A vaguely ridiculous princeling from the German duchy of Hanover, a distant cousin, was the royal family’s closest legal relative after the death of Queen Anne. Although he barely spoke a word of English, he was promptly imported from Germany to rule Britain as King George I. Thus, the House of Hanover was established. It would be distinguished by five generations of fathers and sons who absolutely despised one another.
            The animosity that existed between George I and his son, also named George, went back years to when the father was sovereign of only his miniature German kingdom of Hanover, the son was just a boy, and a messy affair alienated them forever. The elder George’s beautiful but reckless wife, Sophia Dorothea, was found to be sleeping with a Swedish officer by the name of Philip von Konigsmark. After the affair was discovered, Konigsmark mysteriously disappeared. It was rumored that George had him hacked to pieces and buried beneath the floorboards of his palace at Hanover. Sophia Dorothea’s fate was arguably worse. After divorcing her, George ordered his ex-wife locked away for the rest of her life. She would live another thirty-two years, forbidden from ever seeing her children again.
            Young George was so despondent over the fate of his mother that he once reportedly swam the moat of her castle prison in a vain attempt to rescue her. He never forgave his father for the mistreatment of his mother and grew up hating him. The feeling was mutual. When George I became king of Britain, his son, now Prince of Wales, sought to undermine him at every opportunity by courting political opponents to the king’s party. He even formed his own opposition party in both houses of Parliament. This did not endear son to father.
            Simmering tensions between the two evolved into all-out war when King George booted Prince George out of the palace. He was forbidden from seeing his own children, who remained in the king’s care, and was declared persona non grata to anyone who wished to retain the king’s favor. Undeterred, the Prince of Wales established a rival court at his new home, Leicester House. Among the favorite activities of the dissidents who gathered there was making fun of the king and all his blundering ways—especially his penchant for ugly mistresses.
            Whenever father and son did meet, fearful scenes tended to erupt. King George even ordered the prince arrested at one point, but nothing came of it except even more hostility. It was said that Prince George could not wait for his father to die so he could finally free his mother, but this was not to be. Sophia Dorothea died in 1726, a year before her ex-husband. When the prince heard the news that the king had finally expired, he could hardly believe it. “Dat is one big lie,” he exclaimed in his thick German accent, incredulous that he was at last free from his paternal enemy.
            Relations between the new King George II and his own son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, were even less tender. “Our first-born is the greatest ass, the greatest liar, the greatest canaille and the greatest beast in the whole world and we heartily wish he was out of it,” the proud papa once said. George I had wanted his grandson to marry Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, but as soon as George II ascended to the throne he immediately nixed the match. “I did not think that ingrafting my half-witted coxcomb upon a mad woman would improve the breed,” he later explained.
            Prince Frederick held his father in equal esteem, describing him as “an obstinate self-indulgent miserly martinet with an insatiable sexual appetite.” He had a point. Like his father before him, the king became the object of ridicule within his son’s social circles. Hearing such insightful declarations as “I hate all boets and bainters,” who could resist? Thanks to King George’s increasing obsession with order and punctuality, his court became rigid and dull. “No mill horse ever went on a more constant track on a more unchanging circle,” Lord Hervey once remarked. All the fun was to be had at Prince Frederick’s alternative court.
            Hoping to undermine his son’s ability to entertain, and thus his social standing, King George slashed the prince’s allowance. He also made it clear, just as his own father had done to him before, that any contact with Frederick or his wife would be considered a gross insult to the king. But the Prince of Wales thrived nevertheless, and constantly eclipsed his father among London’s glittering elite. “My Got,” gasped the outraged king, “popularity always makes me sick, but [Frederick’s] makes me vomit.” King George could barely muster even a facade of mourning when Prince Frederick died in 1751.
            Because of Frederick’s early death, George II was succeeded by his grandson, George III, in 1760. With a large brood of debauched sons, the king who lost the American colonies had plenty of opportunity to continue the great Hanoverian tradition of father-son feuding. When he wasn’t exhibiting symptoms of madness, King George was rather prudish in his moral outlook. His sons’ wild behavior, therefore, upset him tremendously, and he never failed to scold them whenever the opportunity arose.
            He was particularly disturbed by his eldest son and heir, the future George IV. During his rational moments the king berated the Prince of Wales for his compulsive drinking, gambling, and womanizing, but it was during his lapses into insanity that King George really let loose on his son. During one episode, the royal family was dining at Windsor Castle when the king exploded in a mad fit. Interrupting the conversation, George suddenly rose up from the table, grabbed the prince by the collar, yanked him out of his chair and flung him against a wall. Prince George broke into tears after the scene, but recovered sufficiently to use his father’s mental illness to his advantage.
            The loyal son delighted audiences all over London with his wicked imitations of his dad’s foaming-at-the-mouth bouts of insanity. And he made no secret of his desire to see the king locked away forever so he could rule in his stead. When it looked like the king’s illness was becoming permanent, the younger George joyfully swept into action and prepared for his Regency. George III disappointed him, however. The king seemed to rally after each episode, leaving the prince to wait like a buzzard for a permanent descent into insanity. He was finally rewarded in 1810, when his father left reason behind for good.
            With no son of his own to carry on the father-son feuding for which the Hanoverians had become so famous, George IV simply turned on his daughter, Charlotte. He was repelled by the spirited girl, detecting in his heir elements of her crude, licentious mother, Caroline, from whom he was bitterly estranged. When Princess Charlotte had the grace to die in labor, there were no other children among George III’s sons, so a mad scramble began among them to settle down and sire an heir. Edward, Duke of Kent, was the lucky one, fathering the future Queen Victoria in 1819.