Frederick Prince of Wales
1707 – 1751 · Generation XXX · Prince of Wales · House of Hanover
Frederick Prince of Wales (1707–1751). Prince of Wales. Married Augusta of Saxe-Gotha in 1736. Predeceased his father; the crown passed to his son George III. Left behind in Hanover at seven when his parents sailed for Britain, he did not see them again for fourteen years, and the three were never close. Arriving in London in 1728, he gathered a court of opposition politicians, who championed a rival opera company to Handel’s, and he openly opposed his father’s government. In 1737 he carried Augusta, already in labour, from Hampton Court to St James’s by night so that the king and queen could not attend the birth; banished from court, he kept a rival household at Leicester House. He patronised painters and Huguenot craftsmen; his support also produced “Rule, Britannia!”, first heard in a masque at his Cliveden home in 1740; and he backed, and sometimes played, cricket. He died at Leicester House in 1751, aged forty-four, with his political ambitions still unmet; a pulmonary embolism is now thought the likely cause.
Place in the family
- Frederick Prince of Wales was a great-grandfather of Queen Victoria.
- Frederick Prince of Wales was the eldest of 8 children of King George II and Caroline of Ansbach recorded in this archive.
- The archive records 84 of his descendants, across 10 generations.
One of 35 people of House of Hanover (from 1700) in this archive. Called from Germany by the Act of Settlement; the Georges, then Victoria.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales.
Parents
- King George II (1683 – 1760)
- Caroline of Ansbach (1683 – 1737)
Siblings
- Anne Princess Royal (1709 – 1759)
- Amelia of Great Britain (1711 – 1786)
- Caroline of Great Britain (1713 – 1757)
- George William of Great Britain (1717 – 1718)
- William Augustus Duke of Cumberland (1721 – 1765)
- Mary of Great Britain (1723 – 1772)
- Louise of Great Britain (1724 – 1751)
Partners
- Married Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (1719 – 1772) in 1736 — 9 children together
Children
- Augusta of Great Britain (1737 – 1813)
- King George III (1738 – 1820)
- Edward Duke of York (1739 – 1767)
- Elizabeth of Great Britain (1741 – 1759)
- William Henry Duke of Gloucester (1743 – 1805)
- Henry Duke of Cumberland (1745 – 1790)
- Louisa of Great Britain (1749 – 1768)
- Frederick of Great Britain (1750 – 1765)
- Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (1751 – 1775)
Life
- 1707 — Born
- 1736 — Married Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
- 1751 — Died