The House of Hanover

by Alvin Redman

Hardcover, no jacket 1968 Funk and Wagnalls ed.

471 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Michael Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hanoverians produced six monarchs in England — the four Georges, William IV ("the sailor king"), and Queen Victoria — who reigned for nearly two centuries. They shared an unusual continuity of personality and appearance and Victoria ended by being the ancestress of every present ruling house and pretender in Europe, excepting only the Bonapartists. "The path of events that led a German prince, who could not speak a word of English, to the throne of Great Britain was a devious one," the author notes. It all began with Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, who married Frederick the Elector Palatine; it eventually caught up the houses of Brunswick and Hesse, the imperial Prussian and Russian families, and finally the Saxe-Coburgs, in the person of Prince Albert. But the German newcomers had also to deal with the British parliament — an experience very foreign to the absolute rulers of small German states, as were the revolutions in the American colonies and France. Lord North, Charles Fox, the Pitts, Lord Melbourne, Robert Peel, and on through Disraeli and Gladstone, all made their mark in either supporting or limiting the Hanoverians, and Britain moved finally from autocratic rule to constitutional government. A competently constructed overview of the last age of unencumbered monarchy in Britain’s history.

[Russell Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book from my local library because I wanted to find out more about King George V of Hanover and Marienburg Castle. I found the House of Hanover to be an interesting read. So much so, that when I discovered a sixty year old booger encrusted in the crack between pages I was reading; I took out my pocket knife, scraped it out and continued reading! I didn't learn that much about King George V of Hanover or Marienburg Castle. But, I did learn about Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle and her alleged affair with Philip Christoph von Königsmarck. That in itself made the book worth reading.