twas whispered that the king mayhap had married her seecrudly at some pt, but it cannot be proved w/ actual papers.

George could've done so, as he kept his ex-wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, imprisoned in Hanover.

Sophia Dorothea of Celle, w/ her 2 children,

George & Sophia

What's good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander there.  George had been dangling after Mellie for yrs & sired 2 kidlets upon the mistress that he flaunted at his Hanoverian court, so his neglected DW decided twas past time to get in a little rec of her own.  She began a torrid affair w/ Philip, Count von Konigsmarck. 

Philip, Count von Konigsmarck

George was not amused.  He & the wife had a furious argument during which twas said he had to be pulled off her by their attendants, as they feared he was going to strangle her to death.  Sophia decided she had enough of this double standard shite & was going to flee Hanover w/ her BF.  Rumor has it that George paid some peeps to murder Phil, weight him down w/ rocks, & toss him into the nearest river when he discovered DW was planning on running away w/ her lover.  Tho he divorced her posthaste, he still had her immured in the Castle of Ahlden & nobody batted an eyelash.

mid-1600s engraving of Ahlden

So George could've conceivably had a seecrud wedding w/ Mellie if he wanted, being all legally divorced, but not on adultery grounds; he filed for abandonment since Sophia was planning to leave him.  Poor Sophia Dorothea, then just 28, never got to see her 2 children by George, 11 yo George Jr & 7 yo Sophia Jr, again, & when she demised of really bad gallstones 12 yrs after DH became king, he refused to have the court go into mourning & wrote a snarky letter to his daughter for permitting it in her own court (she was married to Frederick of Prussia). 

Tho technically not the queen, Mellie acted like it.  Peeps didn't know what to make of this nonsense.  Kings had mistresses galore, but they certainly had never b4 allowed them to queen it over the court, except maybe in Anne Boleyn's case.  To complicate the situation, George had a 2nd official mistress, Sophia von Kielmansegg, who was rumored to be his bastard half-sis!  Her coat of arms boasted a bar sinister, which indeed confirmed she was born on the wrong side of someone's blanket; whether twas George's daddy Ernest Augustus, we dunno.  In contrast to Mellie, Sophie was so short & fat that she was nicknamed "the Elephant".  She only got to be Countess of Leinster, Countess of Darlington, & Baroness Brentford.

One of the 1st things George had to deal w/ (besides translators & interpreters LOL) was those pesky wannabe Stuarts.  This is known as the '15 b/c this Jacobite rising took place in 1715.  Of course it was supported by the Scots.  James III, as he now termed himself, landed there shortly after the battle of Sheriffmuir, which both sides claimed victory on....how does that happen?  Trouncing is trouncing!  Apparently one battle was enough for the Scots & they started melting away into the Highlands. 

James Francis Edward Stuart AKA James III

James was miffed at this draining of support & decided not to be crowned at Scone as he'd intended.  He went back to France but whatever Louis it was had demised & the Frenchies glared at him & showed him the door, so off to Italy he went, having been offered a nice rent-free palace by the pope.  4 yrs later, at age 41, he married  17 yo Maria Clementina Sobieska, granddaughter of the King of Poland.

Maria Clementina Sobieska

This is how James got to be known as "the Old Pretender" b/c his Polish bride presented him w/ 2 sons, Charles Edward, who would become "the Young Pretender", & Henry Benedict, who would become a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

Charles Edward Stuart AKA Bonnie Prince Charlie, aged 10

Henry Benedict Stuart, aged 6

this is THE cutest little prince!

Once those pesky Jacobites had settled down, George turned his attn to glaring at his son George Augustus, the new Prince of Wales.  They had opposing political views & argued lots. 

George Augustus, Prince of Wales

At one pt George was so aggravated w/ Junior that he threw him out of St James's Palace.  The POWs new residence of Leicester House became a gathering place for Tory peeps who were unfussed w/ the king's Whig bent.  None of the Hanoverians seemed too fussed w/ their heirs.

