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In 2014, it's 300 years since King George I and his family
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arrived in Britain to begin the Georgian era.
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This was the age in which modern Britain,
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as we know it, would be formed.
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Why should we care about these Georgians? They didn't give us
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the industry of the Victorians or the sensational head-chopping
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of Henry VIII.
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But they did champion the idea of liberty and make Britain
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a more open society.
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One in which satire flourished
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and a new form of expression was invented, the novel.
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Bizarrely, this Georgian age, that seems so quintessentially British,
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actually has a story beginning here in Hanover, in Northern Germany.
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As outsiders, the first German Georges
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were able to be modernisers.
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It was on their watch that cabinet government first emerged.
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For this series, I've been given access to the Royal Collection.
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These pieces have been brought together for an exhibition at the
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Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace,
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telling the story of the first Georges
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through art works they commissioned or owned.
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We tend to think of the Georgian era
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in terms of the madness of King George III
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or the heroines of Jane Austen, but I think the key to it all
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lies right at the start in the
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reigns of the first two Georgian Kings.
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Under George I and George II, Britain became the world's
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most liberal and cosmopolitan society.
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We owe so much to these German Kings who made Britain.
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In 1701, Britain faced a big problem.
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The heir to the throne, Princess Anne,
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had failed to provide the royal family's next generation.
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She'd gone through 17 pregnancies
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in a desperate attempt to produce an heir...
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..but her last surviving son had just died.
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Parliament took drastic action.
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They had the idea of importing a
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ready-made royal family from overseas.
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This is one of the most important documents in the whole history
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of the British monarchy.
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This is the piece of parchment that changed history.
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It's the Act of Settlement from 1701, that sets out who can
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and importantly who can't be King or Queen.
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First of all, you've got to have some Stuart blood.
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You've got to be related either to
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the late Queen Mary or to Princess Anne.
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But, trumping that, you've got to be a Protestant.
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As it says here, if you profess the
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popish religion or marry a papist, you shall be excluded.
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This act came into force as a result
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of what Protestants called the Glorious Revolution.
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This was when James II was chucked off the throne for his
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Roman Catholic sympathies and his belief in the divine right of Kings.
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James II was now in exile in France,
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but with the British Protestant royal line dying out,
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Parliament needed to find a new ruler, who wasn't Catholic.
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Who should rule next?
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So now the Protestant aristocracy of England have to look back up
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the Stuart family tree in search of a Protestant heir.
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We go through James II, Charles II, Charles I, we get right back up
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to James I and through his daughter Elizabeth,
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we find here Sophia.
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Electress Sophia of Hanover is pivotal in the history
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of the British monarchy.
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She was the next Protestant in the royal Stuart line.
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That looks quite simple but it wasn't.
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Queen Anne had actually had no less than 50 nearer relatives
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than Sophia who were all passed over on the grounds that regrettably
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but unacceptably they were Catholics.
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Sophia was the matriarch of a princely family
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who ruled the remote German territory of Hanover,
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but now she was first in line to the British throne.
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Sophia forms part of a very German tradition of royal women
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leading the social and the intellectual life of a court.
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Very unlike the British tradition, where we have the
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badly-educated princesses Mary and Anne who were as dull as ditchwater.
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In her statue, Sophia is holding a book by her personal friend,
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the philosopher Leibniz.
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And she and Leibniz exchanged many, many letters discussing questions
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like the nature of the human soul.
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As well as Peter the Great of Russia,
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it was said that Louis XIV himself
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was in love with her brilliance!
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Sophia was thrilled about her new status
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and was desperate to come to London.
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But Queen Anne didn't want a rival queen, particularly one who was a
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whole lot cleverer, showing her up in her own kingdom.
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Sophia just had to sit and wait for Anne to die.
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So, why have you never heard of Queen Sophia I of Great Britain?
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She would have been very good at the job, she was intelligent
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and rational. She was tolerant
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and enlightened but very unluckily
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just two months before Queen Anne died, Sophia was out here in the
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gardens and it was during a thunder storm that she drops down dead.
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It's rather melancholy being here in her boudoir,
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and thinking about Sophia, the greatest Queen we never had.
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Sophia did not die in vain.
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Her descendants would inherit the British crown.
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It was her eldest son, George Ludwig, who was to become
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King George I of Great Britain.
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Unlike his mother, he was uncharismatic,
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not particularly impressive and he already had enemies.
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Without the Act of Settlement, George's distant cousin,
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the Catholic James Stuart, would have become King James III.
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He was in exile in France.
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Although he was only 13 years old,
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he was already plotting how to get his crown back.
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So, when George arrived to start his new life as King of England
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and Scotland, he was getting into a pretty tricky situation.
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He sailed up the River Thames and landed here at Greenwich,
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but he didn't exactly receive a royal welcome. There was a mix up.
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The crowd that had gathered mistook George's son for their new king,
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so when George himself disembarked,
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the spectators had sort of dribbled away.
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George's new kingdom really was new.
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The splicing together of England and Scotland had only
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taken place seven years previously.
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Things were unstable.
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If I was a gambler, I wouldn't have put much money on the survival of
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this Hanoverian dynasty.
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George I was crowned at Westminster Abbey on the 20th of October, 1714.
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All the great and good of Protestant Britain were in attendance.
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This is the actual crown that George wore 300 years ago.
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It doesn't have any real jewels in it because George, being frugal,
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rented them.
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And look at the great, big cross on the top. It was George's Protestant
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religion that had put him on the throne.
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And in this coronation, for the first time,
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a copy of the Bible, in English,
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a key text of the Protestant Reformation,
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was carried in the procession.
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But poor, old George's English language skills
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weren't his strongest point.
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You can't blame him. It was, after all, his fourth language.
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Unfortunately, though, it was now the language of his new subjects
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and he couldn't really speak it very well.
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He couldn't understand what was happening in the ceremony.
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But, nevertheless, the establishment were delighted.
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One spectator said that the sight of the coronation
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brought tears to her eyes.
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They felt that everything was safe now. Their liberty,
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their property and their religion.
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But the coronation was preaching to the converted.
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To many of his newly Georgian subjects,
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the idea of being ruled by a German took some getting used too.
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George's coronation at Westminster Abbey
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was slightly marred by xenophobia.
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Spectators were heard to call out,
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"Down with the German!" and "Out with the foreigners!"
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If you look at the popular protests against George at this time,
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there's quite a funny theme running throughout them.
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This idea that that Hanover is a place full of yokels.
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In pamphlets, we see pictures of George hoeing a row of turnips,
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there's a song calling him "Turnip Head".
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And I'm sorry to say that on the day of the coronation,
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one man was pulled out of the crowd for brandishing one of these -
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it's a turnip on a stick.
