William Bramley/The Gods of Eden/23/232

through 1901, and Hanoverian descendants from Queen Victoria's side have furnished the rest all the way up until today. During all of that time, the dynasty continued to maintain strong ties to other German noble families. During the first century and a half of Hanoverian rule in England, for example, the British Hanoverian kings married only the daughters of other German royal families.

Not surprisingly, there was widespread opposition in England to the Hanoverians after they took over. Many Englishmen understandably felt that German monarchs had no business reigning over British subjects. Anti-Hanoverian factions arose seeking to put the Stuarts back on the throne of England. Because of this, the Hanoverians decided not to allow a large standing army of native Britons, fearing they might stage a coup. Instead, whenever England required a large number of troops, the Hanoverians used money from the British treasury to rent mercenaries from their German friends and from their own German principality of Hannover, all at a most handsome fee. The greatest number of mercenaries were provided by the royal family of Hesse, which had close and friendly ties to the German House of Hannover. A curious aspect of the mercenary arrangement is that some important members of those German families, especially from Hesse, later emerged as leaders of a new type of Freemasonry which had been created to topple the Hanoverians from the English throne!

Before we study this remarkable situation, we should look to see what was happening with Freemasonry at that time. Major changes were unfolding that were about to make Freemasonry the single largest branch of the Brotherhood network.