Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (41 page)

George was a bad-tempered, arrogant man. However, he loved music, particularly opera. He was the patron of Handel, who had been his father’s court musician. At a performance of Handel’s
Messiah
, as the Hallelujah Chorus began, George suddenly, and for no apparent reason, stood up and remained standing until the end of the second act. With the King standing, everyone had to stand. Since then, it has been the tradition for the audience to stand during every performance of the Hallelujah Chorus, whether or not the monarch is present.

Later in his reign, George was involved in the establishment of the British Museum. Royal physician Sir Hans Sloane left his library and collection of curiosities (over 70,000 items) to the nation on payment of £20,000. In order to house the bequest, to which George added the Royal Library, the British Museum was founded; and to house the botanical items, the Natural History Museum was established. When Sloane had been in Jamaica, he tried a local drink made of cocoa and water. Not liking it, he added milk, so inventing drinking chocolate. Sloane brought his new concoction back to England, where it was sold by apothecaries as a ‘pick-me-up’. It was in the nineteenth century that the Cadbury brothers started to sell tins of Sloane’s Drinking Chocolate. The Cadburys were Quakers, and they saw drinking chocolate as an alternative to alcohol – Cadbury’s Bournville estate is still alcohol-free.

Just as George had argued with his father, so George and Queen Caroline argued with their oldest son, Frederick Prince of Wales, banishing him and his family from court in 1737. Later in the year, Queen Caroline died when gangrene set in following a hernia operation. George had her buried in a coffin with a detachable side, so that when he died he could be buried in a similar coffin alongside her and they could lie together.

With Caroline’s support, Walpole had been able to restrain George’s warlike intentions. Without Caroline, George would not be stopped. The British had been exercising the trading rights in South America granted by the Treaty of Utrecht. However, the Spanish were later given the entitlement of boarding British merchant ships to check that they were not abusing their rights. Suspecting piracy, the Spanish boarded the brig ‘Rebecca’ as it was sailing from Cuba where Spain had a trading monopoly. The captain, Robert Jenkins, was tied to the mast, and the Spanish captain drew his sword and sliced off Jenkins’ ear, telling him (presumably in the remaining ear) that the same would happen to his king if he dared to do the same.

The Government demanded that the boarding of British ships should cease, and in retaliation the Spanish seized all British vessels in Spanish harbours. In 1738, Parliament held an investigation, and called for evidence. Jenkins arrived and told his story, and then he dramatically produced a jar containing his ear. Against the advice of his ministers, George declared war on Spain.

Britain gained a notable victory at Porto Bello in Panama, destroying Spain’s major naval base. The victory was celebrated with a new patriotic song first performed as the finale to a play about Alfred the Great: “Rule, Britannia!”; the phrase being an instruction whose meaning is lost by the omission of the exclamation mark. The next line: “Britannia rule the waves!” was also an instruction to the nation; it later changed when Britain did rule the waves and no further instruction was needed. Consequently, the Victorians added an ‘s’ to turn it into a statement: “Britannia rules the waves”. Other victories followed, but defeat in Colombia saw the mood in England change, and it led to the downfall of Walpole. Then, in 1742, the War of Jenkins’ Ear merged in the larger War of the Austrian Succession as the belligerents turned their eyes to central Europe.

The War of the Spanish Succession had ended with a negotiated peace when Archduke Charles became Holy Roman Emperor. His only son died in infancy, so when Charles died (after eating poisonous mushrooms) he left two daughters. Charles had foreseen the problem, and he obtained the agreement of all the major European states to the succession of his older daughter, Maria Theresa, in the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. As had been agreed, on Charles’s death Maria Theresa claimed the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia and the rule of Austria. The Prussians saw an opportunity; they reneged on the Sanction and invaded Silesia, claiming that the Salic Law made Maria Theresa’s claims unlawful. Anxious to diminish the power of the Habsburgs and increase their own, the French supported Prussia.

Britain joined the Austrian side so as to challenge any increase in French dominion. For George the prime motive was to protect Hanover. The King and his third son, William Duke of Cumberland, took the British army into Europe, and at Dettingen, George II became the last British monarch to lead his forces into battle. The British-Hanoverian-Austrian troops lined up, ready to attack. George rode out in front of his army. He drew his sword and waved it in the air as he proceeded, shouting to his men: “Now boys! Now for the honour of England!”. The soldiers responded with loud “Hurrahs!”, but George’s horse, which had a history of being unruly, was startled and maddened by the din. It reared and plunged and then ran straight towards the enemy lines, George struggling to hold on.

The horse galloped faster and faster. For sure George was about to be killed by the French as he unwillingly charged them on his own. A young ensign, Cyrus Trapaud, was the only one to react. He dug his spurs into his horse’s sides and raced after George. Gaining ground on the crazed animal as the French opened fire trying to kill George, Trapaud drew alongside the King and managed to grasp the bridle of George’s horse; then he swung the beast round and brought it to a halt.

Trapaud led George out of range of the French guns and back to the British lines. Whoever was about to kill George – the horse or the French – Trapaud had saved the King’s life. George was helped to dismount. “Now that I am on my own legs, I am sure I shall not run away,” said the King.

be safer to fight on foot. Inspired by the strategic advice given by the Scottish Colonel Agnew, first instructing his troops not to shoot until they could “see the whites of the e’en”, and then adding, “lads … kill them afore they kill you”, the battle was won. As for Cyrus Trapaud, he was immediately promoted; and George saw to it that he received further promotions in later years.