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# Of all the roots of Hanover, the turnip is the best
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# 'Tis his salad when 'tis raw
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# And his sweetmeat when 'tis dressed
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# Then a hoeing he may go
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# May go, may go
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# And his turnips he may hoe. #
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The turnip was a foreign vegetable
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that suggested George's German roots.
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Indeed singing the "Turnip Song"
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became a popular way to protest against the new King.
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The Jacobites, supporters of the would-be King James III, loved it!
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It wasn't the most auspicious of starts.
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And the balance of power between King and Parliament had shifted.
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Parliament thought that their new pet king ought to follow their rules
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and do what they wanted.
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The King was not even allowed to leave his new country without
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Parliament's permission!
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George I was a lot less wealthy
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than some of his contemporary European counterparts.
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He just didn't have the cash to splash on palaces like Versailles.
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Parliament gave him just £700,000 a year,
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not enough to run a really big court.
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George quickly realised he needed to work with Parliament
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and not against them.
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Some of his Stuart predecessors had been constantly head-to-head
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with Parliament in some very violent and destructive confrontations,
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insisting upon their divine right to rule,
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but George was much more conciliatory.
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He had to be.
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Parliament had given the throne to George
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and perhaps they would take it away from him.
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He was a monarch appointed not by God, but by men.
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Here at the Painted Hall in Greenwich
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is George's mission statement.
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It was his promise to the British to be the King they wanted.
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Desmond Shawe-Taylor is Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures
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and an experienced decoder of Georgian art.
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What was the aim of this big painting at the end?
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It is to show the arrival of the Hanoverians as the fulfilment
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of the destiny of the Glorious Revolution. I think that's the idea.
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So, we've got William and Mary up here and then Queen Anne.
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And then, on the end wall, on the high altar as it were,
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George I and his large family.
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They are a race, aren't they?
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There's a huge number of them.
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There are plenty of them, there are lots of progeny, exactly.
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And I think that's an important part of the Hanoverian offer, as it were.
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So, talk me through who they all are.
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It starts with Sophia, the matriarch of the dynasty.
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Absolutely, there's the Electress Sophia of Hanover.
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Her son, George I, sits on the throne,
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with his elbow firmly resting on the globe, designs for...
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- Expansion!
- Yeah, a bit of expansion going on.
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And then his eldest son, George II, stands on his left-hand side.
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And is it an accident that they're facing away from each other?
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Well, it's certainly suggestive if it
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is an accident because they didn't get on.
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By contrast, the poor, old Queen Anne sitting up all lonely,
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in solitary splendour in the sky. No children at all.
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The artist has absolutely exploited that to give a sense of homely
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reassurance to this new dynasty.
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Particularly in the way that the grandchildren are presented,
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playing around on the very steps.
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As allegories of art and culture, yes,
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but also as the idea of a sort of uncomplicated domestic life.
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This is something which the new dynasty is bringing.
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What are the differences between the Stuarts
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and the Hanoverians in the way they're depicted then?
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Well, it may be just an accident of what space was available but
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it seems as if the Hanoverians are bringing us right down to earth.
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- With a bump, almost.
- With a bump, exactly.
- Here they are,
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face to face, shake hands!
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The illusion, instead of the idea that the vault is open to the sky
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and you just, sort of, look up and wonder. The illusion is that there is
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a series of steps leading up from the high table
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to the throne upon which George I sits.
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So, one can just walk up and meet him.
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And, in fact, the artist himself, James Thornhill, is showing
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himself standing on that step, almost like a footman pointing to the King.
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Saying, "Yes, go and talk to him...he's fine."
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So, it's not really a revolution, this, it's more of an evolution.
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I think that's what they would like us to think.
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This was a Georgian manifesto.
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The King wanted people to know that he was offering a very different
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proposition to those tyrannical,
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absolutist, pig-headed old Stuarts.
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George I set up home at Kensington Palace,
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and here on the stairs are portraits that he had painted
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of members of his household.
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Quite unusually, his lower servants are included.
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They were an international lot and this caused trouble at court.
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The most infamous example relates to the King's supposed
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pair of mistresses.
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The Elephant, the fat one, and the Maypole,
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the ever so slightly thinner one.
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The fat one, the Elephant, was in fact the King's illegitimate
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half-sister, and he just had the one skinny mistress, the Maypole.
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This reputation that George developed as a sort of deviant
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sexual athlete, in fact, came from the xenophobic British courtiers.
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The naughty Lord Chesterfield, for example,
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put it about that the King rejected no woman
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if she were "Very willing, very fat, and had great breasts!"
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With the consequence that candidates for the position of royal mistress
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strained and swelled to put on weight.
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Some succeeded and others burst!
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All of the foreigners close to the King
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came in for this sort of scurrilous sexual slander.
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Including the King's two Turkish valets, seen here.
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This is Mustafa, with the white beard, and Muhammad,
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in the blue cloak.
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Mustafa was very close to the King, he helped him
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to get dressed in the mornings and even treated his haemorrhoids.
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Of course, gossip grew up about this.
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People said that the King keeps his Turks for abominable uses.
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But these same aristocrats who criticised George behind his back
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were probably as keen as anybody to curry favour with the new regime.
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This even extended to copying George's taste.
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The new dynasty were early adopters of a brand-new architectural style.
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It was the complete opposite to the fancy French showiness
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loved by the Stuarts.
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We can see the prototype round the back of Hampton Court Palace.
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This looks like a little country house
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but it isn't, it's a new kitchen
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added to Hampton Court by George I for his German cooks.
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They made his German sausages in there.
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This is the first building in Britain in the Neo-Palladian style.
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It's very stark and simple and symmetrical,
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not much external decoration.
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And the secret of its success lies in the harmony of the proportions,
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the relationship between the horizontal and the vertical.
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This style would catch on and all over Georgian Britain you'd find
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country houses sprouting up that looked just like this.
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This was a new orderly and rational way of seeing the world.
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And you just need to look at cities like Bath and Edinburgh to see that
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it would catch on.
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The inspiration was the 16th century architect, Andrea Palladio,
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who had recreated the works of the ancient Romans.
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Neo-Palladianism was ancient Rome
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brought back to life with an Anglo-Saxon twist.
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The Georgians were saying, "Britons, we are the heirs to the power of
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"Rome and together we can build a new empire!"
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An important promoter of this new style of Neo-Palladianism was
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Lord Burlington, a member of the King's inner circle.
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00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:31,040
Burlington's own house, at Chiswick, is a magnificent example,
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00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,760
as I'm shown by the architectural historian Carole Fry.
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00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:41,240
So, Carole, tell me why this is a Neo-Palladian room that we're in?
