The King Time Forgot
George of Denmark never gets talked about today, even though he was technically the King of England. Subtle, unshakeable, and happy to let his wife Queen Anne take the reins, George was a natural-born consort in a time where men were supposed to hold all the power—but that doesn’t mean his life was ordinary.
Beneath his placid exterior, George lived through family backstabbing, political intrigue, and unimaginable tragedy.
1. He Had All Privilege And No Responsibility
When he was born in 1653 in Copenhagen, Denmark, there was little to suggest Prince George would have anything to do with the English throne—except, that is, his wealth and power. George was the younger son of King Frederick III of Denmark, while his mother came from a line of German dukes.
When his brother, Christian V, took the Danish throne when George was just a teenager, he seemed destined, even happy, to languish as second-rate royalty. But fate had other plans.
2. His Religion Made Him An Eligible Bachelor
Besides his pedigree, the biggest thing recommending George to England was his Protestant faith, as the once religiously unstable country was heading ever more to Protestantism under King Charles II. As such, Charles was eyeing up George to become the husband of his niece, then Lady Anne, also a Protestant. Yet even the idea of this contained scandal.
3. He Was A Pawn
One of the other major Protestant powers of the time was the Dutch Republic. Indeed, Stadtholder William of Orange, a brash, outspoken Dutchman, was married to Anne’s elder sister Mary. The trouble was, the Dutch were too powerful for England’s taste, and in scoping out George, King Charles II was trying to tamp down the striving William’s influence, and the influence of the Dutch in general.
Which is how George’s betrothal to Anne turned into something out of Mission: Impossible.
4. He Had A Top Secret Engagement
George’s marriage negotiations to Anne were a state secret, with Anne’s uncle the Earl of Rochester and one of the English Secretary of States corresponding with the Danish government in utmost confidence to keep any information from leaking to the Dutch. But in 1683, the cat had to come out of the bag.
5. His Wedding Was The Talk Of The Town
George married Anne in the summer of 1685, at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace in London. Naturally, King Charles II attended, along with his wife Queen Catherine of Braganza. Also in attendance was George’s new father-in-law, James, Duke of York—the brother of the King. In other words, it was a very public affair, and the Dutch certainly knew what was happening now. They didn’t like it one bit.
6. He Made An Enemy
William of Orange was a tough, active, and battle-hardened man, and he took to the announcement of the royal wedding none too kindly. He and the Dutch were well aware they had been purposely kept out of the negotiations, and William developed an instant dislike for George and everything he stood for. Then again, the two men were very different.
7. He Didn’t Like Drama
George was amiable to the point of placidity, and while he certainly got the gist that William disliked him, he hardly rose to the bait. Indeed, their rivalry—which would soon rise to international incident levels—was nonetheless largely one-sided, with George preferring to mind his own business.
For now, anyway, he was dealing with major culture shock.
8. He Despaired Of England
When George came over from Denmark, he got a rude awakening. Used to a sleepier court, he was on record as being stunned and even irritated at just how constantly the English court moved around. As he wrote to a friend, “We talk here of … everything else except sitting still all summer, which was the height of my ambition. God send me a quiet life somewhere, for I shall not be long able to bear this perpetual motion”.
Unfortunately, his life was about to get even more dramatic, and a lot more tragic.
9. He Loved His Wife
George and Anne got along well, and their relationship soon flourished into one of love and mutual admiration. It was no surprise, then, when Anne became pregnant just a few months after her marriage. As the English royal family was currently somewhat lacking in heirs, everyone looked on the pregnancy with bated breath. They would let out that breath into a sob.
10. They Tried And Tried Again
The spring after their wedding, Anne gave birth—to a stillborn girl. Nonetheless, although it was a heavy blow, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for the time. In fact, she and George bounced back so well, Anne was pregnant the next year, giving birth to a daughter, Mary. They had another girl, Anne Sophia, the year after. Anne was even pregnant again soon after.
But this was just the buildup before it all crashed down.
