At the order of the Dowager Electress, the Hanoverian agents, supported by the Whig leaders, demanded that a writ of summons be issued which would call the Duke to England to sit in Parliament, thus further insuring the Succession by establishing a Hanoverian Prince in England before the Queen's death.

He never married and had no children ; his compositions and musical estate were purchased from his beneficiaries by the Electress of Saxony, Maria Josepha of Austria and after his death were closely guarded ( in contrast to his treatment when he was alive ) and regarded as the court's possessions.

The Electress, now the first-lady of Tuscany, and Gian Gastone were not on good terms: he scorned her for marrying him to Anna Maria Franziska, who, for eleven years, made his life unbearable.

Though both England and Scotland recognised Anne as their Queen, only the English Parliament had settled on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, as the heir.

He was the heir apparent of his father's Electorate of Hanover and third-in-line to the British throne of his distant cousin Queen Anne, after his grandmother Dowager Electress Sophia and his father the Elector.

The succession of her husband's family to the British throne was still insecure, as Queen Anne's half-brother James Stuart contested the Hanoverian claim, and Queen Anne and Caroline's grandmother-in-law Dowager Electress Sophia had fallen out.

" In June 1714, Dowager Electress Sophia died in Caroline's arms at the age of 84, and Caroline's father-in-law became heir presumptive to Queen Anne.

Elizabeth Stuart ( 19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662 ) was, as the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, Electress Palatine and briefly Queen of Bohemia.

Electress Charlotte became Queen when her husband formally ascended the throne on 1 January 1806 and was crowned as such on the same day at Stuttgart, Germany.

Notwithstanding the favor shown to him by the Elector Maximilian Emanuel, he accepted in 1688 the appointment of Kapellmeister at the court of Hanover, where he speedily improved an acquaintance dating from 1681 with Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg ( Celle ; afterwards Elector of Hanover ), winning also a pleasant footing with the Elector's daughter Sophia Charlotte ( afterwards Electress of Brandenburg and Queen of Prussia ), the philosopher Leibniz, the Abbate Ortensio Mauro, and many men of letters and intelligence, and where, in 1710, he showed great kindness to Handel, who was then just entering upon his glorious career.

Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister of Charles I of England and Electress Palatine, being in exile in the Netherlands, commissioned Honthorst as painter and tutor to teach her children drawing.

In 1706, Gildon, a staunch Whig by this point ( in contrast to his family's Toryism and Jacobitism ), published letters to the Electress Sophia to come visit England, with an eye toward being on hand to take the throne upon Queen Anne's death.

* Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James VI & I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Electress Palatine and Queen of Bohemia

By marrying Frederick, she became Electress of Brandenburg in 1688, and after the elevation of Brandenburg-Prussia to a kingdom in 1701, she became the first Queen in Prussia.

In 1799 her husband became Elector Palatine and Elector of Bavaria, and in 1804 King of Bavaria ( her titles accordingly being Duchess, then Electress, then Queen ).

At the time of his death in Arboga, Sweden ( which occurred during the visit to his fourth daughter, the Queen of Sweden ), two of his other daughters were, respectively, Electress of Bavaria and the newly ascended Empress of Russia.

The Electress Dowager maintained an attitude of reserve and even refused to grant the Swedish king a personal meeting with Maria Eleonora.

On his return to Berlin, the Electress Dowager seems to have become completely captivated by the charming Swedish king.

It was the Electress Dowager, however, who, in accordance with Hohenzollern family custom, had the last word in bestowing her daughter's hand in marriage.

Joachim ( 1505 – 1571 ), the future elector of Brandenburg, was the eldest son and heir of their current claimant of Luxembourg, Joachim I, Elector of Brandenburg ( 1484 – 1535 ), the eldest son and heir of the late Margaret of Thuringia ( 1449 – 1501 ), Dowager Electress of Brandenburg, herself the eldest daughter and heiress of Anna, Duchess of Luxembourg and William of Saxony, Landgrave of Thuringia.

* 23 January 1698 – 8 June 1714: Her Most Serene Highness The Dowager Electress of Hanover

Because Frederick Christian's eldest son was a minor, his brother Franz Xavier and the Dowager Electress Maria Antonia took the joint regency of the Electorate until the boy's majority.

The queen was the daughter of Dowager Electress Sophia of Hanover, and the sister of George, Elector of Hanover.