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00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:44,800
Well, it picks up on Roman antique architecture.
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00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:48,880
So, everything about this room is referenced to an antique source.
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Erm, for example, the coffered ceiling is a direct replica
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00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:55,840
of the Basilica of Maxentius, in Rome.
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00:19:55,840 --> 00:20:00,400
And we've got these very ornate pediments and yet the room remains
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very cold and spartan and very sparse,
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which was a trait of Neo-Palladian architecture.
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Burlington was a taste-maker and a trendsetter.
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00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,000
Chiswick was a Neo-Palladian masterpiece, but there was something
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00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:19,400
else going on under the Georgian veneer.
314
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:22,840
There is some very questionable imagery in this building,
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00:20:22,840 --> 00:20:25,240
treasonous imagery, which doesn't need to be here.
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00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:28,280
Treasonous imagery is hidden within this building, you're saying?
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00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:29,920
Yes, not hidden very well.
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00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,520
It's there to be seen if you have eyes to see it.
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00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:35,720
The painting up there of Charles I and his family,
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00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:39,040
and he was a very great Stuart King and that's hanging over that
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00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:41,760
doorway, directly in front of the door.
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So, as soon as visitors would come in,
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they would see the old Stuart King hanging there.
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Not very Hanoverian.
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00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:50,960
They are the guys who were out of power, they'd been exiled.
326
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Absolutely!
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00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:54,920
What's going on with the star that we're standing on?
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00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:58,080
That's important because this is the Order of the Garter, which was an
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00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:01,160
honour given out by Kings, and
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00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:03,680
the fact that this is placed underneath this
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00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:05,560
painting of the Stuart King, it is
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00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:08,840
possible that Lord Burlington was alluding to the fact that
333
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:12,160
actually he had been give the Order of the Garter by the exiled
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00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:14,920
King, the would-be James III.
335
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:18,200
Lord Burlington, he's right at the heart of the Hanoverian
336
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:21,320
establishment, his wife works for Caroline, the princess.
337
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:24,280
Isn't this just a mad conspiracy theory?
338
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:28,040
It could be indeed but then one has to wonder why he did incorporate
339
00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:31,120
- these treasonous images into his building.
- That's a very good point.
340
00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:33,680
I can show you some more if we head through into that room.
341
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,160
Take me to your secret clues!
342
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:39,320
As you can see up there, it's the 2nd Earl of Burlington,
343
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,320
so the Earl's father.
344
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:43,960
And he's sitting with two of his close cronies.
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00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:46,120
And they're obviously having a toast,
346
00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:47,920
they've each got a glass of wine.
347
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:49,600
The central figure is the Earl
348
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:52,760
and he is holding a ring over the contents of his glass,
349
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:55,560
which, literally, was a toast across the water.
350
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:58,160
So, he was toasting Kings across the water.
351
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:01,960
Which was none other than the exiled James III, as he would have been.
352
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:05,160
- Who's living in France across the Channel.
- Precisely.
353
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,680
So, that is a piece of Jacobite propaganda,
354
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:09,400
there's no doubt about it.
355
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:11,480
Now, if what you're saying is right
356
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:14,240
and people right at the heart of the Hanoverian establishment,
357
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:16,320
living in New Palladian buildings
358
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,600
could be secretly expressing treason through their architecture,
359
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:23,200
what does that say about the stability of the Georgian monarchy?
360
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:24,840
Well, it wasn't very stable.
361
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:27,520
There was a lot of support for the Jacobites.
362
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,480
Nobody knew which way it was going to go.
363
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:33,040
In living memory, we had kings that had been ousted from the throne
364
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:34,360
and new ones brought in.
365
00:22:34,360 --> 00:22:37,400
And we also had kings that had been returned from exile,
366
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:39,280
like Charles II in 1660.
367
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:41,560
So, it was an uncertain time.
368
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,120
There was almost a civil war going on under the surface
369
00:22:44,120 --> 00:22:45,920
and no-one knew who to support.
370
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:55,680
1715 brought the first big crisis of George's reign -
371
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:57,800
a rebellion by the Jacobites.
372
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:04,120
They intended to replace George with his Catholic nemesis James III
373
00:23:04,120 --> 00:23:08,440
and were joined by some disgruntled Tory members of Parliament.
374
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:13,440
One of them shouted out in a debate that George
375
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,560
"could never love Britain".
376
00:23:17,360 --> 00:23:21,600
The rebellion was crushed, but it made George paranoid.
377
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:25,280
He turfed out all Tories from his inner circle,
378
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:29,280
and their rival Whigs were allowed to govern unchallenged.
379
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:33,720
But there was still the problem of Jacobite propaganda -
380
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:36,080
George the turnip-headed yokel.
381
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:41,800
To counter this image of George as a turnip-head,
382
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:46,520
his supporters described him as "George the Dragon Slayer".
383
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:50,800
They associated him with the patron saint of England,
384
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:54,440
the soldier saint, who ever since the Reformation
385
00:23:54,440 --> 00:24:00,000
had been shown slaying the Dragon of Popery or Roman Catholicism.
386
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:04,400
Associating German George I with the very English Saint George
387
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,920
did a lot to naturalise his foreignness.
388
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:13,600
I think that this portrait of George is the most important of his reign.
389
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:19,000
Because this image would pass through the hands
390
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,600
of every single one of his subjects.
391
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:24,600
It's being worked on here
392
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:28,200
at the Royal Collection Trust's Conservation Studios.
393
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,760
This portrait of George I was painted
394
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,640
just seven months into his new reign.
395
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:40,880
He's projecting quite a serious and sober image here,
396
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,560
the main colour is grey,
397
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:47,160
there isn't the sort of flamboyance of his Stuart predecessors.
398
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,520
And the picture is in profile, and that's because it was used
399
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,800
for the image on his coins - these little mini portraits of the King
400
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,480
were the closest that most of his new subjects
401
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,200
were ever going to get to him.
402
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,920
Another important thing is that he's dressed in armour,
403
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,560
he's saying, "I'm not afraid to fight for my rights!"
404
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,880
And he'd spent most of the 1690s
405
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:12,720
fighting for Christianity against the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
406
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:14,800
This is an important part of his image -
407
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:17,000
"Onward Christian Soldiers!"
408
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,320
George had one more advantage -
409
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:23,640
he was a man.
410
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,960
Daniel Defoe was one of many writers
411
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,120
who rejoiced that Queen Anne was gone.
412
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:31,240
There was no longer a useless "woman on the throne",
413
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,480
he wrote, "but a warrior king, able to wield the sword".
414
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,480
And George also benefitted from the fact
415
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,280
that people didn't know that much about him.
