Now remember August 1714

The centenary of the start of the first world war is getting much more attention than the tricentenary of the accession of George I, which also falls this week. As far as I can tell, no new biographies of the first Hanoverian king are imminent, whereas books on the great war are pouring forth. You can see why. The replacement of a plump, if benign, queen by an ‘obstinate and humdrum German martinet with dull brains and coarse tastes’ (Winston Churchill’s words), who presided over a huge financial scandal and died unlamented after a short reign, need hardly detain us.

But forget the royals and focus on what we might call the reshuffle among politicians that accompanied the change. Here’s how Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, described the last week of July 1714 in a letter to Dean Swift: ‘The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday.