The Hanoverian London Mansion That Twice Served as the Alternative Royal Court

Leicester House was a substantial four-storey brick mansion on the north side of the modern Leicester Square in central London. It had been built in 1635 by the second Earl of Leicester as the family’s London residence and remained a Leicester family property until the 1670s. The substantial subsequent 18th-century tenure of the house as the Hanoverian alternative royal court — twice — substantively defined its long political-historical place in English memory.

The reversionary interest

The substantial 18th-century English Hanoverian succession had a structural political problem. The Hanoverian kings (George I, George II) had been substantively unpopular with sections of the English political class on substantively cultural grounds (their preference for German court culture, their continued attention to Hanoverian Continental politics, their relative neglect of the English political establishment). The Hanoverian heirs-presumptive (the future George II, then the future George III via his father Frederick Prince of Wales) substantively benefited from this dynamic: the English political class substantively projected its dissatisfaction with the reigning king onto the heir, who could substantively position himself as the preferred alternative.

The political vehicle for the heir-presumptive’s substantively alternative-court positioning was substantively the Leicester House faction — substantively the set of politicians and courtiers who substantively attached themselves to the heir’s London residence in expectation of substantively favourable preferment when the reigning king died.

The George II tenure (1717–1727)

The first Leicester House tenure substantively came after the 1717 rupture between George I and his son George II (then Prince of Wales). The rupture’s proximate cause was a argument over the baptism of the prince’s infant son George William (who substantively died in infancy three months later); the substantive cause was the long-running personal incompatibility between father and son. George I substantively expelled the Prince and Princess of Wales from St James’s Palace; the Hanoverian couple substantively took up residence at Leicester House in November 1717.

The subsequent 1717–1727 Leicester House decade was substantively the first organised opposition-faction period in English Hanoverian political history. The future Prime Minister Robert Walpole — substantively in temporary opposition through this period — substantively used Leicester House as the principal venue for opposition political coordination. The Leicester House couple substantively patronised literary-political figures (the substantively early Walpolean Whig writers); hosted diplomatic-political gatherings; built the substantively political-financial network that substantively transitioned smoothly into government when George I substantively died in June 1727 and the Leicester House couple became George II and Caroline of Ansbach.

The Leicester House substantively reverted to private use through the late 1720s and 1730s.

The Frederick tenure (1737–1751)

The second Leicester House tenure substantively came after a second Hanoverian father-son rupture. George II had become substantively the same kind of estranged Hanoverian king that his father had been; his eldest son Frederick, Prince of Wales substantively assumed the Leicester House alternative-court role from approximately 1737. The Frederick-Augusta couple substantively moved into the Leicester House in July 1737 after George II had substantively expelled them from St James’s Palace in the aftermath of Augusta’s substantively secretly-conducted first childbirth (an politically-charged event in the Frederick-George II estrangement narrative).

The 1737–1751 Frederick Leicester House decade substantively reproduced the 1717–1727 George II decade as substantively closely as a conscious political-theatrical performance can substantively be expected to. The Frederick faction substantively included opposition Whig politicians (the substantively early Pittite faction, the substantively pre-Newcastle substantively political establishment) and substantively literary-cultural figures (Alexander Pope, James Thomson, George Lyttelton). The Frederick Leicester House substantively was the principal London cultural-political venue for the substantively 1740s opposition faction.

The difference from the 1717–1727 pattern was that Frederick died first. He substantively died at Leicester House on 31 March 1751, aged 44, of complications from a lung abscess. The subsequent Leicester House substantively continued under Augusta’s 21-year widowhood as the primary residence of the heir-presumptive (the future George III) through to the 1760 accession.

The end

George III substantively moved out of Leicester House after his 1760 accession (to the substantively newly-acquired Buckingham House, which would become Buckingham Palace). Augusta substantively moved to Carlton House. The Leicester House substantively reverted to private use for the substantively subsequent thirty years and was substantively demolished in 1791 to clear the site for commercial redevelopment.

The modern Leicester Square substantively occupies the site. No trace of the original mansion survives.