416
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,800
Some people could say that George was a turnip-head
417
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,880
and some people could say he was a dragon slayer,
418
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,720
because he seemed to have a curious absence of personality.
419
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:53,960
He was quite shy and retiring,
420
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,320
he was difficult to get to know.
421
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,880
But his sobriety and frugality - he was very careful with his money -
422
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,480
did have a particular appeal, though, to a nation of shopkeepers.
423
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,360
Britain was fast becoming the most commercially successful country in Europe.
424
00:26:13,360 --> 00:26:17,920
Daniel Defoe picked up on this when he wrote his book,
425
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,800
A Tour Through The Whole Island Of Great Britain.
426
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:25,320
It's a rough guide to Britain from Leith to London.
427
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,280
Just one of the many markets Defoe describes
428
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,320
is London's Leadenhall, which has
429
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:36,920
"infinite provisions of all sorts, be it flesh, fish or fowl".
430
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,960
Professor John Mullan believes that Defoe captures a period
431
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:44,960
of the most rapid economic growth that Britain had never seen.
432
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,400
What's the point of this survey of the markets
433
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:49,480
and the tour around the whole country?
434
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:52,080
Well, because he's trying to get a picture of the island
435
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,040
and its history, but also of its activity -
436
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:57,800
of the island NOW.
437
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,880
And he's interested in Britain as a whole, isn't he? This is important.
438
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:02,640
Absolutely.
439
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,120
I mean, England and Scotland are unified in 1707
440
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:09,160
and Defoe is a great fan of this project
441
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,160
and he thinks that ability of people in different parts of Britain -
442
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,400
notably Scotland and Wales - to come together
443
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,840
into one commercially unified whole
444
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:22,960
is a sign that the British are sort of modern and enlightened
445
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,240
in a way that those Continentals aren't at all.
446
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,160
And do you think that he was a supporter of the people at the top,
447
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:30,960
the Hanoverian monarchs themselves?
448
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,280
George I and George II, what did he think of them?
449
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,880
I think he thought the Hanoverian monarchs were absolutely necessary,
450
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,960
because they were there to stop us having a Catholic king
451
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,480
who would be a tyrant and tell everybody what to do
452
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:51,160
and would return us to a court-centred tyrannical state.
453
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,320
So, they were important,
454
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,760
but to fend things off rather than to DO things, actually.
455
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:58,440
They were a safe-guard.
456
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,800
So, in this very bustling, commercially successful Britain,
457
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,760
where's the place for religion? What does he think about that?
458
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:09,240
He says, "There is no Protestant and Catholic in a good bargain."
459
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:13,480
In other words, he thinks that, in a proper commercial nation,
460
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,480
religious toleration is much more likely.
461
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,120
People won't worry about their differences,
462
00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:21,680
because the things that bind them together -
463
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,760
the business of making money - is much more important.
464
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:26,520
Those are important words, then.
465
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,800
"There is no Protestant or Catholic in a good bargain."
466
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,440
Yes, when you're doing the deal,
467
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,240
you're not worrying about your petty differences.
468
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:43,680
And he does believe that trade actually unifies a nation.
469
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,920
This was a brave, new economic world
470
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,720
where religious bigotry gave way to profit.
471
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,600
George I was tolerant in religious matters,
472
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:00,840
and saw economic progress as a solution to society's divisions.
473
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:04,440
Britons didn't yet love their new ruler,
474
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,840
but they were pretty pleased with the stability that he was providing.
475
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:12,840
He was beginning to win grudging affection outside the palace gates.
476
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,360
But the greater threat came from inside.
477
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:20,640
He was the head of the most dysfunctional royal family since Henry VIII.
478
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:26,320
Meet Sophia Dorothea. This is the ex-wife of George I,
479
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,520
she's a very significant person in the royal family.
480
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,640
She is, after all, the mother of the future king, George II,
481
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:37,320
and yet this is the only contemporary portrait of her
482
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,960
in the whole of the Royal Collection.
483
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:41,800
There's a reason for that -
484
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,440
she was talked about in whispers at the court of George I
485
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,320
because of what she'd done.
486
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,400
Back in Germany, before coming over to Britain,
487
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:59,600
George had married his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Celle.
488
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,160
But it wasn't a love match, it was a marriage of state,
489
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:05,680
a strategic move by the House of Hanover
490
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,640
to increase its territory.
491
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:14,240
Sophia and George cared little for one another,
492
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:19,200
but George DID care about his dignity and his reputation.
493
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:24,800
Sophia started an adulterous relationship with a Swede,
494
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,120
Count Konigsmark, who was serving in the Hanoverian Army.
495
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,360
Unfortunately, they weren't discreet - their letters got out.
496
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:34,520
Here's a sample from him to her.
497
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:39,280
"What joy! What rapture have I tasted in your arms!
498
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,560
"Ye Gods! What a night I spent!"
499
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,520
With this sort of thing circulating through the drawing rooms of Europe,
500
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:48,040
George was humiliated.
501
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:54,240
A scandal was about to unfold which would inflame court gossip
502
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,560
and spawn conspiracy theories for years to come.
503
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,480
It all came to a head here at the family's palace
504
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:03,520
on the River Leine.
505
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,080
One night, here at the Leine Palace,
506
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,160
we hear that Count Konigsmark
507
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,480
was creeping through the corridors to Sophia's room
508
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,080
when he was set upon by an assassin.
509
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,120
And this is the spot in the river
510
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,800
where the Swede's dead body is said to have been thrown.
511
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,640
The culprits were never apprehended.
512
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:28,720
The whole affair was hushed up
513
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,640
and George never spoke about his estranged wife,
514
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,440
her lover or the murder ever again.
515
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,480
Count Kongismark's disappearance was wrapped up in mystery,
516
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,920
but we do know exactly what happened next to Sophia -
517
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,080
she was put on trial for the crime of adultery,
518
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,560
she was divorced by her husband and his punishment
519
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,320
was to lock her up in a remote German castle
520
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:54,880
for the rest of her life.
521
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,760
That sounds pretty bad, but there was worse.
522
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,200
The couple had a son, another George,
523
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:04,080
the future George II of Great Britain. He was only 11,
524
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,640
Sophia was now parted from her son
525
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,720
and he would never see his mother again.
526
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:15,360
This left a massive gap in the young Prince George's life,
527
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,120
for which he naturally blamed his father.
528
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,760
It was this traumatic event that triggered
529
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,480
what you might call an Oedipal conflict
530
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,480
between George I and his son, Prince George.
531
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,360
This feud would have a cataclysmic effect on the royal family
532
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:36,320
for decades to come.
533
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,640
Not even Prince George's marriage
534
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,760
and the birth of his own children could heal the rift.