Dowager Electress Sophia called her " the most agreeable Princess in Germany ".

The Act for the Naturalization of the Most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Issue of her Body was an Act of the Parliament of England ( 4 & 5 Ann.

It followed the Act of Settlement 1701 whereby Dowager Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants were declared to be in the line of succession to the throne ( her son George I later became king ).

On 19 February 1743, Anna Maria Luisa de ' Medici, Dowager Electress Palatine, died of an " oppression on the breast ".

* 8 June 1716 – 18 February 1743: Her Serene Highness The Dowager Electress of the Rhine

Gian Gastone recalled Governor Violante Beatrice to the royal court and banished his sister, the Dowager Electress, to the Villa La Quiete.

Gian Gastone, knowing the Dowager Electress probably would never succeed, went about ensuring his sister's inheritance of all the House of Medici's private property.

Governor Violante Beatrice and the Dowager Electress, following the former's sojourn in Rome, in spite of their mutual dislike of each other, attempted to ameliorate Gian Gastone's decadent public image together.

To discredit these, the Dowager Electress induced Gian Gastone to make a public appearance — his final one — on Saint John the Baptist's day of 1729.

He was, however, appointed joint-guardian of the Infante with Dorothea Sophia of the Rhine, Dowager Duchess of Parma and the Electress Palatine's sister-in-law.

Anna Maria Luisa, the Dowager Electress Palatine, rushed to his bedside when it became apparent he would not recover.

Worried for her brother's soul, the Dowager Electress had the irreligious Gian Gastone repent for his sins.

The Act, however, declared that they would be followed by James I & VI's granddaughter Sophia, Electress and Dowager Duchess of Hanover ( the daughter of James's daughter Elizabeth Stuart ) and her heirs.

In June 1717, Cosimo declared his wish that the House of Este should succeed the Electress.

The plan was about to be approved by the powers convened at Geertruidenberg when Cosimo abruptly added that if himself and his two sons predeceased his daughter, the Electress Palatine, she should succeed and the republic be re-instituted following her death.

The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that was passed in 1701 to settle the succession to the English and Irish crowns and thrones on the Electress Sophia of Hanover ( a granddaughter of James I ) and her Protestant heirs.

The Act of Settlement provided that the throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover – a granddaughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England, niece of Charles I of Scotland and England – and her Protestant descendants who had not married a Roman Catholic ; those who were Roman Catholic, and those who married a Roman Catholic, were barred from ascending the throne " for ever ".

Sophia of the Palatine, later Electress of HanoverPortrait by her sister Louise Hollandine, c. 1644

To address the succession crisis and preclude a Catholic restoration, the Parliament of England enacted the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that, failing the issue of Anne and of William III by any future marriage, the Crown of England and Ireland would go to Sophia, Electress of Hanover and her Protestant descendants.

The Act of Settlement 1701 bestowed succession on the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her descendants while excluding Roman Catholics.

The wife of Augustus I, the Electress Christiane Eberhardine, refused to follow her husband's example and remained a staunch Protestant.

The Electress Christiane, who remained Protestant and refused to move to Poland with her husband, preferred to spend her time in the mansion in Pretzsch on the Elbe, where she died.

In 1711, King Louis's sister-in-law, the Princess Palatine, sent a letter to her aunt, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, stating that the prisoner had " two musketeers at his side to kill him if he removed his mask ".

On her marriage to Elector Johann Wilhelm II, she became Electress Palatine, and, by patronising musicians, she earned for the contemporary Palatine court the reputation of an important music centre.

The Electress spent her time enjoying balls, musical performances and other festivities.

Agostino Steffani, a polymath, was sponsored by the Electress from his arrival in Düsseldorf, in 1703, until her return to Tuscany ; the Conservatorio library in Florence houses two editions of his chamber duets.

He despised the Electress for engineering his unhappy marriage with Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, while she detested his liberal policies: he repealed all of his father's anti-Semitic statutes and revelled in upsetting her.

Consequently, the Electress was compelled to abandon her apartment in the left wing of the royal palace, the Pitti, for the Villa La Quiete.

The Viceroy, the Prince de Craon, whom the Electress disliked for his " vulgar " court, allowed the Electress to live undisturbed in her own wing of the Pitti, living in virtual seclusion, only on occasion receiving a select-number of guests under a black dais in her silver-clad audience room.