11. He Lost Another Child
In 1687, while Mary and Anne Sophia were still infants, horror came to the royal family. Both George and his two girls caught smallpox. The stress for Anne, who had already lived through her own infection and witnessed her loved ones perish years earlier, was immense. Before long, it triggered a miscarriage, with more tragedy on the way.
12. His Family Was Destroyed
Although George made it through the illness, his two baby girls did not. In a matter of days, his small and growing family had been whittled down to almost nothing, and the effect on George and Anne was heartbreaking. As one courtier related, they had “taken [the deaths] very heavily”. Yet the devastation also brought them closer together.
13. They Mourned Together
In the wake of their babies’ deaths, George and Anne clung together more than ever, especially as George convalesced. “Sometimes they wept,” the same courtier wrote, “sometimes they mourned in words; then sat silent, hand in hand; he sick in bed, and she the carefullest nurse to him that can be imagined”.
In a happier tale, this would be the turning point to something better. Instead, it was just a harbinger of the loss and turmoil to come.
14. He Got Closer To The Throne
Amidst this bereavement, George’s surroundings were also full of danger. In 1685, just after little Mary’s birth, King Charles II passed, and the crown went to Anne’s father, now King James II of England. As the daughter and son-in-law of a King, it raised Anne and George’s profile—but it also put them in the middle of a power struggle that would bring down the throne.
15. His Father-In-Law Was Controversial
There was one thing seriously wrong with James becoming King: Although his daughters Mary and Anne were Protestant, he had converted to Catholicism decades before—at first in secret, but he now openly avowed his faith. For many of James’s advisors, not to mention his family, this was an uncomfortable choice, and one that could set back peace by centuries.
So when his coronation came, it turned into a family feud.
16. His Brother-In-Law Played Power Games
George’s brother-in-law William of Orange refused to come to the coronation, likely in part because of these religious issues. But he had pettier reasons. William’s main motive for snubbing the rite was that George would take precedence over him in the ceremony. Even though they were both the King’s sons-in-law, at the end of the day George was a prince and William was just an elected stadtholder.
George probably couldn’t have cared less about all this jockeying for power, but he was pulled into the struggle all the same.
17. His King Went Wild
By the time smallpox came and took George and Anne’s girls, the royal family was on fire, both within and without. James’s Catholicism had become increasingly obvious, and was beginning to press on public policy—namely, he kept trying to push out the Declaration of Indulgence, which gave religious freedoms in particular to Roman Catholics.
Nobody in his parliament was happy. Then suddenly, George and Anne’s public and private lives collided.
18. He Suffered Behind Palace Doors
Just after miscarrying and losing their daughters to smallpox, Anne was pregnant again—and at the end of 1687, she gave birth to stillborn son. But just as she and George grieved for another lost child, alarming news came from another quarter: King James’s second wife, Anne’s Catholic step-mother Mary of Modena, was pregnant herself. Cue disaster.
19. The Royal Family Was Torn Apart
Anne and George likely just wanted to mourn in private, but instead they had to deal with a burgeoning political crisis. James’s Protestant courtiers—the irritable William of Orange included—were apoplectic at the thought of a Catholic heir.
Before, James’s little conversion to Catholicism could just be a blip in English history. Now, they had a real problem on their hands…and it was about to get much worse.
20. He Witnessed The Birth Of A Conspiracy Theory
In June of 1688, the most dire happy tidings came. Mary of Modena had given birth to a healthy baby boy, James Francis, throwing the Protestant succession plan into chaos. Indeed, some officials were so in denial, they believed Mary had actually birthed a stillborn, and that a changeling boy had been smuggled into her bedchamber via a warming pan to cover it up.
Prince George just wanted a quiet life. Now he got full blown revolution.
21. He Got Disastrous News
In early November, 1688, with the scandalous James Francis just months old, Prince George received word that must have made his blood run cold. A Danish envoy informed him that his disgruntled brother-in-law William of Orange, outraged at the Papism running rampant at the royal court, was preparing to invade England in what would become the “Glorious Revolution”. George’s response was surprising.
22. He Could Be Cunning
Prince George liked to exclude himself from politicking, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t understand his surroundings or think on his feet. He told the envoy that since King James’s army was as discontent with their King as everyone else, he would never take official command under the monarch. At the same time, George wasn’t ready to turn traitor, and decided to serve as a volunteer.