535
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,800
The tension escalated here at St James's Palace over
536
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,880
the birth of the prince's second son - yet another George.
537
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,360
An embarrassing kerfuffle broke out at this baby's christening.
538
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,640
The occasion was gate-crashed by a favoured courtier of the King.
539
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:09,560
The prince was pretty annoyed at this and he said,
540
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,640
"You are a rascal, I will find you!"
541
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:12,880
The implication was,
542
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,600
"I'll find you later to give you a piece of my mind."
543
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:19,720
But, unfortunately, because of the prince's thick German accent,
544
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:24,120
what the guy heard was, "You are a rascal, I will fight you!"
545
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,800
He took it as an invitation to a duel,
546
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,720
a dreadful breach of court etiquette.
547
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,200
The King got to hear of this and he was furious.
548
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,600
He decided to banish his son and his daughter-in-law,
549
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:41,040
the Prince and Princess of Wales, right out of St James's Palace.
550
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,840
All this was embarrassing for the prince and princess,
551
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,520
but worse was to come.
552
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,240
The King decided to keep behind their children,
553
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:57,520
his grandchildren, as hostages to ensure future good behaviour.
554
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,480
The Princess of Wales was in tears,
555
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,840
as she said goodbye to her three little girls
556
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:04,960
and to her newborn baby boy.
557
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,160
This little boy soon fell sick and the Princess of Wales believed
558
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,080
that the King gave him the wrong medical treatment.
559
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:14,080
Shortly afterwards, he died.
560
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:17,720
In the National Archives, there's an account of money paid
561
00:34:17,720 --> 00:34:20,560
for a pitiful little square of black velvet,
562
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,320
just big enough to cover the coffin of a baby.
563
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,640
Now, between father and son, there was all-out war.
564
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:35,560
The courts of Europe could talk about nothing else
565
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,520
but the British royal scandal.
566
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:45,040
In London, the nobility began to take sides.
567
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,040
Once the court had split into two factions,
568
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,280
each developed its own separate social life.
569
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,600
At the King's court, people tended to be older and more respectable,
570
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,240
at the Prince of Wales's court,
571
00:34:57,240 --> 00:35:00,080
the courtiers were younger and more dynamic,
572
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,320
and at this court, they had the better parties.
573
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:09,600
At these parties, people had so much fun that some virgins conceived.
574
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:13,040
Now, you might think that this was dangerous and destabilising,
575
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:17,080
but there is an argument that this was a healthy development
576
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,680
in a parliamentary democracy.
577
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,480
Because if you wanted to criticise the King,
578
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,280
you didn't have to take up arms or commit treason,
579
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,320
you could just go to a different type of social event.
580
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:33,080
The concept of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition had been born.
581
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,480
The Prince of Wales's new court
582
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,640
effectively became a home for rebels.
583
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,760
After the Whigs won a great landslide victory
584
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,960
in the elections of 1722, many of the defeated Tories
585
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,400
went round the corner from the royal palace
586
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:53,600
to Prince George's house in Leicester Square instead.
587
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,760
It was a way of showing dissatisfaction with the King
588
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:59,040
that wasn't quite as drastic
589
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,240
as joining James III and the Jacobites.
590
00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:05,560
Quarrels like this, between loyal fathers and sons
591
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:07,600
exacerbated by the politicians,
592
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,280
would happen throughout the 18th century.
593
00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:18,080
This new vision of Britain, with its opposition and disputes -
594
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:20,520
its "freedom of speech", if you like -
595
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,960
appealed to one of the greatest thinkers in Europe.
596
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,440
He went by the pen name of Voltaire
597
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:30,440
and his fiery political views
598
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,800
had already seen him persecuted by the French government.
599
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:39,080
"How I love English boldness!"
600
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:43,320
said Voltaire. "How I love those who say what they think!
601
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:47,400
"Those who only half think are only half alive."
602
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,440
Voltaire knew what he was talking about,
603
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:51,160
because saying what he thought
604
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,680
had got him into terrible trouble in France.
605
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,920
So much so that he had been put in prison in the Bastille twice.
606
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:01,720
So, in 1726, to seek asylum from all of this,
607
00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:03,440
he'd come over to England.
608
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,560
What Voltaire found was a culture of tolerance.
609
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,640
Indeed, in comparison to France,
610
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,840
he labelled Britain as a "land of liberty".
611
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:17,200
Professor Nicholas Cronk believes
612
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,600
that George I's rather liberal view of kingship
613
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:24,120
allowed writers like Voltaire to thrive.
614
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,760
When Voltaire came to England, then, things were very different.
615
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:32,080
- What differences did you notice?
- In France, under the Ancien Regime,
616
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,600
for the most part, writers lived through patronage.
617
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,320
So, you find an aristocrat, maybe the king,
618
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,600
who gives you a pension and you dedicate your works...
619
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:43,440
- You suck up, basically.
- You suck up, basically!
620
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:47,000
When Voltaire comes to England, what he finds is a society
621
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:51,600
where the court is much less all-powerful than it is in France.
622
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,440
It doesn't have the same glitz or prestige, but at the same time,
623
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,720
there are more centres of power outside the court.
624
00:37:58,720 --> 00:38:02,560
There is a political debate between the two Houses of Parliament
625
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,000
and the King, so that's not like the French system.
626
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,640
Voltaire later writes that, "I think and I write like an Englishman."
627
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,000
This was clearly an important time for him.
628
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,640
Voltaire comes to London and finds that there are Catholics
629
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:15,320
and Jews, as well as Anglicans,
630
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,320
so there is, of course, greater tolerance than there is in France.
631
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:19,840
The idea that the English were free
632
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:21,960
was something that they were very pleased about,
633
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:23,920
so to some extent, Voltaire's picked this up
634
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:25,640
from the contemporary English press.
635
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:29,000
You find it in The Spectator or The Craftsman or whatever.
636
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:30,680
We'd like to think he's very grand
637
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,400
about the big, noble ideals of the freedom of mankind.
638
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,240
I think, for him, it's also about freedom of the writer.
639
00:38:36,240 --> 00:38:39,800
He just sees that there is a literary space in England,
640
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:43,320
partly because of these different forms of publication
641
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:46,480
where he thinks a writer can express himself differently
642
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:48,640
from a writer in France who is much more
643
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,560
tied into how things are at court.
644
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,480
What's the best-known work that Voltaire produced during this time in England?
645
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:56,680
He's most famous for the book that, in French,
646
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,800
is called The Lettres Philosophique - "The Philosophical Letters".
647
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,240
In England, it was published as The Letters Concerning The English Nation.
