In 1722, George Augustus, Prince of Wales, had had five children (Frederick, Anne, Amelia, Caroline, George William, and William), one of whom (George William) had died in infancy. In that year, the royal family decided to have Prince Frederick inoculated for smallpox. This meant deliberately infecting him with a (hopefully) minor case of the disease under favorable conditions to prevent the patient from contracting a more severe case in the wild later in life. The process usually worked as intended, but in 1-2% of inoculations the patient contracted a severe case of smallpox and either died or survived with severe long-term effects.
IOTL, Prince Frederick was part of the 98-99% of inoculatees who survived with no severe long-term effects. Suppose instead he'd died, and suppose further that he passes the disease along to his parents and siblings, leaving one of his parents sterile and killing Princess Anne and Princess Amelia.
As per OTL, Prince George takes the throne in 1727 and reigns for a bit over 30 years. Also per OTL, Princess Caroline dies childless in 1757 and Prince William has no children. William takes the throne in 1760, but he (also per OTL) dies a few years later.
The official line of succession would then pass to George II's sister Sophia, Queen in Prussia, who had died in 1740, and then to her heir, Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.
So, my questions, had this incredibly contrived scenario come to pass:
IOTL, Prince Frederick was part of the 98-99% of inoculatees who survived with no severe long-term effects. Suppose instead he'd died, and suppose further that he passes the disease along to his parents and siblings, leaving one of his parents sterile and killing Princess Anne and Princess Amelia.
As per OTL, Prince George takes the throne in 1727 and reigns for a bit over 30 years. Also per OTL, Princess Caroline dies childless in 1757 and Prince William has no children. William takes the throne in 1760, but he (also per OTL) dies a few years later.
The official line of succession would then pass to George II's sister Sophia, Queen in Prussia, who had died in 1740, and then to her heir, Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.
So, my questions, had this incredibly contrived scenario come to pass:
- Would Frederick the Great indeed be the legal heir under the Act of Settlement? The two potential legal issues I see are the requirement that the King of Britain join in communion with the Church of England (Frederick was a Calvinist, but might decide that London is worth a communion) and the ban on the monarch leaving Britain without the consent of Parliament.
- Regardless of the terms of the Act of Settlement, would Frederick be permitted to inherit? There's plenty of recent precedent in Britain for adjusting succession laws when the heir is inconvenient. Would there be enough opposition to the idea of personal union with Prussia to prompt another change in succession laws to pick a different heir?
- Who would be the alternative heir? Someone from a distant cadet branch of the House of Hanover?
- If Frederick does wind up inheriting the British throne, what are the consequences? IOTL, George III's reign saw the American Revolution, a constitutional struggle with Parliament which wound up establishing the precedent that the Prime Minister requires the confidence of the House of Commons to continue to hold office, and the Napoleonic wars. Unless these get butterflied away, the former two would instead happen on Frederick's watch, and the latter would happen under King Frederick William I of England and II of Prussia. Also interesting to consider would be whether Frederich (a promoter of religious tolerance in Prussia) would push for earlier Catholic Emancipation in Britain, and what effect that would have in Ireland.