It was a masterful high wire act, and George would have to become even more agile.
23. He Couldn’t Believe It
George accompanied the King’s troops as they faced William’s family-feud style invasion, ready to defend the throne in full glory—but as the days wore on, all he began to see around him was defection. George, who apparently still had some hope left for King James, Catholic or not, reportedly cried out “Est-il possible?” (Is it possible?) after every turncoat. Until, that is, he became one himself.
24. He Wounded The King
On November 24, 1688, just bare weeks after the invasion started, George finally threw in his lot with William of Orange. His act left a vicious mark. King James reportedly sneered, “So ‘Est-il possible is gone too,” and although James downplayed George’s defection in his later memoirs, witnesses could see just how much it affected him.
As well it should have. For when the cordial Prince George abandoned him, it was the beginning of the end.
25. He Was One Step From The Crown
In December, King James II fled to France, giving up his crown to his daughter Mary and his bellicose son-in-law William. Though he never stopped hoping to get it back, what’s done was done: The next year, William and Mary became joint monarchs, and, as the pair had no children, George’s wife Anne became heir presumptive.
Perpetual motion, a revolution, and now a wife next in line for the crown. It was certainly not the life George signed up for when he came to England. No peace was to come.
26. His Brother-In-Law Conned Him
Now that he was King William III, William of Orange didn’t drop his one-sided rivalry with Prince George. Instead, he used his power to turn the screws harder. In order to help William, George had given up mortgages tied to lands he owned, and William had promised to pay George interest as compensation—only to not bother to do so for a decade.
Still, George continued to help the new king, and only received more betrayal.
27. He Got Snubbed
In the following years, William had to constantly defend his crown from the old King James and his supporters, the so-called Jacobites, and George wanted in on the action. Paying his own way, George followed William’s troops…only for William to deny him a place in the command. While William may have simply mistrusted George’s battle acumen, his next snub was impossible to ignore.
28. He Was Treated Like A Servant
Not content to merely keep Prince George from power, William also kept him from his presence, refusing to let George even travel in his coach while on campaign. William also reportedly instructed his Dutch guards to never salute Prince George if they ever saw him, completing the humiliation. But there was a final straw.
29. He Admitted Defeat
Prince George was a lover, not a fighter, and in response to William’s ego trip about the Army, George did the sensible thing and tried to join the Navy instead. It was no good. William took his absolute power very seriously, and kept George from the water as well.
Defeated, George and Anne retreated from William and Mary’s court…with an ace up their sleeve.
30. He Finally Had An Heir
In the summer of 1989, a miracle happened. Anne finally gave birth to a healthy boy, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester. With King William and Queen Mary still childless, it was the little prince who carried all the hopes for protestantism and the Glorious Revolution.
Though still on the fringes of King William and Queen Mary’s court, Anne and George got a serious upgrade in the eyes of the government. But there was something seriously wrong.
31. His Son Got Sick
Just before Prince William’s birth, Anne had suffered yet another miscarriage, bringing her total to six pregnancies with no children to show for it. So she and George must have been overjoyed when their breathing baby boy came into the world in Hampton Court Palace—and terrified when they saw how sickly he was.
At three weeks old, George’s son began experiencing horrible convulsions, and the cause behind them was alarming.
32. Fate Wouldn’t Show Him Mercy
As far as historians can tell, George’s heir contracted meningitis during his birth, which had triggered the convulsions. More than that, this same meningitis also likely gave the little prince hydrocephalus, where spinal fluid builds up in the brain, increases the pressure to the skull, and can swell the head. It led to more complications.
33. His Heir Was Permanently Ill
Because of these issues, William was an intensely sickly boy as he grew, and suffered from a persistent “ague”. His head was much larger than it should have been and needed constant draining, so surgeons would pierce his skull to capture the fluid. His motor skills were also affected, and he often stumbled over his own feet.
George, desperate to help his son, often only ended up hurting him.
