George I. was born the 28th of May 1660 (the day before that on which Charles 11. made his entry into London at the Restoration). In 1681 he came over to England with the intention of paying hie addresses to the Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne ; but immediately after landing he received his father's orders not to proceed in the business, on which he returned home, and in the following year married his cousin Sophia Dorothea, the daughter of the Duke of ZelL Ile afterwards served in the armies of the Empire both against the Turks and the French. He succeeded to the electorate on the death of his father in 1698. In 1700 he led a force to the assistance of the Duke of Holstein, who was attacked by Frederick IV. of Den mark, and in conjunction with the Swedes under General Ranier, compelled Kicg Frederick to raise the siege of Tonningen. Hanover had been created a ninth electorate by the Emperor Leopold in 1692, but in consequence of the opposition of other electoral houses it was not till 1708 that the duke was admitted into the college of electors. Duke Ernest, the father of George I., had originally attached himself to the French interest, but bin adhesion to England was of course secured by the settlement of the succession to the crown on his family, although it is probable that neither he nor even his son regarded that arrangement as very secure uutil the latter actually found himself seated on the throne. The elector George remained steady to the English alliance throughout the general war which began in 1702, and both in 1707 and the two following years he commauded the Imperial forces against the French. All the endeavours of the English ministry however could not prevail upon him to go along with them in the original propositions for the peace of Utrecht. In fact, he stood out till the conclusion of the treaty of peace between the French King and the Emperor, at Rastadt, 6th March 1714.
The accession of George I. took place as quietly, and as much like a thing of course, as any such change has ever done in the most settled times. The new king, with the prince his son, arrived at Greenwich ou the 28th of September 1714. Before this the Tories, who had been in power at the death of Queen Anne, had all been dismissed by the Lords-Justices ; and now a new ministry was formed, consisting, with the single exception of the Earl of Nottingham (who was removed within a year), wholly of Whip, Viscount Towushend and the celebrated Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Walpole being its most influential members. A new parliament, which gave ministers a great majority in the Commons, having assembled in January 1715, immediately proceeded to the impeachment of Bolingbroke, Oxford, and their associates, all of whom were compelled for the present to bend to the storm. These determined (or, as some called them, vindictive) measures however probably did not do much to strengthen the position of the new dynasty. The rebellion in Scotland broke out before the end of the year, and was not completely put down till February 1716. One of the consequences by which it was followed was the repeal of the Triennial Act by the 1st George I. stet. 2, c. 38,
entitled 'An Act for enlarging the time of continuance of parliaments,' by which it was declared that not only all future parliaments, bat even the parliament then sitting, might be continued for seven years,—certainly one of the most daring assumptions of power upon which an English parliament has over ventured. The year 1717 was ushered in with the rumour of an intended invasion of the country by Charles XII. of Sweden, who had been irritated by the recent purchase by the King of England, from the Danes, of the two duchies of Bremen and Vcrden, which the Danes had taken from Sweden in 1712. To counteract the designs of Sweden, to which the Czar Peter of Russia had been induced to become a party, George I. lost no time in arranging what was called the Treaty of Triple Alliance (concluded at the Hague 4th January 1717) with Franco and Holland. This war however was not marked by any operations of importance, and it was put an end to by the death of Charles XII. before the end of the following year. Meanwhile, in April 1717, the ministry of Towusheod and Walpole was broken up by the dismissal of Townshend and the immediate resignation of Walpole—the result of internal dissen.ione which had been for some time growing, end of the intrigues of a section of the Whig party. The bead. of the new cabinet acre Mr. (afterwards Lord) Stanhope, who became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer in the room of Walpole, and the Earl of Sunderland, who took the office of one of the principal secretaries of state, Mr. Addison being taken in as the other. The intrigues of Cardinal Alberoui, which had also been at the bottom of the late demonstrations of hostility by Swedeu, now led to a war with Spain. Here England was again cordially assisted by France, the Spanish minister's ambitious designs embracing at once the expulsion of the Hauoverian family from the government of England, and of the Regent Duke of Orleans from that of France. The Quadruple Alliance between Great Britain, France, the Emperor, and Holland was now arranged, and various military operations took plaoe, the moat distinguished of which was the victory obtained by Admiral Sir George 13yng (afterwards Lord Torrington) over the Spanish fleet of tho coast of Sicily (31 July, 1718), in which about fifteen of the enemy's ships were captured or destroyed. In June 1719, also, a Spanish force that had landed in Scotland, and bad been joined by a body of Highlanders under the command of the Earl Mariachal and Lord Seaforth, was defeated by General Wightman in an action fought at Glenshield, in Inverness-shire, and compelled to surrender at discretion—a check by which a second Jacobite rebellion was at once put down. The differences with Sweden however were fluidly accommodated by the treaty of Stockholm, signed the 20th of Novem ber 1719; aud before the close of the awn° year Cardinal Alberoni was dismissed by the King of Spain, and peace was soon after made also with that power.