Leicester House (tis now merely Leicester Square, sans the house)

Junior's wife, Caroline of Ansbach, was said to be way smarter than her DH & she snuggled up to the king's peeps in order to effect a reconciliation after the argument they'd had at the christening of one of their kidlets.  Caroline was the 1st Princess of Wales since Catherine of Aragon.

Caroline of Ansbach, Princess of Wales

George decided to embrace the anti-Spanish sentiment & formed the Triple Alliance, consisting of Great Britain, France, & what was termed the United Provinces, formerly the Low Countries.  This became the Quadruple Alliance w/ the addition of the Holy Roman Empire to it & they started up that War of the Spanish Succession that Queen Anne had put an end to all over again.  Spain said pffft & started funneling coin to the Scots Jacobites & there was another battle at Glen Shiel, where the Jacobites were trounced.  The British had nice artillery & they didn't.  OUCH.

Then there was the South Sea Bubble.  Not as much fun as it sounds LOL  Twas merely a lot of stock speculation in an attempt to reduce the national debt & rake groats into the treasury, & as it oft occurs w/ such, the "bubble" happened when the whole thing burst & went kerflooey & lots of peeps lost lots of money.  Think like a stock market crash thingy.  Lots of nobles were ruint & they glared at George for letting it happen & he became quite unpopular.  His main Parliament peep, Sir Robert Walpole, had to do some fancy dancing to keep the king himself from being indicted.

George I

George decided to let Walpole handle his domestic policy whilst he concentrated on his foreign policy.  This is the start of Prime Ministers getting to have a lot of power in Great Britain.  No one much cared when he got some more territory for the growing Hanover out of his Great Northern War w/ Sweden & Russia, but peeps were OK w/ his Treaty of Hanover b/c it was supposed to protect British trade once the Spanish looked round, saw nobody liked em, & created an alliance w/ Austria, which was growing in size & power under the remaining Hapsburgs.  Every few yrs George would toddle off to Hanover for a nice long visit & he demised en route there in 1727, having suffered a stroke on the road.  Twas decided to leave him there & he was buried in Hanover.

The POW, already in his mid-40s, was likely jumping up & down at finally getting to be the king at last & no father yelling at him all the time.  There was the usual nice coronation at Westminster Abbey.  This is when Handel was famous & the new king got him to write some music pieces for the coronation, & they've been used for every coronation since.

George IIs coronation portrait

George & Caroline's eldest son, Frederick, was 20 & had never been to England, as his grandfather liked him to stay in Hanover & preside over official stuff there.  Frederick drummed his fingers impatiently waiting to be called over & invested as Prince of Wales.  This took about 2 yrs, so he was not amused.  His parents hadn't hardly been in Hanover at all, so they had to get reacquainted.

Frederick, Prince of Wales

They heartily despised each other....

It Came Wi' a Lass & Will Pass Wi' a Lass

In 1707 England & Scotland were deemed to be one kingdom under an Act of Union.  This had been previously proposed by Jemmy & met w/ a resounding um NO 100 yrs prior.  Since Wales had already been sucked into England's orbit w/ a similar act in Henry VIIIs time, this meant the entire island (plus all its little islands) became Great Britain.  Twas done mostly b/c the Scots hadn't been consulted about the Act of Settlement, were miffed, & threatening to restore that pesky Jacobite branch as well as the Auld Alliance.

