Louisa, 4, 9; Amelia, 5, 6; Mary, 4, 8, and Caroline Elizabeth, 4, 9. Both sons were below the average morally, the others range pretty close to the average, except Caroline Elizabeth, who was an exceptionally lovely character.[1] These are not out of line with heredity. The generation before this contains only George II. and his sister, who became queen of Prussia. She was a mediocrity, and George II. represented the bad side of the family inheritance.
George I. was a poor representative of an illustrious stock as his mother was the intellectual Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick, a descendant of the great House of Orange on both sides. It was left for the sister of George, who was the 'Philosophical Queen' of Frederick I., of Prussia, to transmit the genius of Orange into Prussia to the generation of Frederick the Great. It can easily be seen that after the two first Georges, each the poorest among his kind, that the ancient greatness must necessarily die out, as it was never rejuvenated in this house.
To summarize the House of Hanover: It contains 28 persons whose pedigrees have been studied. The total number brought together on a chart containing in addition the full pedigree for George IV. to five generations is 87. Of these 87 only two show high intellectual variation; these are Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick (10) and Caroline of Brandenburg (8). It was shown that these higher streaks were lost by selection. There are only five as low as grade 3 and one in grade 2. Thus the house of Hanover has never deviated much from the average, either in itself or in the nature of the blood introduced, and the characters are much as one would expect from heredity alone. It is a great mistake to consider that Queen Victoria had a bad ancestry. On the other hand, it was in general very good. The ancestry of King Edward VII. is even better and most of Victoria's children have upheld the standard.
Saxe-Coburg the Reigning House of England.
As I started with the present King of England, and since his father was a prince of Saxe-Coburg, I was at once led into that family, which will now be considered.
Albert, the lamented consort of Queen Victoria, was, as every one knows, a highly, cultivated, earnest and noble man, a devoted husband and an enthusiastic reformer in all affairs related to the public good. Well versed in science and literature, he was also an accomplished musician. Did he come by this character through inheritance? It will be seen that characters of this sort are written all over his family pedigree. As the group, just considered, Hanover was remarkable for its dullness, so this group is remarkable for its virtue and bent towards literature, science and art. It is not that the dukes in the male line
- ↑ Wharton, 'Wits and Beaux,' p. 177.
