updated: 12/07/2006
From 1714 to 1820 Great Britain and Ireland were ruled by the three German Georges. George I was extremely unpopular in Great Britain, especially due to his supposed inability to speak English – but less so than the Catholic Stuart alternative; George II is variously remembered for ‘The War Of Jenkin’s Ear’ and the unsucessful Jacobite rebellion of 1745 leading to the battle of Culloden (and the subsequent brutality of his brother the duke of Cumberland); George II famously went mad, and managed to mislay the North American colonies.