My, ain't Scarlet timely, b/c this occurred on May Day, & tis!  Well, Happy Act of Union Day to you Brits!  Grab a streamer & don't sit right on that Maypole ROFL

So Anne has the distinction of being the last Queen of England, the last Queen of Scots, & the 1st monarch of Great Britain.  In addition to having that bitchin' line of furniture & Victorian houses LOL

Anne, painted after W & Ms accession, after producing the heir

Rumor had it that b4 Willie demised, Anne had written her father in an effort at reconciliation, asking his permission to succeed to the throne & stating she would consider making her half-bro her heir instead of that German branch of the family if Pops would send 10 yo James Jr on over to be raised at her court as a good little Protestant.  This was an ideal solution to the problem, esp w/ how rabidly Jacobite the Scots were, as religion was the main objection to the continuation of the male Stuart line.  James rolled his eyes & said um NO.  Then he demised of a brain hemorrhage from all that ranting about ungrateful daughters.  O, during the French Revolution some sans-culottes tore up the Paris church in which he was buried & you know by now what revolutionaries (& fat greedy kings dissolving monasteries) do w/ old royal bones.  So you can see his tomb, but he ain't in it anymore.  Why do peeps gotta destroy history like that?

Twas 5 yrs b4 the Act of Union that the gentleman in the little black velvet jacket did his work & Anne, whose succession was deferred in favor of her BIL even tho she was ahead of him, finally became queen.  Her 1st act was to appoint her BFF Sarah Churchill as Mistress of the Robes, the highest court position a chick could get (sans queen or princess, natch).

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

Anne enjoyed the usual nice coronation at Westminster Abbey.

Anne's coronation portrait

As you can see, my, didn't she get tubby in those 14 yrs sitting round waiting for her shot at the throne!  And she would get tubbier still.  She would give Unks the VIII a run for his money in the end.  Forensic historians mucking about in her medical history think that w/ all her childbearing difficulties (only 6 of her 18 pregnancies resulted in breathing offspring, & 3 of those, George, Charles, & another Mary, barely lived a day), her perpetually rosy cheeks (a butterfly rash?), & her sudden ballooning, she might have suffered from lupus.  Interesting, huh?  There's also peeps that are in the porphyria crowd as well, tho that don't necessarily make one the size of Kansas.  Or mayhap she had that RH factor thing, like Anne Boleyn possibly did.  Whatever, she definitely had something very medically wrong w/ her when one considers all those demised infants & how sickly were the kidlets that lived.  I seriously wonder if James II didn't catch the Frenchie pox at some pt.  DH George was never known to have any mistresses, but meh, he could've caught it at some pt as well as he was 11 yrs older than his DW.

George was apptd Lord High Admiral of England & whilst he was no Tom Seymour LOL, he seemed to be fairly competent in his position.  This was good as there would shortly be a nice war where naval support was necessary.

Immediately after Anne was crowned, the English got embroiled in what is called the War of the Spanish Succession.  In the colonies this was known as Queen Anne's War.  Even tho the drooling idiot king willed Spain to the Bourbons, there was a Hapsburg rellie or 2 out there still who were all indignant about it & twas decided to be on their side just to irk the Frenchies.  Marlborough won a huge victory at the battle of Blenheim & became a great hero & came home & started building himself a fabby palace called Blenheim to commemorate his good self.  Eventually this would be the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.

Blenheim Palace

Y'all have Anne to thank for all that online © nonsense.  Prior to her reign, you could write books all you pleased, but as soon as you had them published, you lost all rights to em & the printer made all the profits after grudgingly shelling out a sm fee to the writer.  Anne's Statute, as tis called, gave © to the authors & not the publishers.  This was when novel-writing really began to explode b/c there were finally groats to be made off it for the peeps who did it.  A pair of classic English novels were published during her reign, Gulliver's Travels & The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Under Anne's reign is where that incomprehensible British political system really starts. The 2 major parties at the time were the Tories & the Whigs. Anne was a Tory at heart, & put up w/ those pesky Whigs.

Anne & Sarah started to have a falling out over politics, as Sarah leaned more to the Whig persuasion.  Sarah was further infuriated that her cuz, Abigail Masham, a stereotypical poor rellie whom Sarah had taken into her household, then began cozying up to the queen.  The handwriting was kinda on the wall for Sarah when Anne's DH George demised aged 55 of a series of strokes. Sarah flew to Kensington Palace to comfort the queen & Anne glared at her & said go away & get me Abby!

