How Queen Caroline Used King Arthur Mythology to Bolster the Hanoverian Dynasty

In 1735, Queen Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach commissioned Merlin’s Cave at Richmond, using Arthurian imagery as part of an effort to connect the Hanoverian dynasty with Britain’s legendary past.

Caroline belonged to the House of Hanover, a German dynasty that had inherited the British throne only two decades earlier. Arthurian legend offered a way to associate the relatively new royal house with a shared British cultural history.

Smithsonian Magazine, republishing an analysis from The Conversation, describes the attraction as both a cultural project and an example of early political image-making.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine.