Hanoverian "Family Values" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Queen Anne

Anne was to have been succeeded by Sophia, George's mother, but she died just a few weeks before Anne, making George King of Hanover, and later of England as well.

Answer: Sophia of Celle

The court at Hanover was hostile to Sophia from the very beginning, and her mother-in-law disliked her intensely. Eventually George came to despise his wife as well, and people went out of their way to slight her. Probably bored and very lonely, Sophia developed a friendship with the Swedish Count Phillip Christoph von Königsmarck. At the time many people insisted that she and von Königsmarck were lovers, but this is not certain.

Unfortunately George chose to believe the rumours, and so had Königsmarck killed. George then had his marriage dissolved on the grounds that Sophia had abandoned her husband, and with the help of her father, had her locked up in the castle of Ahlden. Although Sophia was allowed to move about the castle grounds (under supervision), and given sufficient servants and income, she was never allowed to see her children or her father again. She lived a further 32 years.

Answer: She was his half-sister

She was believed to be the result of an affair George's father had as a young man with a courtesan at the court in Hanover.

Answer: Caroline of Ansbach

Caroline was a very interesting character. Much smarter than her husband, many people of the time said that she was the actual ruler. She was particuarly interested in science, and corresponded very intelligently with some of the greatest minds of her day.

Caroline and George had a very loving, if unusual relationship - Caroline actually encouraged her husband to take mistresses, and even picked out suitable women for him. When apart, George would write Caroline long letters about his latest conquests, and she often made suggestions to help him in his seductions.

Not the best of parents, they did have nine children together but shared an implacable hatred for their eldest son, Prince Frederick. As she lay dying, Caroline expressed relief that she at least would not have to look at Frederick ever again.

Answer: Fred

Just why his parents disliked him so is uncertain, but the feeling seems to have been mutual. Prince Frederick made a point of opposing his parents on everything, but especially politically.

Answer: Stinking Billy

Unlike their elder son Frederick, William had been born in England and grew up with his parents. Frederick on the other hand had been left in Hanover by his parents when they went to England with George I. When Frederick finally joined them in England he was 20 years old, and they hadn't seen him since he was 7. They simply did not know one another, and his parents were disappointed with what they saw. Frederick was to suffer greatly in the comparison with his younger brother.

As for the flower, the English name for it is Sweet William. I made up the Purple Pansy and The Cumberland Rose.

The Scots hated the Duke of Cumberland for the part he played in supressing the Jacobite Rising of 1745-1746, nicknaming him "The Butcher of Cumberland".

The English renamed the dianthus barbatus flower in Prince William's honour, in gratitude for having saved them from Bonnie Prince Charlie. Some Scots however still refer to the same aromatic flower as the "Stinking Billy."

Answer: Augusta of Saxe-Gotha

Augusta and Frederick were married when she was sixteen and he was twenty-eight, and they had nine children together. Reasonably happy in her marriage, Augusta went along with her husband in his feud against his parents. Basically banished from court, the family lived mostly at their country estates.

After Frederick's early death Augusta's political importance increased, but she deliberately kept her children away from her father-in-law because she did not trust him. On George II's death in 1760 Augusta was asked to serve as regent for her son, George III. However, she was never popular and when she died at the age of 52 her funeral procession attracted people who threw garbage and shouted insults.

Answer: He caught a chill after sustaining a head injury and most likely died of pneumonia

Prince Frederick was hit on the head by a cricket ball, which caused great concern at the time. He made light of his concussion, continuing with his usual activities and subsequently caught a chill which led to his death a few weeks later at the age of 44.

His eldest son, the future George III was created Prince of Wales shortly after Prince Frederick's death.

Answer: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte is said to have been extremely ugly, and some accounts claim that George III visibly winced when he first met her on their wedding day. The wedding however took place, and for many years they were very happy together. Although there are persistent, but unsubstantiated rumours that George III had a previous marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, he is unusual among the Hanoverian kings in that he never took a mistress after his marriage to Charlotte.

The couple produced fifteen children, of whom two died in early childhood.

Answer: He secretly married a commoner

Henry, Duke of Cumberland had married his mistress Lady Anne Horton and informed his brother of it after the fact by asking for a larger allowance given his new status as a married man. George was infuriated that he had not been consulted about the marriage. Worse than this for George III was the fact that Lady Anne was an Irish commoner, and her sister (and constant companion) was notorious throughout Europe for her gambling. He thought it was shameful that a brother of the King would so lower himself in marriage, and took steps to see that such a thing could not happen again.

The Royal Marriages Act made it illegal for any member of the British royal family under the age of 25 to marry without the consent of the ruling monarch. Those over the age of 25 who were refused permission of the monarch to marry could marry one year after giving notice to the Privy Council of their intentions, unless another Act was passed preventing the marriage in the meantime.

