House of Hanover

It was 1714 when a German Prince was crowned King George I of Great Britain, with this, start 

the beginning of a new political era, that saw the rise of the new role of Prime Minister, and 

established the pattern of political modernity that we are familiar with today. When, in 1789, the

 Bastille prison in Paris was stormed and the French Revolution began, few in Britain - least of 

all King George III, who was recovering from one of his bouts of madness - thought that it would 

lead to a cataclysmic war with France.

The Monarchs of the House of Hanover were King George I, King George II, King George 

III, King George IV, King William IV and the Queen Victoria.

Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts, had 17 pregnancies which resulted in only three live births. 

 In 1700, the last of those three children, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, died of smallpox 

six days after his eleventh birthday.  Parliament was faced with a succession crisis as it did not 

want the throne to go to a Roman Catholic.  The 1701 Act of Settlement  was passed giving the

 throne to the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants.