There is an interesting article at Townhall.com by Michael Barone titled, Three Hundred Years Later Americans Owe a Debt to King George I.

To most Americans George I would be even more obscure than George III who was King of England during the War for Independence. Yet without a George I there would not have been a George III to turn the world upside down-the song the British Army played as they surrendered at Yorktown.

The Georges were Hanoverian Germans and they secured the British throne through the back door so-to-speak.

As Barone points out the previous monarch was a gal by the name of Queen Anne.

Queen Anne near the end of her life from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain#mediaviewer/File:Queen_Anne_by_John_Closterman.jpg

Back in those days government and religion were mixed together in an unsavory soup whereby loyalty to the state was often determined by one’s religion. The union of England, Scotland and Ireland…