648
00:39:03,240 --> 00:39:07,240
This is a book where he talks about English liberty, he talks about English religions,
649
00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:09,920
he talks about English toleration of different religions
650
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,880
in a way that is quite flattering to the English,
651
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:17,240
and the English liked it cos they liked being praised by a foreigner.
652
00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:20,000
So, it has a rather extraordinary parallel career.
653
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,880
The Lettres Philosophique was condemned and burnt
654
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,640
in the Paris law courts and Voltaire was forbidden
655
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,320
from ever using the title again in any publication.
656
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:29,520
Whereas, in England,
657
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:32,440
the Letters On The English Nation is republished in Edinburgh
658
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:36,160
and Dublin and Glasgow and it's an 18th-century British best-seller.
659
00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:41,360
Voltaire wrote that the English were the only people on Earth
660
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,960
who'd been able to limit the power of kings
661
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,960
by establishing wise government.
662
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:49,720
This meant that all over Europe,
663
00:39:49,720 --> 00:39:54,680
George I got a reputation as a protector of progressive views.
664
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,600
But, in Britain, his reputation had taken a knock
665
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:00,440
after the christening quarrel.
666
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,760
The King's supporters were defecting to the Prince of Wales's court,
667
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,680
and he had to try to win them back.
668
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:13,680
He embarked on a plan to redecorate Kensington Palace.
669
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:15,800
He hoped there to host parties
670
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,040
that would be THE most spectacular in London.
671
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,800
Now, this room is pretty sensational,
672
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:26,280
take a look at that ceiling!
673
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:43,360
This is the Cupola Room. The commission for it was fought over
674
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,080
between designers of the old guard,
675
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:48,920
still working in the 17th-century style,
676
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:53,560
and adopters of the new Georgian look that would define the future.
677
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:57,560
Everybody expected that this plum royal commission
678
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,000
would go to Sir James Thornhill,
679
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,160
who'd been mopping up all the work of this type -
680
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,000
but Thornhill had got a bit complacent
681
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,160
and the King liked a bargain.
682
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:12,360
Thornhill's estimate was £800 - an awful lot of money.
683
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:16,320
So, the King was persuaded to look at a young, new painter instead -
684
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,160
William Kent, fresh back from Rome.
685
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:22,640
He wanted the job, his estimate was half of Thornhill's.
686
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:26,360
William Kent got the commission
687
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:28,840
and this was what he produced.
688
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,720
Kent is playing with perspective,
689
00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:36,080
turning this room into a space seemingly twice as tall.
690
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:39,080
He uses paint to emulate architecture.
691
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,640
But his more traditional colleagues found it garish and tasteless.
692
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,520
It's not surprising that there was a bit of carping and nay-saying
693
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:51,600
when this room was first completed
694
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,560
because the British just weren't used to this sort of thing.
695
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,560
It's like a completely fake Roman palace interior
696
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:00,360
made out of wood and paint
697
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:04,400
and William Kent was doing something entirely new here.
698
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:11,720
Kensington Palace would be Kent's breakthrough in Britain.
699
00:42:11,720 --> 00:42:16,400
Rufus Bird is Deputy Surveyor of The Queen's Works of Art
700
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:20,880
and believes that Kent was the first interior designer.
701
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,200
He wanted to get involved in every single aspect.
702
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,200
He was a complete... Sort of attention to detail in every corner,
703
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:31,160
so, if furniture was going to go into interiors that he designed,
704
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,600
he wanted to make sure that it harmonised perfectly.
705
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:37,200
- A bit of a control freak?
- A little bit, perhaps, yeah.
706
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:38,920
And, just looking at it,
707
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,880
what are the visual clues that this is a Kent design?
708
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:45,880
Firstly, you have this very obvious Roman symbolism.
709
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,320
The particular elements are the fish scales
710
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:50,320
which you see on the panels of the legs
711
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,800
and the fish scales are associated with dolphins in the 18th century,
712
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,000
and dolphins drew the shell chariot of Venus
713
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,880
and there is this large shell in the centre here
714
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:02,800
and there is another shell at the top of the back there.
715
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,200
Why is William Kent making all of these classical references?
716
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:09,920
In the early 18th century, Kent had been to Italy,
717
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,560
and came back filled with the desire
718
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,880
to bring Italy and Rome
719
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,800
and the patterns associated with Ancient Rome into Britain,
720
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,480
and so, this is a major change that we see.
721
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:26,000
So, France in the 17th century had been this dominant artistic leader
722
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,360
if you like, and then, in the 18th century,
723
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,080
it's Kent and his supporters
724
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:33,760
who really want to bring Italy into England.
725
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,840
Would you describe it as almost like a bit of stage scenery?
726
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,760
- Not intended for use, but to look good.
- Exactly. That's right, yeah.
727
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,680
And so often, court functions, particularly at this date,
728
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,360
are great theatrical events
729
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,840
and the spectacle was all.
730
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:52,280
The furnishing of the rooms was just as important as what people wore
731
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:54,200
and how they populated those spaces.
732
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:02,120
It was Kent who heralded in an entirely new kind of Georgian interior
733
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:07,280
and helped make George I's parties a glamorous success.
734
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,200
Kent's triumphant progress up the social ladder
735
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,120
from humble sign-painter to royal decorator
736
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:18,720
reveals what was now possible in terms of social mobility in Britain.
737
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:27,680
And around this time, George I decided to celebrate
738
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:32,000
his own meteoric rise by constructing a scientific marvel!
739
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:39,800
It was back in Hanover that George I spent a huge amount of money
740
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:44,160
on the most technologically ambitious project of his reign.
741
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,480
When this fountain was first switched on,
742
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,280
it was the tallest fountain in Europe.
743
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:51,760
It was based on ideas of Liebnitz
744
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,160
and it spurts up 35 metres into the air.
745
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,440
It isn't just a toy,
746
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,760
the fountain is actually an analogy
747
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:02,120
for the rise of the House of Hanover.
748
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,720
They, too, spurted up, defying gravity.
749
00:45:04,720 --> 00:45:08,320
They went from being a second-rate princely house
750
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,480
to being one of the most important dynasties in Europe.
751
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,160
George fancied himself as an enlightened monarch
752
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:19,760
interested in learning and science.
753
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:24,080
And he now turned his attention to the British economy.
754
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,720
He needed to deal with the problem of the national debt
755
00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:31,720
and his administration took a gamble
756
00:45:31,720 --> 00:45:35,640
on a new emerging phenomenon - the stock market.
757
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:37,680
They sold the nation's debt
758
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,120
to a private business, the South Sea Company,
759
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,360
in exchange for a monopoly
760
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:47,600
in the fledgling British slave trade.
761
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:49,400
If that wasn't dodgy enough,
762
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,360
the company then issued shares
763
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,840
and the British were such big fans of gambling
764
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,320
that they bought in their thousands.