Sarah had a nice rant about ungrateful rellies when Anne apptd Abby as Keeper of the Privy Purse.  This meant she was in charge of the queen's money.  Then Sarah herself was dismissed kicking & screaming from her own lucrative court position.  Anne never did allow her to return to court & Abby remained her BFF.
 
Then Anne's baby half-sister, Louisa, demised at the age of 20 from that pesky smallpox.
 

Louisa, youngest child of James II & Mary of Modena

 
Peeps sighed & were all wrong one, as James Francis Edward was still in disgustingly good health & eyeing the British throne now that he was a grownup.
 

James Francis Edward Stuart

Mary Beatrice sighed & went into a Frenchie convent.

 

Mary of Modena

That pesky war was dragging on & becoming increasingly unpopular, so Anne wanted to get out of it.  Alas, w/ this whole new 2-party system thingy, she did not have a majority in Parliament to vote in the proposed Treaty of Utrecht that recognized the Bourbon Philip as the new king of Spain as per the drooling idiot king's will.  So she hmmm'd some & went, I know, I know!  I shall pack the House of Lords! 
 

contemporary colored engraving of Anne

 
She looked em over & created 12 Tory supporters of the treaty peers of the realm all in the same day, incl Abby's DH Samuel, who was raised to a baron & made her Lady Masham instead of plain Mrs Masham.  Peeps was all gobsmacked at this audacity b/c no monarch had ever handed out so many peerages like candy b4 all at once.  This gave her the votes needed in the House of Lords to get out of the war & let the Frenchies & Hapsburgs fight amongst themselves.  This is how Great Britain got possession of Gibraltar, Minorca, St Kitts, & a humungous chunk of Canada, incl Newfoundland & godforsaken cold places near the North Pole in the Hudson Bay area like Rupert's Land (named for the smokin' hot rellie).
 

Rupert of the Rhine

just b/c I can LOL

 
Anne was getting ginormous & having the same toddling issues as Unks the VIII, as she was riddled w/ gout & rather whingy as you might imagine.  News came from Germany that her cuz Sophia, who had attained the prodigious age of 73 as queen in waiting, had demised.  Wouldn't that tick you off?  This meant by the Act of Settlement, Anne's heir was now Sophia's eldest son George, Elector of Hanover.  Her little bro, now 26, was not amused & waited avidly for reports on Queen Anne's failing health.
 
It seems Anne's gouty toes developed some sort of nasty red skin infection, prolly strep-related b/c that'll kill ya sans antibiotics, which still hadn't been invented.  Twasn't reported to be gangrene, at any rate, b/c that's black & yucky.  She had the demises aged 49 on the 1st of August 1714, fulfilling James Vs gloomy prophecy at the birth of MQOS.  The Stewart line had originated w/ the heirs of Marjorie Stewart during one of those periods where the Scots ran out of boys, & it was ending w/ Queen Anne b/c of stubborn Catholic males.
 
Anne was SO ginormous that there was no way she could be stuffed into a regular coffin & one had to be made specially for her great girth.  The thing was reportedly almost SQUARE, so that gives you an idea of how much she surpassed Henry VIII in size at the end.  She just swelled up like a whale.  I'm amazed there wasn't an autopsy done just to see why b/c that ain't normal.  Even w/ all those pregnancies she stayed relatively slim & then twas Bloat City all of a sudden.  She was hefted into Westminster Abbey for burial whilst peeps awaited the arrival of the 1st King of Great Britain.....

Not an Heir to Spare

From his berth of safety in France, James published diatribes snarling at his ungrateful daughters, Mary in particular, & tried to get peeps to help him get his throne back.  The Frenchies rolled their eyes & were all BTDT deja vu, didn't we just do this for your bro?  Is it our fault you Stuarts can't grip the arms of your thrones & keep sliding off?  Pffft. 