Shortly after the Act was passed in parliament, George III's youngest brother William, Duke of Gloucester admitted that he too had secretly married his mistress five years before, and she was now pregnant with their first child. The King reacted badly to this news, banishing the Gloucesters from court and insisting that the Privy Council investigate the marriage to determine its legitimacy. It was eventually found to be valid, and George grudgingly admitted that they were in fact legally married, but stubbornly refused to see either the Cumberlands or the Gloucesters at court. Later he relented and saw his brothers, but refused to receive either of their wives.

With his sisters married abroad and his brothers both in disgrace, George III was isolated from his family. He pinned his hopes on his children instead, little suspecting how much trouble they would cause him in the future.

Answer: William

The future William IV was the third son of George III, and not expected to ascend the throne, so his education was somewhat neglected and he was packed off to the Navy at thirteen.

After leaving the Royal Navy he spent most of his time pressuring his father to make him a Duke, defending his brother George's expensive lifestyle and speaking in favour of slavery in parliament. He otherwise occupied his time with a series of mistresses (fathering several children along the way), eventually settling down with the actress Dorothea Jordan, by whom he had ten children who came to be known as the Fitz-Clarences.

William got the nickname of Pineapple Head during his stint in the navy, and it apparently stuck. If you look at his portraits you will see that his head is of an unusual shape. He was also known as the Sailor King, which he was said to approve of as a nickname.

Answer: All of these

The Prince of Wales had an annual income of over £50,000 and yet was constantly in debt. His father, who had always been quite frugal, disapproved of his extravagance. Then much to George III's annoyance the Prince openly supported the Whig party knowing full well that his father favoured the Tories.

The final straw came when George met and went through a form of marriage with a Catholic widow, Maria Fitzherbert. There were two main reasons why this marriage could not stand, and the prince was well aware of them. These were the Act of Settlement which stipulated that those who married a Roman Catholic were ineligible to inherit the throne, and the Royal Marriages Act which stated he could not marry without the consent of the King. George did not consult his father when he impulsively married Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Legally, the marriage was a real one, but publicly very little was said about it and they quietly lived together for many years (even after the Prince's "official" marriage). The royal family chose to ignore this fact. George and Maria eventually tired of one another and the couple separated.

Mrs. Fitzherbert was given a very generous allowance and obligingly did not press her rights as wife to the heir to the throne.

Answer: Frederick, Duke of York

He thought that Frederick had a better character than his oldest son George.

Frederick was in some ways more responsible than his older brother, but the fact was that their father did not trust the young George with any responsibility, believing him to be a drunken wastrel. The younger George therefore spent most of his time designing buildings, spending money, drinking and chasing women, thus making his father's prophecy come true.

Answer: Three

None of the Princesses married when they were young, largely because of their parents' reluctance to let go of any of them.

Queen Charlotte in particular seemed to view her daughters as a committee whose job it was to keep her company, especially as she got older. In addition, George III's sisters' bad experiences in their marriages outside Britain made him extremely loathe to let any of his daughters marry out of the country.

As a result, all three of the King's daughters were quite old (by the standards of their day) when they finally did marry. Charlotte, the Princess Royal, was married to the widowed Duke of Wuerttemburg at the age of 30. Her younger sisters Elizabeth and Mary however were not able to marry until the Regency period, at the ages of 48 and 40 respectively. They both did so with the help of their brother George, who overruled their mother's objections in the interest of his sisters' happiness.

Answer: He grabbed him out of his chair and threw him up against a nearby wall

Prince George and his brother Frederick, concerned about reports of their father not being well, had come down to Windsor to visit and see him for themselves. During the dinner, the conversation had come round to the topic of murder when the King suddenly jumped out of his chair and attacked the Prince.

Not surprisingly this upset everyone present, and Queen Charlotte went into hysterics. The King spent much of his time during this illness complaining about the Queen, expounding on how much he disliked and resented her. Queen Charlotte was deeply hurt by this, and the strain made her hair turn completely white in less than a year. Unfortunately her personality changed as well, and she took out her frustrations and bitterness on her hapless daughters.

The relationship between the King and Queen was never the same again, even when the King temporarily recovered.

Answer: Caroline of Brunswick

The agreement was that his massive debts (said to be over £630,000)would be cleared if he married Caroline, a choice approved of by his father.

When the Prince first met his intended bride he immediately called for a large brandy. He continued swilling brandy for three days, and was dead drunk on his wedding night.

Caroline was said to be short, fat, extremely unhygienic, promiscuous and ugly, and she didn't like George any more than he liked her. The wedding took place in 1795, and the following year Caroline gave birth to a baby girl whom they named Charlotte Augusta. The couple separated soon after this.

Caroline was a warm-hearted woman, known for taking in orphans and helping anyone who was in trouble. However, she lacked common sense, decorum and discretion, and was loud and flamboyant. The public of course loved her, and took her side in her battles with the Prince of Wales.

George, for his part, did his best to avoid his wife and to keep their daughter away from her influence by providing a household separate from both of them. To his credit, he was probably right to do so, even though he wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue himself. Caroline was rumoured to indulge in very inappropriate behaviour at her house, and did not seem to care what conclusions might be drawn, contending that it was none of anyone's business what she did in her own time.

