In the later part of his life, George had recurrent and eventually permanentmental illness. The exact nature ofGeorge's illness is not known definitively, but historians and medical experts have suggested that his symptoms and behaviour traits were consistent with eitherbipolar disorder orporphyria. In 1810, George suffered a final relapse, and his eldest son,George, Prince of Wales, was namedPrince Regent the following year. The King died aged 81, at which time the Regent succeeded him as George IV. George III reigned during much of theGeorgian andRegency eras. At the time of his death, he was thelongest-lived andlongest-reigning British monarch, having reigned for 59 years and 96 days; he remains the longest-lived and longest-reigning male monarch in British history.
George grew into a healthy, reserved and shy child. The family moved toLeicester Square, where George and his younger brotherEdward (laterDuke of York and Albany) were educated together by private tutors. Family letters show that he could read and write in both English and German, as well as comment on political events of the time, by the age of eight.[7] He was the firstBritish monarch to study science systematically.[8]
Apart from chemistry and physics, his lessons included astronomy, mathematics, French, Latin, history, music, geography, commerce, agriculture and constitutional law, along with sporting and social accomplishments such as dancing, fencing and riding. His religious education was whollyAnglican.[8] At the age of 10, George took part in a family production ofJoseph Addison's playCato and said in the new prologue: "What, tho' a boy! It may with truth be said, A boy inEngland born, in England bred."[9] HistorianRomney Sedgwick argued that these lines appear "to be the source of the only historical phrase with which he is associated".[10]
King George II disliked Prince Frederick and took little interest in his grandchildren. However, in 1751, Frederick died unexpectedly from a lung injury at the age of 44, and his son George becameheir apparent to the throne and inherited his father's title ofDuke of Edinburgh. The King now took more interest in his grandson and created himPrince of Wales three weeks later.[11][12]
In the spring of 1756, as George approached his eighteenth birthday, the King offered him a grand establishment atSt James's Palace, but George refused the offer, guided by his mother and her confidant,John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who later served asprime minister.[13] George's mother, now theDowager Princess of Wales, preferred to keep George at home where she could imbue him with her strict moral values.[14][15]
Accession and marriage
Wedding of George and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, oil sketch by SirJoshua Reynolds, c. 1761
In 1759, George was smitten withLady Sarah Lennox, sister ofCharles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, but Lord Bute advised against the match and George abandoned his thoughts of marriage. "I am born for the happiness or misery of a great nation," he wrote, "and consequently must often act contrary to my passions."[16] Nevertheless, George and his mother resisted attempts by the King to marry George toPrincess Sophie Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.[17]
The following year, at the age of 22, George succeeded to the throne when his grandfather George II died suddenly on 25 October 1760, at age 76. The search for a suitable wife intensified: after giving consideration to a number ofProtestant German princesses, George's mother sent ColonelDavid Graeme with, on her son's behalf, an offer of marriage toPrincess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Charlotte accepted. While aroyal household and staff were assembled for Charlotte in London,Lord Harcourt, the royalMaster of the Horse, escorted her fromNeustrelitz to London. Charlotte arrived in the afternoon of 8 September 1761 and the marriage ceremony was conducted that same evening in theChapel Royal, St James's Palace.[18][d]George and Charlotte's coronation was held atWestminster Abbey a fortnight later on 22 September. George never took a mistress (in contrast with his grandfather and his sons), and the couple enjoyed a happy marriage until his mental illness struck.[2][9]
The King and Queen had 15 children—nine sons and six daughters. In 1762, George purchased Buckingham House (on the site now occupied byBuckingham Palace) for use as a family retreat.[20] His other residences wereKew Palace andWindsor Castle. St James's Palace was retained for official use. He did not travel extensively and spent his entire life in southern England. In the 1790s, the King and his family took holidays atWeymouth, Dorset,[21] which he thus popularised as one of the first seaside resorts in England.[22]
George, in his accession speech toParliament, proclaimed: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain."[23] He inserted this phrase into the speech, written byLord Hardwicke, to demonstrate his desire to distance himself from his German forebears, who were perceived as caring more for Hanover than for Britain.[24] During George III's lengthy reign, Britain was aconstitutional monarchy, ruled by his ministerial government and prominent men in Parliament.[25] Although his accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties,[e] the first years of his reign were marked by political instability, largely as a result of disagreements over theSeven Years' War.[27] George came to be perceived as favouringTory ministers, which led to his denunciation by theWhigs as anautocrat.[2]