James II

It was cheaper to keep him (he was a son of a Frenchie princess, after all), his wife, the baby in the warming pan, & soon Mary Beatrice produced another child, Louisa Maria Theresa (twas prolly Louise-Marie-Therese in Frenchieland), that also survived the perils of infancy. 

contemporary engraving of the last Stuart prince & princess

James was 54 & would live to be 67, a prodigious age, & in disgruntled exile just like he'd been prior to the Restoration.  Apparently he was too old & stupid to get it.  Paris had been worth a Mass for Henry of Navarre, who cheerfully changed religions to get his crown, but I reckon London wasn't worth treating w/ those renegade Anglicans anymore than it had been worth treating w/ those pocky Roundhead Puritans for his father.  I blame Henry VIII for this mess LOL

William & Mary were crowned at Westminster Abbey in April 1689 whilst James was busy scribbling, with her sister Anne as heir-presumptive.  Anne had been married to Prince George of Denmark, a younger bro of King Christian V, & had been breeding like a rabbit w/ little success. 

George, Prince of Denmark

At the time of the coronation, 23 yo Anne already had 6 pregnancies in as many yrs of marriage, broken down into 2 miscarriages, 2 stillbirths, & 2 daughters, Mary, who died shortly b4 her 2nd BD, & Anne Sophia, who died shortly b4 her 1st BD.  Peeps shrugged & said hey, if Mary Beatrice can pull it off after all this time, mayhap so can Anne & George.  Ya can't say the newly created Duke & Duchess of Cumberland didn't try, as poor Anne endured EIGHTEEN PREGNANCIES OW OW OW in an effort to produce the desired Protestant Stuart heir.

The orphaned 38 yo William had been jerked around during his regency period (as was normal) & if it hadn't been for the interference of Uncle Charles glaring at those greedy Dutch after his sis's demise, he might've still been in leading strings or just as deposed as Uncle James, his FIL (yknow for being against incest so much, the Catholic Church sure permitted lots of it in these royal marriages LOL).  Willie was said to be mighty arrogant & confident he was destined for great things, so natch conducting what would be the last successful invasion of England & claiming its crown was just an average day's work to him.  Mary was said to quietly defer to him in everything & twas Willie who would take on the kingly duties even tho his DW got a number after her name & was not merely a Queen Consort.

Mary II

Mary was not amused by the influence of Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, on her sis Anne.

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

Lots has been speculated about the sex lives of these last 3 Stuart monarchs.  Tho Willie had an official mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, a cuz of Barbara's, he was also whispered about b/c he had some male favs as well & made a cpl Dutch peeps that he hung w/ a lot into English earls.  Mary didn't seem to have any particular favs, but peeps said meh how come she ain't breeding, huh?  Does she dig chicks?  Anne, however, was so close to her lady in waiting Sarah that they called each other "Mrs Freeman" & "Mrs Morley", making peeps raise eyebrows at such nonsense as ya would.  Despite the fact that Anne was perpetually pregnant, twas rumored she preferred to bat for the other team & Sarah was not just her BFF but her GF.

Natch there was the usual rumors about James's peeps plotting (James is Jacob in Latin & hence these peeps were called Jacobites) & Anne was furious when Mary dismissed Sarah's DH from his offices upon suspicion of such.  The 2 sisters had a flaming row & never spoke to each other again.  Mary didn't get to enjoy her queenship long, as she demised of that pesky smallpox thing at Kensington Palace during the Christimas celebrations of 1694.  Anne was all weepy that she never made up her quarrel w/ her big sis.

Kensington Palace

Anne produced an heir at Hampton Court, William, Duke of Gloucester, not long after W & M were coronated.

back end of Hampton Court, remodled by W & M

However, as an infant William suffered from bouts of convulsions & had an unusually lg head.  He didn't speak a word until he was 3 yrs old, which natch had peeps looking at him sideways thinking o good another inbred idiot.  Despite this, little Gloucester was set b4 a passel of tutors anyway & weren't peeps surprised when he suddenly started to catch up.  Anne & Willie glared at each other lots b/c the king wanted complete charge over his heir's household & his mother was all um NO not my poor little delicate lad!  Willie being king natch won HA HA.  The sickly Gloucester was faskinated by military stuff & had peeps recruit lots of other kidlets to create a little troop that he could drill LOL  The poor brat got the sicks on his 11th BD, coming down w/ a sore throat & a fever, & was demised within the wk, to universal Protestant dismay.

