Although apparently not a Huguenot, Clausen was a master of the Huguenot style. His work is scarce, but among pieces struck with his maker's mark and bearing the Royal Arms are the following: a set of twelve cups and covers of 1719, formerly a part of the Cumberland plate dispersed through Crichton Bros. in 1925, of which one pair is in H.M. the Queen's personal collection; a set of eight fine gilt trencher salts of 1718, formerly in the Collection of J.P. Morgan and sold from the Estate of Mrs. Catherine A. Morgan in these Rooms April 18, 1989, lot 573; and a pair of gilt double salt cellars of 1721 at Windsor Castle. Although traditionally thought to have been of German origin, Grimwade records that he appears as "Nicholaus Clausen Parish of St. Martin in the fields" in the Naturalization Act of 1709, with witnesses Gotfried Wittich and Sven Holst, which seems to suggest a Swedish origin (The London Goldsmiths 1697-1837, 3rd. ed., 1990, p.466). His last and most impressive work is the Imperial Throne of 1731 in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

On the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the crown passed by the Act of Settlement, to the great-grandson of James I, George, Elector of Hanover, who was born in 1660. He had married in 1682 Sophia Dorothy, daughter of the Duke of Zelle, who died insane in 1726 having been kept incarcerated in Germany by her husband for many years. George I died in 1727.