Editing George I of Great Britain (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:GeorgeIThornhill.jpg|thumb|George surrounded by his family, in a painting by [[James Thornhill]]]]
[[File:Georg I. Ludwig (George Louis), Kurfürst von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, König von Großbritannien und Irland und Titularkönig von Frankreich, Skulptur vom Bildhauer Carl (Karl) Rangenier, um 1862, Welfenschloss Hannover.jpg|upright|thumb|Statue of George I by [[Carl Rangenier]] in Hanover]]
George was ridiculed by his British subjects;<ref name="p291">Hatton, p. 291.</ref> some of his contemporaries, such as Lady [[Mary Wortley Montagu]], thought him unintelligent on the grounds that he was wooden in public.<ref>Hatton, p. 172.</ref> Though he was unpopular in Great Britain due to his supposed inability to speak English, such an inability may not have existed later in his reign as documents from that time show that he understood, spoke and wrote English.<ref>Hatton, p. 131.</ref> He certainly spoke fluent German and French, good Latin, and some Italian and Dutch.<ref name="dnb" /> His treatment of his wife, Sophia Dorothea, became something of a scandal.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ashley |first=Mike |title=The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens |publisher=Robinson |year=1998 |isbn=978-1-84119-096-9 |location=London |page=672}}</ref> His Lutheran faith, his overseeing both the Lutheran churches in Hanover and the Church of England, and the presence of Lutheran preachers in his court caused some consternation among his Anglican subjects.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lohrmann |first=Martin J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BaQCEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA90 |title=Stories from Global Lutheranism: A Historical Timeline |year=2021 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=978-1-5064-6458-9 |language=en |access-date=13 January 2022}}</ref>

The British perceived George as too German, and in the opinion of historian [[Ragnhild Hatton]], wrongly assumed that he had a succession of German mistresses.<ref name="Hatton132136">Hatton, pp. 132–136.</ref> However, in mainland Europe, he was seen as a progressive ruler supportive of [[the Enlightenment]] who permitted his critics to publish without risk of severe censorship, and provided sanctuary to [[Voltaire]] when the philosopher was exiled from Paris in 1726.<ref name="p291" /> European and British sources agree that George was reserved, temperate and financially prudent;<ref name="dnb" /> he disliked being in the public light at social events, avoided the royal box at the opera and often travelled incognito to the homes of friends to play cards.<ref name="plumb" /> Despite some unpopularity, the Protestant George I was seen by most of his subjects as a better alternative to the Roman Catholic pretender [[James Francis Edward Stuart|James]]. [[William Makepeace Thackeray]] indicates such ambivalent feelings as he wrote: 
{{blockquote|His heart was in Hanover&nbsp;... He was more than fifty years of age when he came amongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept us assuredly from Popery&nbsp;... I, for one, would have been on his side in those days. Cynical and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king out of [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye|St. Germains]] [James, the Stuart Pretender] with the French king's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of [[Jesuits]] in his train.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thackeray |first=W. M. |url=https://archive.org/stream/fourgeorge00thac#page/52/mode/2up |title=The Four Georges: Sketches of Manners, Morals, Court and Town Life |publisher=Smith, Elder |year=1880 |location=London |pages=52–53 |author-link=William Makepeace Thackeray |orig-year=1860}}</ref>
}}

Writers of the nineteenth century, such as Thackeray, [[Walter Scott]] and [[Lord Mahon]], were reliant on biased first-hand accounts published in the previous century such as [[John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey|Lord Hervey's]] memoirs, and looked back on the Jacobite cause with romantic, even sympathetic, eyes. They in turn, influenced British authors of the first half of the twentieth century such as [[G. K. Chesterton]], who introduced further anti-German and anti-Protestant bias into the interpretation of George's reign. However, in the wake of World War II continental European archives were opened to historians of the later twentieth century and nationalistic anti-German feeling subsided. George's life and reign were re-explored by scholars such as Beattie and Hatton, and his character, abilities and motives re-assessed in a more generous light.<ref>Smith, pp. 3–9.</ref> [[John H. Plumb]] noted that:
{{blockquote|Some historians have exaggerated the king's indifference to English affairs and made his ignorance of the English language seem more important than it was. He had little difficulty in communicating with his ministers in French, and his interest in all matters affecting both foreign policy and the court was profound.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=1967 |title=George I |encyclopedia=Collier's Encyclopedia |last=Plumb |first=J. H. |author-link=John H. Plumb |volume=10 |page=703}}</ref>
}}

Yet the character of George I remains elusive; he was in turn genial and affectionate in private letters to his daughter, and then dull and awkward in public. Perhaps his own mother summed him up when "explaining to those who regarded him as cold and overserious that he could be jolly, that he took things to heart, that he felt deeply and sincerely and was more sensitive than he cared to show."<ref name="p29" /> Whatever his true character, he ascended a precarious throne, and either by political wisdom and guile, or through accident and indifference, he left it secure in the hands of the Hanoverians and of Parliament.<ref name="dnb" />