The dethroning of George the Second

George II

Today, Monday 25th October the nation remembers that it is 250 years since King George II was dethroned by dying on the throne in his WC. It is not what he would have wished to be remembered for a quarter of a millennium after his death, for he also spoke six languages, and was the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle. That was during the War of the Austrian Succession, at Dettingen in Bavaria in 1743, an eventful year for the king. A few months earlier he had been present at the inaugural London performance of Handel's Messiah.

The first London performance of Messiah from G.F. Handel took place on 23 March 1743, in the presence of King George II. When the first notes of the now famous Hallelujah chorus resounded, the King rose to his feet and remained standing for the duration of the piece. This may have been a gesture of recognition, demonstrating that his earthly kingship was subservient to the King of Kings. As no one could remain sitting whilst the King stood, the entire audience stood and stayed standing for the duration of the piece. It has since become tradition for audiences to stand for the Hallelujah Chorus. This is frequently observed even if there are no royalty present.

Handel's Messiah (HWV 56) was first performed in the "Antient Musik Hall" in Fishamble Street, Dublin in a gala in aid of the Foundling Hospital. This is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel based on a libretto by Charles Jennens. Composed in the summer of 1741 and premiered in Dublin on the 13 April 1742, Messiah is Handel's most famous creation and is among the most popular works in Western choral literature.


The "Antient Musik Hall" in Fishamble Street, Dublin where Messiah was premiered on the 13 April 1742

On the recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to London I noticed as he entered Westminster Abbey that the inscription above the doorway commemorates the rebuilding of the west towers in 1745 in the reign of “Georg II.” The good King of Hanover cannot have been overly religious for Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, was one of his many mistresses whom he established in some splendour at Marble Hill House in Twickenham. George II lost his Queen, Caroline, who died on 20 November 1737. Reputedly, when she asked her husband to remarry when she passed on, he replied, "Non, j'aurai des maîtresses!" (French for "No, I shall have mistresses!"). Reputedly, she replied "Ah, mon Dieu, cela n'empeche pas." ("My God, that doesn't prevent it.")

This is the King who famously quarrelled with his own father and banished his son, Frederick Prince of Wales from court and was succeeded by his grandson, George III. He left a long footprint and Handel composed his Coronation Anthem for him including Zadok the Priest which makes the understated claim that he is in a line of divinely anointed kingship from King Solomon. The opera Alfred was written to promote the claim of his son Frederick to the throne to combat the “great danger.” The opera is long forgotten but the overture “Rule Britannia” endures as a patriotic song and historians are united in not having a clue as to what the “great danger” was! Under his reign British rule was established in North America at the Battle of Quebec, in India with the victories of Robert Clive at the Battle of Arcot and the Battle of Plassey and in the Caribbean with the capture of Guadeloupe. French ambitions in Europe were crushed in 1759 at the Battle of Minden and British naval supremacy was established by the naval battles at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. It was also under his reign that his son The Duke of Cumberland, the “Butcher of Culloden”, in 1746 brought to an end “The 45” the Jacobite rising of Bonnie Prince Charlie which extinguished with considerable brutality the Stuart claim to the thrones of England and Scotland.


George II by Thomas Hudson

Georgia in America is named after him where he is also remembered in Academe for in 1754, King George issued the charter for King's College in New York City, which would later become Columbia University after the American Revolution.

On the morning of 25 October 1760, the King entered his royal necessarium at Kensington Palace, London, and, after a few minutes, his valet heard a loud crash. He found the King on the floor, but in the curiously old-fashioned phrasing of one of his biographers, Peter Guralnick, "It was certainly possible that he had been taken while straining at stool". So when Elvis Aaron Presley on August 16, 1977 expired during his “last movement” in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, it seems he was merely impersonating the real King, George II.


Kensington Palace, London, seat of the Dethronement