page_title: Prince George of Denmark
section_title: Personal traits and portrayal
hierarchical_section_title: Prince George of Denmark / Legacy / Personal traits and portrayal
caption_attribution_description: English: A miniature of Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, bought by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, husband of Queen Victoria.
context_page_description: Prince George of Denmark and Norway, Duke of Cumberland, was the husband of Queen Anne, who reigned over Great Britain from 1702 to 1714.
  His marriage to Anne was arranged in the early 1680s with a view to developing an Anglo-Danish alliance to contain Dutch maritime power. As a result, George was unpopular with his Dutch brother-in-law, William III of Orange, who was married to Anne's elder sister, Mary. William and Mary became joint monarchs of Britain, with Anne as their heir presumptive, in 1689 after the "Glorious Revolution" deposed James II and VII, the father of both Anne and Mary.
  William excluded George from active military service, and neither George nor Anne wielded any great influence until after the deaths of Mary and then William, at which point Anne became queen. During his wife's reign, George occasionally used his influence in support of his wife, even when privately disagreeing with her views. He had an easy-going manner and little interest in politics; his appointment as Lord High Admiral in 1702 was largely honorary.
context_section_description: Charles II, Anne's uncle, famously said of Prince George, "I have tried him drunk, and I have tried him sober and there is nothing in him". He was quiet and self-effacing. John Macky thought him "of a familiar, easy disposition with a good sound understanding but modest in showing it ... very fat, loves news, his bottle & the Queen." In making fun of George's asthma, Lord Mulgrave said the Prince was forced to breathe hard in case people mistook him for dead and buried him. By the time of Queen Victoria, George had a reputation as a dullard, and was the target of disdain. Victoria hoped her own husband, Prince Albert, would never fill the "subordinate part played by the very stupid and insignificant husband of Queen Anne". In the 1930s, Winston Churchill said he "mattered very little", except to Anne.
  He had little impact on the running of the navy, but he was interested enough in navigation and welfare at sea to sponsor the publication of John Flamsteed's Observations in 1704. He was not one of the most colourful political characters of his day—he was content to spend his time building model ships—but he was a loyal and supportive husband to Queen Anne. Their marriage was a devoted, loving and faithful one, though beset by personal tragedy.
  The previous husband of a British queen regnant, William of Orange, had become king, refusing to take a subordinate rank to Mary. William and Mary had exemplified the traditional gender roles of seventeenth-century Europe: Mary was the dutiful wife and William held the power. George and Anne, however, reversed the roles: George was the dutiful husband and it was Anne who exercised the royal prerogatives. William had assumed incorrectly that George would use his marriage to Anne as a means of building a separate power base in Britain, but George never challenged his wife's authority and never strove to accrue influence. Anne occasionally used the image of wifely virtue to escape unpalatable situations by claiming, as a woman, she knew "nothing except what the prince tells me", but it was an artifice. Husbands had a legal right to their wife's property, and it was argued that it was unnatural and against the church's teachings for a man to be subject to his wife. George made no such claim or demand; he was content to remain a prince and duke. "I am her Majesty's subject", he said, "I shall do naught but what she commands me." In the words of historian Anne Somerset, "the fact that Prince George was widely regarded as a nonentity helped reconcile people to his anomalous status, and so, almost by accident, George achieved a major advance for feminism." Winston Churchill wrote that he
  was a fine-looking man, tall, blond, and good-natured ... He was neither clever nor learned—a simple, normal man without envy or ambition, and disposed by remarkable appetite and thirst for all the pleasures of the table. Charles's well-known verdict ... does not do justice to the homely virtues and unfailing good-humour of his staid and trustworthy character.
  The Prince of Denmark's March by Jeremiah Clarke was written in his honour, and Prince George's County, Maryland, was named after him in 1696. Portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller are at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, and (in a double portrait with George Clarke) All Souls College, Oxford. Portraits in Denmark include one by Willem Wissing in the Reedtz-Thott collection and one by Karel van Mander in the national collection at Frederiksborg Palace.
caption: Miniature in the Royal Collection by Henry Pierce Bone, 1841. Purchased by Prince Albert.
exif: {}