page_title: Caroline of Ansbach
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Caroline of Ansbach / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial to Queen Caroline, wife of George II The Inscription reads "To the memory of QUEEN CAROLINE wife of George II for whom the Long Water and Serpentine were created between 1727 - 1731".
context_page_description: Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach was Queen consort of Great Britain as the wife of King George II.
  Her father, Margrave John Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach, belonged to a branch of the House of Hohenzollern and was the ruler of a small German state, the Principality of Ansbach. Caroline was orphaned at a young age and moved to the enlightened court of her guardians, King Frederick I and Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia. At the Prussian court, her previously limited education was widened, and she adopted the liberal outlook possessed by Sophia Charlotte, who became her good friend and whose views influenced Caroline all her life.
  As a young woman, Caroline was much sought-after as a bride. After rejecting the suit of the nominal King of Spain, Archduke Charles of Austria, she married George Augustus, the third-in-line to the British throne and heir apparent to the Electorate of Hanover. They had eight children, seven of whom grew to adulthood.
  Caroline moved permanently to Britain in 1714 when her husband became Prince of Wales. As Princess of Wales, she joined her husband in rallying political opposition to his father King George I.
context_section_description: Caroline was widely mourned. The Protestants lauded her moral example, and even the Jacobites acknowledged her compassion, and her intervention on the side of mercy for their compatriots. During her lifetime her refusal to convert when offered the hand of Archduke Charles was used to portray her as a strong adherent to Protestantism. For example, John Gay wrote of Caroline in A Letter to A Lady (1714):
  The pomp of titles easy faith might shake,
  She scorn'd an empire for religion's sake:
  For this, on earth, the British crown is giv'n,
  And an immortal crown decreed in heav'n.
  She was widely seen by both the public and the court as having great influence over her husband. A satirical verse of the period went:
  You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in vain,
  We all know 'tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign –
  You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.
  Then if you would have us fall down and adore you,
  Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you.
  The memoirs of the eighteenth century, particularly those of John, Lord Hervey, fed perceptions that Caroline and Walpole governed her husband. Peter Quennell wrote that Hervey was the "chronicler of this remarkable coalition" and that she was Hervey's "heroine". Using such sources, biographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries credit her with aiding the establishment of the House of Hanover in Britain, in the face of Jacobite opposition. R. L. Arkell wrote "by her acumen and geniality, [Caroline] ensured the dynasty's rooting itself in England", and W. H. Wilkins said her "gracious and dignified personality, her lofty ideals and pure life did much to counteract the unpopularity of her husband and father-in-law, and redeem the early Georgian era from utter grossness." Although modern historians tend to believe that Hervey, Wilkins and Arkell have overestimated her importance, it is nevertheless probable that Caroline of Ansbach was one of the most influential consorts in British history.
caption: Memorial to Caroline on the bank of the Serpentine, a picturesque lake in London created at her request
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