and Princess Mary Adelaide, duchess of Teck, daughter of Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cambridge. Their eldest son, Prince Edward Albert, was born at White Lodge, Richmond, on the 23rd of June 1894; Prince Albert Frederick George was born at Sandringham on the 14th of December 1895; Princess Victoria Alexandra on the 25th of April 1897; Prince Henry William Frederick Albert on the 31st of March 1900; Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund on the 20th of December 1902; and Prince John Charles Francis on the 12th of July 1905. The duke and duchess of York visited Ireland in 1899, and it had been arranged before the death of Queen Victoria that they should make a tour in the colonies. On the accession of King Edward VII. (1901) this plan was confirmed. They sailed in the “Ophir” on the 16th of March 1901, travelling by the ordinary route, and landed at Melbourne in May, when they opened the first parliament of the Commonwealth. They then proceeded to New Zealand, returning by way of South Africa and Canada. An official account of the tour was published by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace as The Web of Empire (1902). In November 1901 the duke was created prince of Wales. On the death of Edward VII. (May 6, 1910) he succeeded to the Crown as George V., his consort taking the style of Queen Mary.
GEORGE V., king of Hanover (1819–1878), was the only son
of Ernest Augustus, king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland,
and consequently a grandson of the English king George III.
Born in Berlin on the 27th of May 1819, his youth was passed
in England and in Berlin until 1837, when his father became
king of Hanover and he took up his residence in that country.
He lost the sight of one eye during a childish illness, and the
other by an accident in 1833. Being thus totally blind there
were doubts whether he was qualified to succeed to the government
of Hanover; but his father decided that he should do so,
as the law of the dissolved empire only excluded princes who
were born blind. This decision was a fatal one to the dynasty.
Both from his father and from his maternal uncle, Charles
Frederick, prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1785–1837), one of
the most influential men at the Prussian court, George had learned
to take a very high and autocratic view of royal authority. His
blindness prevented him from acquiring the shrewdness and
knowledge of the world which had assisted his father, and he
easily fell into the hands of unwise, and perhaps dishonest and
disloyal, advisers. A man of deep religious feeling, he formed
a fantastic conception of the place assigned to the house of Guelph
in the divine economy, and had ideas of founding a great Guelph
state in Europe. It is, therefore, not surprising that from the
time of his accession in November 1851 he was constantly
engaged in disputes with his Landtag or parliament, and was
consequently in a weak and perilous position when the crisis
in the affairs of Germany came in 1866. Having supported
Austria in the diet of the German confederation in June 1866,
he refused, contrary to the wishes of his parliament, to assent
to the Prussian demand that Hanover should observe an unarmed
neutrality during the war. As a result his country and his
capital were at once occupied by the Prussians, to whom his
army surrendered on the 29th of June 1866, and in the following
September Hanover was formally annexed by Prussia. From
his retreat at Hietzing near Vienna, George appealed in vain
to the powers of Europe; and supported by a large number of
his subjects, an agitation was carried on which for a time caused
some embarrassment to Prussia. All these efforts, however,
to bring about a restoration were unavailing, and the king passed
the remainder of his life at Gmünden in Austria, or in France,
refusing to the last to be reconciled with the Prussian government.
Whilst visiting Paris for medical advice he died in that city on
the 12th of June 1878, and was buried in St George’s chapel,
Windsor. In February 1843 he had married Marie, daughter
of Joseph, duke of Saxe-Altenburg, by whom he left a son and
two daughters. His son, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland
(b. 1845), continued to maintain the claim of his house to the
kingdom of Hanover.
By the capitulation of 1866 the king was allowed to retain his personal property, which included money and securities equal to nearly £1,500,000, which had been sent to England before the Prussian invasion of Hanover. The crown jewels had also been secretly conveyed to England. His valuable plate, which had been hidden at Herrenhausen, was restored to him in 1867; his palace at Herrenhausen, near Hanover, was reserved as his property; and in 1867 the Prussian government agreed to compensate him for the loss of his landed estates, but owing to his continued hostility the payment of the interest on this sum was suspended in the following year (see Hanover).
See O. Klopp, König Georg V. (Hanover, 1878); O. Theodor, Erinnerungen an Georg V. (Bremerhaven, 1878); and O. Meding, Memoiren zur Zeitgeschichte (Leipzig, 1881–1884).
GEORGE I., king of the Hellenes (1845–), second son of King Christian IX. of Denmark, was born at Copenhagen on the 24th of December 1845. After the expulsion of King Otho in 1862, the Greek nation, by a plebiscite, elected the British prince, Alfred, duke of Edinburgh (subsequently duke of Coburg), to the vacant throne, and on his refusal the national assembly requested Great Britain to nominate a candidate. The choice of the British government fell on Prince Christian William Ferdinand Adolphus George of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, whose election as king of the Hellenes, with the title George I., was recognized by the powers (6th of June 1863). The sister of the new sovereign, Princess Alexandra, had a few months before (10th March) married the prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., and his father succeeded to the crown of Denmark in the following November. Another sister, Princess Dagmar, subsequently married the grand duke Alexander Alexandrovitch, afterwards Emperor Alexander III. of Russia. On his accession, King George signed an act resigning his right of succession to the Danish throne in favour of his younger brother Prince Waldemar. He was received with much enthusiasm by the Greeks. Adopting the motto, “My strength is the love of my people,” he ruled in strict accordance with constitutional principles, though not hesitating to make the fullest use of the royal prerogative when the intervention of the crown seemed to be required by circumstances. For the events of his reign see Greece: History.
King George married, on the 27th of October 1867, the grand duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, who became distinguished in Greece for her activity on behalf of charitable objects. Their children were Prince Constantine, duke of Sparta (b. 1868), who married in 1889 Princess Sophia of Prussia, daughter of the emperor Frederick, and granddaughter of Queen Victoria; Prince George (b. 1869), from November 1898 to October 1906 high commissioner of the powers in Crete; Prince Nicholas (b. 1872), who married in 1902 the grand duchess Helen-Vladimirovna of Russia; Prince Andrew (b. 1882), who married in 1903 Princess Alice of Battenberg; Prince Christopher (b. 1888); and a daughter, Princess Marie (b. 1876), who married in 1900 the grand duke George Michailovïch of Russia.
GEORGE, king of Saxony (1832–1904), the youngest son of
King John of Saxony (d. 1873) and Queen Amelia, was born at
Dresden on the 8th of August 1832. From an early age he
received a careful scientific and military training, and in 1846
entered the active army as a lieutenant of artillery. In 1849–1850
he was a student at the university of Bonn, but soon returned
to military life, for which he had a predilection. In the Austro-Prussian
War of 1866 he commanded a Saxon cavalry brigade,
and in the early part of the war of 1870–71 a division, but
later succeeded to the supreme command of the XII. (Saxon)
army corps in the room of his brother, the crown prince Albert
(afterwards king) of Saxony. His name is inseparably associated
with this campaign, during which he showed undoubted military
ability and an intrepidity which communicated itself to all
ranks under his command, notably at the battles of St Privat
and Beaumont, in which he greatly distinguished himself. On
his brother succeeding to the throne he became commander-in-chief
of the Saxon army, and was in 1888 made a Prussian
field marshal by the emperor William I. He married in 1859
the infanta Maria, sister of King Louis of Portugal, and King