765
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:01,720
By 1720, this financial revolution was well under way,
766
00:46:01,720 --> 00:46:06,760
and I think of this activity of share trading as very characteristic
767
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,000
of this early Georgian period.
768
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,880
People now realised that you could make money
769
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:14,360
out of servicing the debts of other people.
770
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,000
Doesn't that sound familiar?
771
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:22,120
George was about to plunge Britain into financial chaos.
772
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,640
The whole affair became known as the South Sea Bubble.
773
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,560
Shares prices rose so quickly that the company
774
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,320
was worth £2.5 trillion in today's money.
775
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,400
There were even playing cards produced
776
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:42,320
that charted this frenzy of speculation.
777
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,240
Dr Helen Paul is an economic historian
778
00:46:45,240 --> 00:46:50,640
who has investigated the boom and bust of the South Sea Company.
779
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:55,000
What was the atmosphere like in 1720 as the prices began to rise?
780
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,560
The prices went up far too high to be sustainable
781
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:00,600
and once you realise that you've got naive investors coming in,
782
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:04,120
other people try to buy the same shares to sell out to them,
783
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,840
but you've also got a lot of money coming in from Paris
784
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,080
where the stock market recently crashed,
785
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,440
trying to find a safe haven. That pushes up prices.
786
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,600
Eventually, the bubble has to burst
787
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,560
and when the smart money leaves, everyone else panics.
788
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,440
So, this man has lost money in the company,
789
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,680
he's actually thrown himself from the window here.
790
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,240
"A ruined South Sea Jobber of renown
791
00:47:27,240 --> 00:47:30,640
"who leaps from a lofty window, headlong down."
792
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:32,520
Oh, dear, and it's saying,
793
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,920
"South Sea stock! Oh, those villains!"
794
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,160
There was a huge amount of outcry.
795
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,120
People were called the "South Sea sufferers".
796
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,200
There was a lot of debate about whether people who gained money
797
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,040
should be forced to hand it back.
798
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,040
But, people who gained money didn't say very much about it.
799
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:52,360
Is it the beginning of a sort of fear,
800
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:55,320
a tarnishing of the image of stock market?
801
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,840
There'd always been the sense that finance was somehow dirty.
802
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:00,200
Land was so important,
803
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:03,800
these people were not necessarily the landed class,
804
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:07,760
so there'd always been this sense of grubbiness about it.
805
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:11,160
And there was a lot of criticism of financiers per se,
806
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,960
many of whom were assumed to be foreigners and Jews,
807
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,880
Catholics and other alleged undesirables.
808
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,640
So, this card here shows a Jewish broker
809
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,480
being forcibly baptised in a horse pond.
810
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:27,400
"Drown the Jewish dog!"
811
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:30,440
- There he goes, into the pond.
- This is just one card.
812
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:32,600
There are several that are anti-Semetic.
813
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,160
And it says here, "All the Jews deserve as much."
814
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,720
So, blame the Jews for this particular bubble?
815
00:48:37,720 --> 00:48:41,120
That's right, but Jewish people have been associated
816
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,240
with usury or finance for many centuries.
817
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,720
This really unpleasant anti-Semitism
818
00:48:50,720 --> 00:48:54,880
exposed the holes in Georgian Britain's facade
819
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:57,760
as a land of liberty and tolerance.
820
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,320
To make things worse, the corruption of the South Sea scandal
821
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:05,680
went right to the heart of Government.
822
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:08,120
Backhanders were paid to politicians
823
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:10,760
and insider trading was rife.
824
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:20,280
When the bubble burst, George had to call in a fixer.
825
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:24,480
He chose his closest political ally, Robert Walpole.
826
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:33,360
Having sold his shares at the top of the market, though, people thought
827
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:37,160
that Walpole, too, had his snout in the South Sea trough.
828
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:40,400
This is Change Alley in the city
829
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:42,680
and it was in the coffee houses along here
830
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:47,080
that the wheeling and the dealing of the South Sea Bubble took place.
831
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:50,800
When it burst, they were full of panic and fear,
832
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:54,840
and now, up pops Robert Walpole to limit the damage.
833
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,200
He was put in charge of an investigation into the crisis
834
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:00,800
but it didn't really go anywhere.
835
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:03,320
It was thought that he protected prominent people
836
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:06,720
from charges of bribery and corruption
837
00:50:06,720 --> 00:50:10,520
and because he'd shielded them from the consequences of their actions,
838
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:13,880
people called him the "Screen Master General".
839
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,760
There was a growing feeling that, once again, the elite had won,
840
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,320
but Walpole didn't get off entirely scot-free.
841
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:29,280
There was a new force at work in Georgian society - satire.
842
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:36,200
One of the Georgian age's most notorious images
843
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:38,520
is Walpole's huge naked bottom
844
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:41,200
blocking the way into the Treasury.
845
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:44,160
To get on in 18th-century government,
846
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:46,400
this is what you had to kiss.
847
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,640
These satirists used lewd images and language
848
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:53,520
to skewer hypocrisy,
849
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:58,320
from a diving competition into the sewers of Fleet Street
850
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:02,440
to a giant weeing on the royal palace.
851
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:05,680
They were reaping the benefits of a very strange thing
852
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:09,320
that had happened at the end of the previous century.
853
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:12,080
According to contemporary satirist Martin Rowson,
854
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:16,440
parliament had inadvertently made this satire boom possible.
855
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:20,560
Could you print anything you wanted?
856
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:22,920
It's, I think, one of the most beautiful moments
857
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:25,760
certainly in British and probably in world history,
858
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:27,240
because it was an accident.
859
00:51:27,240 --> 00:51:30,360
If they were meant to be renewing the Licensing Act
860
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:34,160
which was essentially press censorship, the Royal Licence.
861
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:37,400
And somebody forgot to put it in the parliamentary timetable.
862
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:39,800
Suddenly, Pandora's Box was opened.
863
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,000
- You could print anything you wanted?
- You could print anything you wanted.
864
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:49,160
There was a sudden eruption of freedom of speech and of satire.
865
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:53,160
And whereas people had previously been writing satires on behalf of rich and powerful men
866
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:56,640
to attack other rich and powerful men - which meant that they had a protector -
867
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:00,080
now, they could write whatever they wanted.
868
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,480
So, you could now print all kinds of naughty stuff with impunity?
869
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:08,560
It meant suddenly the people were liberated to satirise everything.
870
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,720
And after Leveson last year when people were saying,
871
00:52:11,720 --> 00:52:14,800
"We fought! We fought for centuries for this freedom of the press!"