Later in life she toured Europe, where she several times exposed herself in public, danced half-naked in Italy, and (it was said) took Napoleon's brother-in-law as a lover. She also told anyone who would listen about the Prince of Wales' boorish behaviour toward her.

Answer: Sophia

The Prince of Wales was flabbergasted that anyone other than his father would take the side of his horrible wife, but Sophia was always the rebel of the family. She also wrote eloquently about her anger at her increasingly difficult mother, and her desire to lead a life separate from the Royal family.

Her relationship with her brother George remained strained until his death.

Answer: Her brother Ernest, Duke of Cumberland

Most historians agree that Sophia probably did give birth to a child in August 1800. However, while it is theoretically possible that her brother Ernest was the father, most experts think it more likely to have been General Thomas Garth. General Garth did later adopt the infant believed to be his, and had a very close friendship with the Princess.

Prince Ernest on the other hand had a very sinister reputation, and had more than once been accused of rape during his stint in the army. Certainly his brother George did not like or trust him, and in several letters to his sisters the Prince of Wales warned them not to spend any time alone with Ernest.

The Duke of Cumberland was later suspected of murdering his valet. The mysterious death was ruled a suicide, but many people of the time were convinced there had been a cover-up.

Answer: No

An accusation that she had borne an illegitimate child resulted in a Royal Commission entitled the "Delicate Investigation". She was found innocent, but "imprudent." In other words, they couldn't prove the child in question was hers.

Answer: Laudanum

Laudanum was an opium-based painkiller in tincture form, frequently prescribed by doctors in the late 1700s and well into the middle of the 19th century. People of all classes took it as a painkiller, for headaches, tuberculosis and even for constipation. The future George IV had great faith in its ability to cure almost anything, and took up to 200 drops of it at a time (a potentially fatal amount).

Due to his lifestyle, George frequently felt ill. If his doctors advised against his "cure", he commonly took charge himself, casually opening a vein in his arm and dosing himself with laudanum.

His friends and family were often very concerned about his lifestyle, and tried to get George to take better care of himself, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. His self-destructive habits continued throughout life, and at one time he weighed nearly 300 pounds. The fact that he lived to the age of 67 is testimony to his strong physical constitution - most people would have died long before.

Answer: His youngest daughter Amelia died after a long illness

Amelia was the favourite daughter of the King. She had always been rather sickly, and developed pulmonary tuberculosis in her mid-twenties. The "treatments" her doctors gave her more nothing short of torture, and although they tried very hard to save her, she died at the age of 27.

The King, who had been certain that his daughter could be cured, never got over the shock. His "madness" returned, and he was isolated in Windsor Castle for the rest of his life.

Answer: She realized that William expected her to live with him outside of England

Charlotte was well aware of the problems between her parents, and that her father was desperate to divorce her mother. She also knew that the only thing stopping him now that he was Regent was the popular support she and her mother had.

Her reasoning was that if she were to leave the country, support for her and her mother would gradually die and it would be easier for her father to obtain a divorce. If this happened, the Prince Regent could marry again and have more children, and if he had sons, Charlotte would suddenly become a nobody. In short, William of Orange's determination to live at The Hague after marriage destroyed his engagement to Princess Charlotte because she felt that her place in the succession was threatened.

While she fully intended to marry and thus gain some measure of independence, Charlotte was more determined to stay in England and protect her own interests.

When she believed her father might force her into the marriage with William of Orange, she ran away to her mother's house. Princess Caroline however was quietly preparing to leave England and did not want to get involved. Charlotte was then sent to visit the Queen and her aunts, who were supposed to promote the marriage. They were not successful, and the project was dropped.

Princess Charlotte eventually married Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, and they were very happy together, living in England. She died in childbirth at the age of 21.

Answer: All of these

The couple did get the permission of the Prince Regent, and were in fact married at his house in London, which further upset Queen Charlotte. She refused to see her immoral daughter-in-law, and tried to prevent her daughters from seeing her as well.

Answer: Edward, Duke of Kent

Edward was the fourth son of George III, and had never expected to be in line for the throne. But with Princess Charlotte dead and all of his older brothers without legitimate children, the chances of his offspring becoming monarch became a very real possibility. He therefore married Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and the couple quickly produced a daughter - the future Queen Victoria.

George, Prince of Wales deeply resented what he viewed as their smugness in their achievement, but could do little about it. Prince Edward died less than a year after his daughter's birth.

Answer: Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, mother of the future Queen, Victoria

Victoria of Saxe-Coburg was by most accounts a very difficult and domineering woman, and she saw William as an ignorant boor. Fearing his influence, she did her best to keep her daughter, Victoria, away from her uncle, the King.

William was under no illusions about how he was viewed by his sister-in-law and publicly criticised her for stopping the heir-apparent from learning the business of the monarchy.

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