Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:36 AM 11/15/2000 -0500, Dave Jenkins wrote: > >History-wise: The ruling houses of Germany and England were very closely >entwined. George III spoke German in preference to English and clung to >German ideas and customs. His Prussians fought with the English in the >Revolutionary war. Even Kaiser Wilhelm, of World War One infamy, was the >nephew of Queen Victoria of England. Wow! To set the record straight: King George III was the first of the House of Hanover to speak English more fluently than German -- his great-grandfather, George I, spoke virtually no English, and his grandfather, George II, preferred German to English. George III was also King of Hannover. He had no connection with Prussia save that both he and the King of Prussia were electors in the Holy Roman Empire. The German troops employed by the British in the American Revolutionary War were Hessians. George III had no connection with Hesse, either: these guys were hired by the British government. Wilhelm II was the grandson, not the nephew, of Queen Victoria. His mother was Victoria's oldest child. Wilhelm was the nephew of King Edward VII, who had a habit of treating Wilhelm as a petulant child. (Victoria had been much more successful in keeping Wilhelm's self-destructive tendencies at bay.) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!