William, Duke of Gloucester

Twas obvs neither Anne nor the widowed Willie were going to spawn another heir by this pt & peeps were nervously wringing their hands as James's boy piped up & said I'M NEXT!

James Francis Edward Stuart, aged 14

What to do, what to do?  Parliament hmmm'd & then passed the Act of Settlement.  This settled the succession upon the Winter Queen's youngest & only surviving child, Sophia, Electress of Hanover.  Reckon they were getting used to queens regnant by now LOL

Sophia, Electress of Hanover, circa 1644

Meanwhile, Willie was rejected as king by the Irish Parliament & went over there to settle some Irish hash.  This is why you never ever walk into a bar on St Patrick's Day wearing anything orange.  The Irish have long memories & Willie wasn't particularly nice to them.  Suffice to say the usual wartime atrocities & then some.  James also went to Ireland b/c he could count on their support against the usurping Orangeman & his ungrateful daughters.  The 2 armies clashed at the battle of the Boyne, which was a spectacular victory for Willie & sent James off screaming RUN AWAY!  RUN AWAY!

The Battle of the Boyne

Once the Irish were suitably cowed, the Scots began uprising in favor of James as well.  This is where we get Rob Roy from & this 1st Jacobite uprising led to the infamous Massacre of Glencoe, a big black blot on Willie's escutcheon as he signed off on it (really, they got his sig on the orders).  Clan MacDonald was decimated by this unsportsmanlike sneak attack, made w/ the assistance of Clan Campbell, & the Scots were so unamused that the entire country became a breeding ground for Jacobite support & propaganda for the next 50 yrs or so.  Them Scots can remember almost as good as the Irish.  Methinks the Campbells & MacDonalds are still feuding about it to this day.  If you are ever in Scotland do NOT make jokes about such things.  Same deal at the St Patrick's Day thing w/ the wearing o' the orange.  Sure way to lose some teeth once ya toss liquor into the equation.

There was the usual Jacobite plotting to assassinate Willie & there was a tad of OFF WITH HIS HEAD once twas discovered.  Really, the ratio of smart plotters v. dumb ones is quite lopsided when you consider just how many plots never came to fruition.  Willie must've enjoyed being a warrior king b/c he joined the League of Augsburg & had a nice Frenchie war in addition to the domestic rebellions.  This was called the 9 Yrs' War & ended when whatever Louis it was recognized Willie's kingship & agreed to not supply James w/ any more soldiers & stuff.

This is round the time when that drooling idiot king of Spain was on the throne & the rest of the European peeps were eyeing the kingdom & hmmm'ing about who should get it.  Willie entered into a nice scheme where Spain would be partitioned up & he'd get a chunk of it.  But despite the fact that Charles II wasn't all there, he had a lucid moment & willed his kingdom to his cousin Philip in France.  This is how there got to be Bourbon kings of Spain & the mighty Hapsburg line w/ all its inbreeding mercifully came to an end.  Ya just can't go round marrying your nieces like that!  See what it gets ya?

Willie fell off his horse & broke his collarbone & b4 ya knew it, pneumonia set in & he was a goner, leaving his kingdom to his SIL Anne as agreed.  This is hilarious b/c apparently the horse stepped into a burrow hole & so the Jacobites, who already were doing the sneaky toast to the king across the water, were then toasting "the gentleman in the little black velvet jacket", a reference to the mole what dug the hole ROFL  Since Willie left no heirs, it meant the end of the despised House of Orange in Holland & a nice power-scramble there as well.  Willie was also technically the last king of England b/c....