Accession of George I and the Hanoverian Succession

With the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the British crown passed to George I of the House of Hanover, securing a Protestant succession but also transforming the nature of imperial governance.

Portrait of George I painted by Godfrey Kneller around 1714, depicting the newly crowned Hanoverian monarch in formal attire at the time of his accession to the British throne. — George c. 1714, the year of his succession, as painted by Godfrey Kneller

George I, more focused on European affairs than colonial administration, relied heavily on Parliament and exercised limited direct oversight of Britain’s North American colonies.

In Virginia, this shift reinforced the authority of local institutions—courts, vestries, and the House of Burgesses—allowing colonial elites to govern with broad autonomy.

These decades of relative self-rule shaped the political and economic environment in which new communities, including the future town of Alexandria, would take root.