On his accession, theCrown lands produced relatively little income; most revenue was generated through taxes and excise duties. George surrendered theCrown Estate to Parliamentary control in return for acivil list annuity for the support of his household and the expenses of civil government.[28] Claims that he used the income to reward supporters with bribes and gifts[29] are disputed by historians who say such claims "rest on nothing but falsehoods put out by disgruntled opposition".[30] Debts amounting to over £3 million over the course of George's reign were paid by Parliament, and the civil list annuity was increased from time to time.[31] He aided theRoyal Academy of Arts with large grants from his private funds,[32] and may have donated more than half of his personal income to charity.[33] Of his art collection, the two most notable purchases areJohannes Vermeer'sLady at the Virginals and a set ofCanalettos, but it is as a collector of books that he is best remembered.[34] TheKing's Library was open and available to scholars and was the foundation of a new national library.[35]
In May 1762, the incumbent Whig government ofThomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was replaced with one led by Lord Bute, a Scottish Tory. Bute's opponents worked against him by spreading the calumny that he was having an affair with the King's mother, and by exploitinganti-Scottish sentiment amongst the English.[36]John Wilkes, a member of parliament, publishedThe North Briton, which was both inflammatory and defamatory in its condemnation of Bute and the government. Wilkes was eventually arrested forseditious libel but he fled to France to escape punishment; he was expelled from theHouse of Commons and found guiltyin absentia of blasphemy and libel.[37] In 1763, after concluding thePeace of Paris which ended the war, Lord Bute resigned, allowing the Whigs underGeorge Grenville to return to power. Britain received enormous concessions, includingWest Florida. Britain restored to France lucrative slave-sugar islands in theWest Indies, includingGuadeloupe andMartinique. The treaty also ended French control over nearly all ofNew France;Canada was ceded to Britain in its entirety, whileLouisiana was divided in two, with the eastern half (from theAllegheny Mountains to theMississippi River) ceded to Britain and the western half, plus the city ofNew Orleans, ceded to Spain.[38]
Later that year, theRoyal Proclamation of 1763 placed a limit upon the westward expansion of the American colonies and created anIndian reserve. The Proclamation aimed to divert colonial expansion to the north (toNova Scotia) and to the south (Florida), and protect the British fur trade with the Indians.[39] The Proclamation Line did not bother the majority of settled farmers, but it was unpopular with a vocal minority. This discontent ultimately contributed to conflict between the colonists and the British government.[40] With the American colonists generally unburdened by British taxes, the government thought it appropriate for them to pay towards the defence of the colonies against native uprisings and the possibility of French incursions.[f]
The central issue for the colonists was not the amount of taxes but whether Parliament could levy a tax without American approval, for there were no American seats in Parliament.[43] The Americans protested that like all Englishmen they had rights to "no taxation without representation". In 1765, Grenville introduced theStamp Act, which levied astamp duty on every document in the British colonies in North America. Since newspapers were printed on stamped paper, those most affected by the introduction of the duty were the most effective at producing propaganda opposing the tax.[44]
Meanwhile, George had become exasperated at Grenville's attempts to reduce the King's prerogatives, and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuadeWilliam Pitt the Elder to accept the office of prime minister.[45] After a brief illness, which may have presaged his illnesses to come, George settled onCharles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham to form a ministry, and dismissed Grenville.[46]
Lord Rockingham, with the support of Pitt and the King, repealed Grenville's unpopular Stamp Act. Rockingham's government was weak, and he was replaced as prime minister in 1766 by Pitt, whom George createdEarl of Chatham. The actions of Lord Chatham and George III in repealing the Act were so popular in America that statues of them both were erected inNew York City.[47] Lord Chatham fell ill in 1767, andAugustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, took over the government. Grafton did not formally become prime minister until 1768. That year, John Wilkes returned to England, stood as a candidate in thegeneral election, and came top of the poll in theMiddlesex constituency. Wilkes was again expelled from Parliament. He was re-elected and expelled twice more, before the House of Commons resolved that his candidature was invalid and declaredthe runner-up as the victor.[48] Grafton's government disintegrated in 1770, allowing the Tories led byLord North to return to power.[49]
Family issues
George was deeply devout and spent hours in prayer,[50] but his piety was not shared by his brothers. George was appalled by what he saw as their loose morals. In 1770, his brotherPrince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, was exposed as an adulterer. The following year, Henry married a young widow,Anne Horton. The King considered her inappropriate as a royal bride: she was from a lower social class and German law barred any children of the couple from the Hanoverian succession.[51]
