Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/716

 704 GEORGE II. supported by a house of commons strongly whig. In 1722 a new Jacobite plot was formed, but was detected, and Bishop Atterbury was banished for complicity hi it. A patent was granted to William Wood, a proprietor and renter of copper mines in England, enabling him to coin farthings and halfpence for Ire- land. This lucrative privilege was secured through the duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress ; Walpole guarded against fraud, and Sir Isaac Newton, as master of the mint, ap- proved the contract ; but the issue caused immense disturbance in Ireland. Dean Swift wrote a pamphlet which raised a furious popu- lar clamor, and the patent had to be with- drawn. In 1723 the regium donum, the grant to Presbyterians and other dissenters, was increased, and in 1724 the king founded professorships of modern history at Oxford and Cambridge. In 1725 the lord chancellor Macclesfield was impeached for malversation. There were many schemes for the overthrow of Walpole; but that sagacious statesman show- ed as much ability in disconcerting his private enemies as in his management of the nation- al affairs. He kept the nation at peace, and secured a season' of prosperity and progress. War was rekindled in 1725 by the alliance between the king of Spain and the emperor, and the treaty of Hanover between England, France, and Prussia, and subsequently Swe- den. The siege of Gibraltar was begun by Spain in January, 1727; and a British fleet was sent to the West Indies, but accomplished nothing. Preliminary articles of peace were signed at Paris, May 31, 1727. In 1726 the King's unhappy wife died at her place of im- prisonment. He is said to have been warned that he would survive her only a year. On June 3, 1727, immediately upon the agree- ment for peace, he set out for his beloved Han- over, accompanied by the duchess of Kendal and Lord Townshend. On the 10th he was taken with a fit in his carriage, and died before he could reach Osnabriick. He was buried in Hanover. He was a man of moderate facul- ties, a cruel husband and a bad father, with gross vices, yet by no means a bad sovereign. He did not attempt to interfere with the liber- ties of England ; the ministry of Walpole was singularly able ; and the policy of union with France, upheld by the same party which had been the war party of the preceding reign, was wise and statesmanlike beyond the time, it being for the interest of the nation as w/ell as of the house of Hanover that the union be- tween France and the house of Stuart should be broken up. By his queen Sophia of Oelle George I. left a son, George Augustus, who succeeded him, and a daughter, Sophia Doro- thea, who was married in 1706 to Frederick William I. of Prussia. GEORGE (Augustus) II., son of the preceding and of Sophia Dorothea, born in Hanover, Oct. 30, 1683, died in Kensington palace, Oct. 25, 1760. Little is known of his early history, except that he was neglected by his father, and was brought up by his grandmother, the elec- tress Sophia. He visited Holland in 1699, and in 1705 married Wilhelmina Dorothea Caroline, daughter of the margrave of Brandenburg- Anspach, a woman of marked character and superior talent. The next year he was made a peer of England, his chief title being duke of Cambridge, with precedence over the peerage. He made the campaign of 1708 under the duke of Marlborough, and conducted himself with great bravery at the battle of Oudenarde, having his horse shot under him. In the opposite ranks, and showing equal valor, was the pre- tender, son of James II. He accompanied his father to England in 1714, and was proclaimed prince of Wales on Sept. 22. The quarrel be- tween father and son broke out soon, and they hated each other cordially. The prince had been preferred by the electress Sophia to her own son, and was attached to his mother, two causes that sufficed to increase his father's ori- ginal dislike of him. He was, moreover, seized upon as an instrument of political intrigue against his father. The king also hated the Erincess of Wales, and was jealous of her popu- irity. So vindictive was his feeling that he entertained a proposition, made by the earl of Berkeley, to carry off the prince to America, there to be so disposed of as never to trouble his father again. When the prince left St. James's palace, at the close of 1717, the king sought to deprive him of all control of his children ; and the matter being referred to the judges, 10 of the 12 decided in his favor. A sort of reconciliation was effected in 1720, through Walpole's influence. When he as- cended the throne, George II. endeavored to transfer power to the hands of Sir Spencer Compton, but his incapacity was so evident that Walpole retained his place, the more easily as he was supported by Queen Caroline. The coronation took place Oct. 11, 1727. The his- tory of the first 14 years of the reign of George II. is that of the struggle of Walpole and the opposition, the fiercest civil political contest, unstained by blood, that England has ever known. The hopes that had been entertained of Walpole's overthrow as a consequence of the death of George I. had been disappointed, and that great minister's power was now fixed on a firm basis. The new parliament contained an overwhelming ministerial majority, and the king soon became strongly attached to the min- ister both on personal and political grounds. The royal avarice was gratified and the royal ease consulted by the minister, and hence the king supported the latter with all his influence ; but the support he received from the queen, who governed her husband without his knowing it, was of greater importance. George II. was as fond of Hanover as his father had been, and visited it often, to the disgust of his English subjects. He hated his son Frederick, prince of Wales, as bitterly as he had himself been hated by his father, and the queen shared his