Exclusive interview with author Andrew Thompson and a review of his new book about George II, the German-born British monarch
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“I was looking for a publisher for a revised version of my PhD thesis,” says George II author Andrew Thompson. “Instead, Robert Baldock in Yale’s London office kindly asked me if I’d be interested in contributing the George II volume to the Yale English monarchs series. I was a great admirer of the series already, the Scarisbrick biography of Henry VIII was something that I had read avidly at school and Hatton’s work on George I remains the best account of his life, so I leaped at the chance.”
Raised in Northern Germany, George II was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was also the last British monarch to lead an army in battle, participating at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. While still the Prince of Wales he quarreled with his father, king George I, and was banned from the palace and from seeing his children. George II became king in 1727 on his father’s death. In 1745, supporters of James Stuart failed to depose the George II in the last of the Jacobite rebellions. The attempt to install a Catholic king was over.
This is not a social book describing parties, clothing or food. It describes family jealousies and gives a deeper understanding of the relationship between George II and his children. For anyone who wants to know more about George II, this is a definite must-read.
Thompson’s biography of George II reveals a king who is not well understood, despite his 33-year reign. Andrew Thompson acknowledges up front that George II, man and monarch, is a tough subject to pin down. Correspondence from his reign is sparse because much of the archival record relating to his dual role as Elector of Hanover was returned there and partly destroyed.
Thompson uses letters and government documents to reconstruct the life of George II. “The book enabled me to combine some of my long-standing interests,” says Thompson. “I studied German at school and spent a year before university living in Germany and my major interests when a student were in Eighteenth Century studies. A colleague suggested that, given my previous work, I was ideally placed to write about George II because of my understanding of the German and British sources.”
“One of the most interesting experiences that I had was working in the Royal Archives in Windsor,” says Thompson. “I remember being there on a hot, sunny day and having the rather surreal experience of watching tourists walking around while I worked on papers in the Royal Archives. The Archives themselves are situated in the Round Tower so one goes up a long staircase that’s very much like entering a medieval castle. At the top the decoration is of an Eighteenth Century country house. The desk I worked on was one of the most stunning pieces of furniture that I’ve ever seen.”
Thompson worked extensively in British and German archives and was able to make use of the private papers of the British and Hanoverian royal families. “Quite a lot of the material that I needed was sent back to Hanover in 1837 when Queen Victoria’s uncle, Ernst August, became King of Hanover and the personal union of the two states was brought to an end,” says Thompson. “One of the ironies of the current distribution of records is that, because George III bought the Stuart papers, there is probably more material relating to the rival Stuart claimants, the Jacobites, in the Royal Archives in Windsor than there is for either George I or George II.”
Thompson is based at Cambridge university. He was born in Cambridge, England.
George II: King and Elector (Part of the English Monarchs Series) By Andrew Thompson Hardcover, 315 pages, Publisher: Yale University Press (June 28, 2011),Language: English, ISBN: 9780300118926
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