34. He Punished His Son
As William left his toddler years, George noticed that his son didn’t “want to”—perhaps couldn’t—climb stairs without the aid of two attendants to hold him. Believing this was spoiled behavior and not to be countenanced, George birched William until the boy promised he would walk by himself. Sadly, even George’s gentler remedies were painful.
35. His Cure Was Worse Than The Disease
George and Anne were constantly trying to find ways to improve William’s health, but some of their methods were kinder than others. When he was infant, William benefitted from long drives in the fresh air, but when he had bouts of his ague, they would treat it with doses of Jesuit’s bark, a kind of quinine, which usually made him vomit.
All in all, Prince William was not an heir to hang a dynasty on, and so George and Anne continued trying to have more children. Trying, and failing.
36. He Watched Baby After Baby Perish
As George and Anne’s son grew up, Anne was almost continually pregnant, and continually bereft. They lost a premature daughter in 1690, an infant son in 1692, and Anne gave birth to a stillborn girl in 1693 before having a miscarriage in 1694. Four more pregnancies from Anne, and George was still the father of one sickly boy.
Even so, Prince William would outlive one of his adult relatives.
37. His Family Was In Trouble
Sickly or not, George and Anne’s young son did bring them closer to King William and Queen Mary over the years. Tragedy struck anyway. In 1694, smallpox came back with a vengeance and carried away Mary, causing England to lose its queen and Anne to lose her sister.
It wasn’t the only consequence: With Mary’s line locked into the succession, Anne went from heir presumptive to heir apparent, almost guaranteeing her the crown. Before she could get to the throne, she and her husband would suffer unimaginable pain.
38. He Was Desperate For Another Child
With Mary gone and King William aging, it was never more important that George and Anne produce children. Their desperation was clear, and their misfortunes turned exponential: George watched as Anne became pregnant twice and miscarried twice in 1696, and then witnessed the very same thing happen the next year. Possibly two of those miscarriages were of twins.
Hearts plainly breaking, they kept going.
39. They Gave Up
Anne’s last two pregnancies would be among her worst. Miscarrying in 1698 and then again in early 1700, both children laid dead in her womb for days before she gave birth—a ghastly phenomenon she had already experienced back in 1687, with her fifth pregnancy.
In total, Anne would have at least 17 pregnancies, with only one leading to a growing child. But the same year they lost the last baby, George and Anne would lose the last thing they had left.
40. His Son Was On The Brink
In the summer of 1700, George and his wife were trying to get their spirits up, and their son Prince William had a birthday party where he danced for much of the night. It went sideways. Suddenly fatigued from the physical strain, William took to his bed, where he began to experience a sore throat, chills, and then a headache and fever. There was no coming back.
41. He Buried Another Child
Prince William’s health plummeted until he expired after midnight on July 30, 1700, just a week after his 11th birthday and with his devastated parents by his side. The young heir likely fell victim to, yet again, smallpox, or else bacterial pharyngitis. Perhaps saddest of all, however, is that the culprit is somewhat immaterial: Most experts believe he would have perished eventually anyway, due to complications from his hydrocephalus.
This hardly could have comforted Prince George and his wife.
42. He Was In A Succession Crisis
Prince George and Anne were “overwhelmed with grief,” but they didn’t have the luxury of processing their emotions. After all, the monarchy was now in a crisis. With William’s death, Anne’s royal House of Stuart was felled at the root, and there were no more heirs likely to come.
Scrambling, the government hastily changed the succession laws to include Anne’s distant German relatives in the House of Hanover—and not a moment too soon.
43. He Became King
In 1702, George’s brother-in-law William of Orange died at the age of 51 after a bitter bout of pneumonia, turning Anne into Queen Anne and George into her consort. It was a long time coming, and also nothing either of them particularly relished. George was 49 years old, Anne 37, and both of them were dragging around a lifetime of grief with little prospects for a royal legacy. But they did get some payback.
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44. He Finally Got What He Wanted
George had spent much of his time in the English court on the outside looking in, but his myriad personal tragedies had rightfully eclipsed his concerns for his royal status. Now, however, Anne gave him everything he’d ever asked for: She made him generalissimo of the English military and Lord High Admiral of the Royal Navy, both quarters William of Orange had never let him touch.
