ABSTRACT
For a successful change in dynasty, new rulers who came from a different place or culture had to appeal to their new subjects by representing themselves as adapted to the traditions, history, and values of the people, or, in modern terminology, adapted to the national political culture. This chapter re-examines the well-known but still remarkable success of the Guelph dynasty in eighteenth-century Britain. The basis of analysis are the medals produced in the context of the Hanoverian Succession between 1701 and 1727, which were produced by the dynasty to self-legitimise their position in Great Britain. The first example under examination, the Electress Sophia, was portrayed in terms of dynastic continuity rather than change. George I, George II, and his wife Caroline were portrayed by following older English examples and even more the developing British traditions in their representation as defenders of the Protestant faith and supporters of the continuity of religious and liberal politics in Britain. By distributing the medals to the political elite even before the accession of 1714, and to the public on coronation days and ceremonial occasions, the Hanoverians demonstrated their adaptation to British political culture through a source unconstrained by language, easily understood by contemporaries, and collected by broad strata of society.
