The Norman Conquest of was a linguistic sea change for England, as Anglo-Saxon rule gave way to a series of kings who spoke a dialect of Old French. These kings had varying degrees of English language ability. He also spoke some Latin and Greek. Elizabeth I reigned By the age of 11, Elizabeth was able to speak six languages fluently. When ambassadors and statesmen called upon the royal family, she brilliantly addressed them in their native tongues.
He visited the town of Nairn in and is said to have later remarked that the High Street was so long that the people at either end of the High Street spoke different languages to one another — English and Gaelic. It had been renamed New York by the British settlers in George I was 54 at the time and never bothered to master English.
He spoke to his ministers and advisors in French. George II did learn English, although German remained his native language. Family letters show that he could read and write in both English and German by the age of eight. He also studied French and Latin. He could not speak English very well, and communicated with his predominantly Whig ministers in French. However, he was indirectly responsible for the decline of the Cabinet, which had largely run the government during the reign of Queen Anne.
He stopped attending Cabinet meetings, and instead undercut its power and met with his ministers in private. Though his shrewd diplomatic skills enabled him to forge a strategic alliance with France from to , he could not always get his way in domestic affairs.
George I detested his son, and he supposedly believed the future George II was not his own child. Spencer Spencer 3, 1 1 gold badge 16 16 silver badges 35 35 bronze badges.
Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. In fact, he even opened his first Parliament in English: George is reported, when seated on the throne, to have uttered the words following; but, notwithstanding all the drilling to which he submitted, it must have been a very awkward, if not a ludicrous exhibition: "My Lords and Gentlemen, I have ordered my Lord Chancellor to declare to you, in my name, the causes of calling this parliament.
While this could have simply been a memorised speech, Ragnhild Hatton's landmark biography supplies several more contemporary attestations of the king's ability to understand the English language: The chancellor, Earl Cowper , reports speaking English to the king and receiving answers in French An English sentence recorded by Lady Cowper: "What did they go away for? It was their own faults [sic]", which the Hatton considers to be a direct quote of the king Mehemet, George's Turkish servant, increasingly used untranslated English in the king's private accounts The king's arrangement of, and attendance at, English plays, as well as an expressed desire to see a particular actor perform Some of these are more persuasive than others, but taken as a whole, it becomes apparent that George obviously had at least a working knowledge of English, if not immediately then certainly a few years into his reign.
In fact, within a decade of his assumption of the British throne, we have documentary evidence of George conducting British government business in English: In the Public Record Office there is a memorandum of in English by Townshend on which George has written in his own hand: 'I agree with you in everything contain'd in this letter, and desire you to communicate your opinion either to the Duke of Newcastle or H. Hatton, Ragnhild. George I. Yale University Press, Improve this answer.
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