Still, tragedy crept, ever persistent, into their lives.
45. His Wife Suffered
Since at least 1698, Anne had experienced symptoms of what they believed was gout, including pains in her limbs, stomach, and head. These episodes put her in “extreme pain and agony,” and as time went on they made her consistently lame. Eventually, Anne could only move around reliably while in a sedan chair.
Yet though her body failed her, George never did.
46. He Was A Good Husband
Where William of Orange had been an equal, if not a driving force in his marriage to Anne’s sister Mary, George was happy to sit back and let his wife have all the power during her reign. He followed her lead in voting for policies, and—except for the fact he never converted to the Church of England and maintained his Lutheran faith—was her man to the core. As historian Anne Somerset wryly put it, “almost by accident, George achieved a major advance for feminism”.
Yet history has not looked kindly on Prince George.
47. They Thought He Was A Dullard
Even during his own time, George’s calm manners had a tendency to bore people; King Charles II famously quipped, "I have tried him drunk, and I have tried him sober and there is nothing in him”. These qualities only ballooned into caricature in the centuries after, until a young Queen Victoria prayed that her consort Albert would never take on the “subordinate part played by the very stupid and insignificant husband of Queen Anne".
Yet all these accusations of dullness fail to account for the immense tragedy that George endured, in consummate dignity, alongside his wife. In the end, though, it was George who gave Anne one last heartbreak.
48. His Health Failed Him
Although Anne was more outwardly ill at times, George had long and quietly suffered from asthma—in another snide remark, one Lord quipped that George had to breathe hard lest he be taken for dead—and he spent much of his time flitting to places where the air was fresher and less hard on his lungs.
By 1706, his health was failing rapidly, and by 1708, in his early 50s, George was on his deathbed. He did manage a surprise.
49. He Was Loyal To The End
At the time of his dire illness, George was actually in the middle of a rare political scandal. The Navy was accused of mismanagement, and as Lord High Admiral—even though this was only a ceremonial role—George was being pressured to fire his friend George Churchill, the real power behind the Navy.
But here, George showed his mettle: He defended Churchill, refusing to fire him even as he took his last breaths. His defiance couldn’t last long.
50. She Couldn’t Leave Him
On October 28, 1708, Prince George of Denmark breathed his last—and although his protection over Churchill immediately dissipated and the man was soon fired, George’s power over his wife only increased in death. One courtier described how, having lost so much already, Anne’s sadness was “unspeakable” and that she “continued kissing him the very moment his breath went out of his body”.
And George had one last scandal left in him.
51. He Started A Fight
Over the years, Anne’s best friend and most powerful influence—even beyond George—had been Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, though their intimacy was fading at the time. George’s death drove the final stake through their relationship. After his passing, the Duchess swept in and tried to regain control of Anne, pushing her to leave his body and relocate, and then hiding away a portrait of George that Anne had displayed in her bedchamber.
But Anne couldn’t let go of George’s memory so easily, and never forgave her friend for the intrusion into her grief. The pair were never close again.
52. He Didn’t Know What We Do
Throughout their marriage, George of Denmark and Queen Anne suffered 18 devastating pregnancy losses and the death of their young son. At the time, doctors offered various interpretations for what was plaguing them, but none could truly explain or solve it. Finally, years later, modern historians now believe they know the disturbing cause that silently haunted the royal couple for decades.
Perhaps the most likely cause is the autoimmune condition lupus, which can cause painful physical symptoms. Others believe that Queen Anne could have suffered from the lesser-known autoimmune disorder antiphospholipid syndrome, which is often marked by miscarriages.
53. He Mattered
Prince George of Denmark only deserves his reputation as a footnote in history if you’re not looking closely enough. Neither as flashy nor as feisty as his predecessor King William III, his life was nonetheless heavy with scandal, revolution, and a dynasty in its last gasps, and for that alone he’s worthy of study.
But if, as Winston Churchill said of him in the 1930s, George “mattered very little” except to Anne—well, especially given all they endured, isn’t that enough?
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