Maria and Elizabeth Gunning were two Irish beauties who were taken to London by their mother to be presented at court. In order to fund the journey, Mrs Gunning agreed to act as chaperone to the rich and beautiful Catherine Plaistow, who also wished to be presented at court. When they reached London, the three young women caused such a sensation that George had to provide them with an armed guard. Maria married the Earl of Coventry, Elizabeth married the Duke of Hamilton; but Catherine Plaistow preferred the hero, Cyrus Trapaud, who ended his military career as Britain’s most senior General.

However, the war was unpopular in England, seen as only for the benefit of Hanover. The Jacobites saw their chance, and so did the French. The Pretender was now an old man and regarded as a failure. He had married Maria Sobieska, daughter of the Crown Prince of Poland who was the son of King Jan III Sobieski the victor of the Battle of Vienna. Unfortunately for her, although both her father and her husband had been heirs to a throne, each of them was usurped. The Pretender’s older son was now 25 years old, and in July 1745, Charles Edward Stuart – Bonnie Prince Charlie – landed in Scotland with seven followers and a promise of 12,000 French troops to follow him.

Many Scots, Catholic and Protestant, answered the call to arms, but the troops promised by Louis XV did not arrive. Nevertheless, British forces were defeated at Prestonpans. That defeat led to the singing of a new song in England, “God save the King”. In later years it arguably became the world’s first national anthem. For a time the tune was used for the anthems of Germany, Russia, Switzerland and Sweden. It is still the national anthem of the United Kingdom, several Commonwealth countries and Liechtenstein
³⁰
, and it is also the royal anthem of Norway.

Having proclaimed his father as king, Bonnie Prince Charlie led his army into England. The intention was to take London and capture the Hanoverian Royal Family. George was to be tried as a traitor for usurping the throne and would then be executed. Yet knowledge of the intention to kill him did not cause George any concern. He said that he would gladly chase the Scots back to Scotland himself.

Few English rallied to Charles’s side; and although his army reached Derby, news of an approaching British army (false news as it happens) moved the invaders to turn round and make for Scotland. Fearful that his Highlanders would not accept a command to retreat, Charles ordered the return to Scotland to start before dawn so that they would not realise that they were marching north.

The Duke of Cumberland and his troops pursued the Scots and drove Bonnie Prince Charlie’s disheartened followers into the Highlands. In the last battle to be fought on British soil, the Jacobite army was destroyed at Culloden, where Bonnie Prince Charlie had foolishly positioned his men on open land in front of the British Army’s guns, although he sensibly kept to the rear. When asked for instructions after the battle, Cumberland wrote ‘no quarter’ on the back of a playing card, the nine of diamonds – a card still known as ‘the curse of Scotland’.

As a result, the slaughter continued after the battle was over, with Scots fighters and many of their supporters being massacred. Assisted by Scottish patriot Flora MacDonald, Charles made his way to the Scottish Islands disguised as a lady’s maid, and then he returned to France. It was the end of Jacobite hopes.

Three years later, a treaty ended the War of the Austrian Succession with Maria Theresa recognised as Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, her husband having been elected Holy Roman Emperor. Under the terms of the treaty, Prussia, led by Emperor Frederick the Great (whose mother was the daughter of George I and Sophia Dorothea), was allowed to keep Silesia. It was a concession that showed the Prussians how to enlarge their country. German nationalism had been triggered.

All enemies having been dealt with, the succession to the British crown was now secure; then it changed. Frederick Prince of Wales had been won over by the game of cricket, the country’s most popular sport. He became a player, and even formed his own team. Apparently, whilst attending a game as a spectator, he was said to have been hit on the head by a cricket ball, leading to an abscess or septicaemia. He died at the age of 44, and his 13-year-old son, George, became the heir to the throne.

Now Maria Theresa showed her true colours. Despite having been supported by the British, as a Habsburg and therefore a Catholic, Maria Theresa regarded them as Protestant heretics, and she wanted nothing more to do with them. Catholic France would be a more acceptable ally. That decision to befriend France would in time lead to the execution of Maria Theresa’s daughter, Marie-Antoinette.

Anyway, in signing the 1748 peace treaty, Maria Theresa had only been playing for time; she wanted Silesia back. She improved and enlarged her army. The Prussians saw what was happening, and in 1756 they launched a pre-emptive attack and invaded Saxony. Now it started all over again, although this time Austria was allied to France, Russia and Sweden. Fearing a French attack on Hanover, Britain supported Prussia.

The Seven Years’ War saw every participant winning and losing battles. The conflict spread to Canada, America, India and the Caribbean, as the British challenged French and Spanish colonies in the first global war. Under the direction of William Pitt, Britain’s efforts outside Europe were increasingly successful. His genius was to finance allied armies on the Continent so as to tie down and drain French resources there, so enabling Britain to concentrate on acquiring territories in Canada, the West Indies and India.

George was now 78, and had lost interest in war and government. On 25th October 1760, George rose at 6 o’clock in Kensington Palace and drank a cup of hot chocolate. Then he went to the toilet, suffering as always from constipation
³¹
. The effort was too much; he collapsed on the floor. Hearing the loud crash, his valet came running, and George was carried to his bed, where he died.

It was an undignified end for a man who had been so courageous on the battlefield, where he had narrowly escaped death. At least he was granted his dearest wish: he was buried next to his wife with one side of each of their coffins removed so that their remains could mingle.

********** THE GEORGES THE GEORGES