872
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:16,800
No, we didn't! It just happened by mistake
873
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:19,800
because somebody forgot to put it in the parliamentary timetables.
874
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:24,560
And it's what led to our understanding in the 18th century.
875
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:30,480
It's not necessarily been the age of George I, George II, George III,
876
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:34,520
but the age of Swift and Pope and Hogarth,
877
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:36,720
and later, Gillray and Sterne.
878
00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:40,320
There is this open sewer of satire running through the Enlightenment.
879
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:43,480
How popular was this? Who did it appeal to?
880
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:45,240
It's a weird relationship,
881
00:52:45,240 --> 00:52:49,120
because, on the one hand, this is scurrilous, filthy stuff,
882
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:52,000
but on the other hand, the people who bought Gillray's stuff
883
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,560
and who bought Hogarth's stuff were the people who were being satirised.
884
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:57,560
They understood it was part of the joke.
885
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:04,560
Satire allowed people to criticise the highest echelons of society
886
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:07,960
without getting thrown into the Tower Of London.
887
00:53:07,960 --> 00:53:10,680
But the satirists upped the ante again -
888
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:13,560
when writers such as Jonathan Swift were bold enough
889
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:17,080
to have a go at the monarchy itself.
890
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:19,240
In Gulliver's Travels,
891
00:53:19,240 --> 00:53:23,400
Swift has his main character, Lemuel Gulliver,
892
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:25,840
wash up on the island of Lilliput.
893
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:28,960
Here, he found a tiny royal court
894
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,960
where everyone is obsessed with climbing the greasy pole.
895
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:37,440
How did Swift satirise the monarchy?
896
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:39,600
Gulliver's Travels is a prolonged satire
897
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:41,960
on the whole notion of courts.
898
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:43,680
So, there's all this stuff about
899
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:46,880
people having to jump over higher sticks to get preferment,
900
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:50,400
courtiers having to do this rope dance on a tightrope.
901
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:55,960
The levels of corruption, the levels of venality...
902
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:01,200
It's not that difficult a satire to say these people who thought
903
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:04,240
they were such great men are really little tiny things.
904
00:54:04,240 --> 00:54:06,480
And, of course, all the people in George I's court
905
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:08,080
recognised what it was all about.
906
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:11,400
Did these people not mind Jonathan Swift laughing at them?
907
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:12,520
It is part of the game.
908
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:16,000
If you're in a position of power over your fellow citizens
909
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,360
and you can't take a joke about yourself,
910
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:22,200
then, really, you're not quite the thing, you're not quite right,
911
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:23,920
because you should recognise
912
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:27,200
that your position is inherently ludicrous.
913
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:34,520
All this satire was so popular that the King and the politicians
914
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:36,800
had to take it took it on the chin.
915
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:40,440
Better to laugh along, pretending you were in on the joke.
916
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,880
But it was Robert Walpole, not the King,
917
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,520
who was the greatest target of fun.
918
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:52,800
George I often just wasn't there. He'd gone back to Germany.
919
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:59,160
Here's George I on a happy hunting holiday back in Hanover.
920
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:01,040
These are his ancestral forests.
921
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:04,720
You get the sense that this is where he thinks he really belongs
922
00:55:04,720 --> 00:55:07,200
and he's brought an awful lot of people with him.
923
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:10,480
You can see here the whole of his German household,
924
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:13,320
there are Mustafa and Muhammad, his valets,
925
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:18,360
but he's also brought with him some prominent British politicians.
926
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:21,360
Milord Townsend, as it says here, he was a top Whig,
927
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:25,640
and here we have Milady Townsend - he's brought his wife with him.
928
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,120
And this is a real problem - when the King comes over to Germany
929
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:30,960
and he brings all these people,
930
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:33,920
it's like he sucks all the life out of the British politics.
931
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:36,720
Nothing can happen in London without him
932
00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:39,560
and something of a power vacuum opens up.
933
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:49,480
And when the King's away, Walpole will play.
934
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:52,480
Many of George's ministers were strongly opposed
935
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:55,000
to his frequent visits to Hanover
936
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:58,880
but Walpole saw them as an opportunity.
937
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:02,760
This was the origin of modern government.
938
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,920
When the King was away in Germany, his ministers got into the habit
939
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:11,960
of meeting by themselves without him, making autonomous decisions.
940
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,800
These meetings of the government ministers were chaired by -
941
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:17,120
who else? - Sir Robert Walpole.
942
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:19,520
He was first amongst the equals
943
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:23,360
and he came up with the concept of cabinet solidarity.
944
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:25,560
Once they'd all agreed on a policy,
945
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:29,280
they had to defend it in public or else resign.
946
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:32,280
This is the essence of the system of cabinet government
947
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:33,920
that we still have today.
948
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:41,480
George had always kept his Hanover base.
949
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:45,160
I wonder if, deep down, he was worried that Parliament
950
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:48,440
would change their mind and take away his throne.
951
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:51,280
He needn't have worried.
952
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:55,360
For the century before his reign, Britain had been eating itself,
953
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:57,280
there had been civil wars
954
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,640
and revolutions and disputes about inheritance.
955
00:57:01,720 --> 00:57:04,760
With George I, though, came stability,
956
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:08,800
freedom of speech and modern government.
957
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:12,120
George may not have been the sharpest or brightest
958
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:14,080
or most vigorous king,
959
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:16,680
but thanks to his benign rule,
960
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,400
Britain was on the way to becoming truly great.
961
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:27,120
For himself, though, George still called Hanover home.
962
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:32,400
Indeed, he was travelling back here at the very moment of his death.
963
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:36,520
George's body ended up in this mausoleum,
964
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:39,800
overlooking his beloved Palace of Herrenhausen,
965
00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:43,000
the place he never really wanted to leave.
966
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:46,360
Some of George's British subjects called him "Lucky George",
967
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:50,320
this man who had so unexpectedly inherited their throne.
968
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:52,720
But I think of him as "Unlucky George".
969
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,000
He never really wanted to leave Hanover,
970
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,280
he was deeply unlucky in his personal life
971
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:01,480
with his divorce and his terrible relationship with his son.
972
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:03,400
The history books have overlooked him
973
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:05,960
because he wasn't showy, he had no charisma,
974
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:10,400
but sometimes it's the quiet ones that you've got to watch.
975
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:15,320
I think I'd say not so much "Lucky George", but "Lucky Britain".
976
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:21,200
Next time, as their personal divisions deepen,
977
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:24,360
the royal family have to deal with a new force
978
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:28,680
that's reshaping Britain - the power of the public.
979
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:33,800
This is a very dangerous moment for the Hanoverian royal family.
980
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:36,960
If any one of them were to make a mistake,
981
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,400
it could break the monarchy.
81922
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