Sir Robert Walpole and Hanover*

Abstract Historical commonplace notwithstanding, Sir Robert Walpole was not instinctively hostile to Hanover. On the contrary, he consistently argued that Britain's dynastic union with the Electorate should hurt neither country. Walpole and his surrogates formulated this policy to reconcile his early misgivings about Hanoverian influence during the Northern War with his later support for Hanover when endangered by British policy after 1725. Hanover's exposure to Britain's enemies and the accession of George II, whose German sentiments were initially less pronounced than his father's, temporarily combined to make the Electorate more popular. Walpole's policy served him well until the War of Austrian Succession, when the British public cared less for equity than for Hanoverian submission within dynastic union. A survey of his career, however, shows Sir Robert Walpole and British public opinion to have been more charitable towards Hanover than previously thought.