George insisted on a new law that essentially forbade members of the royal family from legally marrying without the consent of the sovereign. The subsequent bill was unpopular in Parliament, including among George's own ministers, but passed as theRoyal Marriages Act 1772. Shortly afterwards, another of George's brothers,Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, revealed he had been secretly married toMaria, Countess Waldegrave, the illegitimate daughter of SirEdward Walpole. The news confirmed George's opinion that he had been right to introduce the law: Maria was related to his political opponents. Neither lady was ever received at court.[51]
Lord North's government was chiefly concerned with discontent in America. To assuage American opinion most of the custom duties were withdrawn, except for the tea duty, which in George's words was "one tax to keep up the right [to levy taxes]".[52] In 1773, the tea ships moored inBoston Harbor were boarded by colonists and the tea was thrown overboard, an event that became known as theBoston Tea Party. In Britain, opinion hardened against the colonists, with Chatham now agreeing with North that the destruction of the tea was "certainly criminal".[53]
With the clear support of Parliament, Lord North introduced measures, which were called theIntolerable Acts by the colonists: thePort of Boston was shut down and thecharter ofMassachusetts wasaltered so that the upper house ofthe legislature was appointed bythe Crown instead of elected by the lower house.[54] Up to this point, in the words of Professor Peter Thomas, George's "hopes were centred on a political solution, and he always bowed to hiscabinet's opinions even when sceptical of their success. The detailed evidence of the years from 1763 to 1775 tends to exonerate George III from any real responsibility for theAmerican Revolution."[55] Though both the Americans and older British historians characterised George as a tyrant, in these years he acted as a constitutional monarch supporting the initiatives of his ministers.[56]
The coloniesdeclared their independence in July 1776, listingtwenty-seven grievances against the British king and legislature while asking the support of the populace. Among George's other offences, the declaration charged, "He has abdicated Government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." The gilded equestrian statue of the King in New York was pulled down.[58] The British captured the city in 1776 but lost Boston, and thegrand strategic plan of invading from Canada and cutting off New England failed with the surrender of British Lieutenant-GeneralJohn Burgoyne following thebattles of Saratoga.[59]
George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the rebels, despite the opinions of his own ministers.[61] In the words of British historianGeorge Otto Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal."[62] He wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse".[63] Later historians defend George by saying that, in the context of the times, no king would willingly surrender such a large territory,[9][64] and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporaneous monarchs in Europe.[65] After Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were in favour of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and political opponents, though vocal, remained a small minority.[9][66]
With the setbacks in America, Lord North asked to transfer power toLord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in North's administration, but Chatham refused; he died later in the same year.[67] North was allied to the "King's Friends" in Parliament and believed that George III had the right to exercise powers.[68] In early 1778,Louis XVI of France (Britain's chief rival) signed atreaty of alliance with the United States.[69] TheFrench Navy outran the British naval blockade of the Mediterranean and sailed to America.[69] The conflict now affected America, Europe, and India.[69]Charles III of Spain had misgivings because of his own colonies but decided to side with France in the war in limited fashion in 1779.[70] One faction of theDutch Republic aided the Americans, whereas another aided Britain, whose allies includedLoyalists andGerman auxiliaries.Lord Gower andLord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence.[71]
George III in 1779, with symbols of rule, scenes of the Royal Navy and British Army at war, byBenjamin West
During the summer of 1779, a combined French–Spanish naval fleet threatened to invade England and transport 31,000 French troops across theEnglish Channel. George III said that Britain was confronted by the "most serious crisis the nation ever knew". In August, 66 warships entered the English Channel, but sickness, hunger, and adverse winds forced the French–Spanisharmada to withdraw, ending the invasion threat.[72]
In late 1779, George III advocated sending more British warships and troops across the Atlantic to the West Indies. He boldly said: "We must risk something, otherwise we will only vegetate in this war. I own I wish either with spirit to get through it, or with a crash be ruined." In January 1780, 7,000 British troops under General SirJohn Vaughan were transported to the West Indies.[73] Nonetheless, opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as theGordon riots.[74]
As late as thesiege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their eventual victory, as British troops inflicted defeats on the Continental forces at theBattle of Camden and theBattle of Guilford Court House.[75] In late 1781, the news ofLord Cornwallis's surrender at thesiege of Yorktown reached London; North's parliamentary support ebbed away and he resigned the following year. George drafted an abdication notice, which was never delivered.[64][76] He finally accepted the defeat in America and authorized peace negotiations. Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in theTreaties of Paris signed in 1782 and 1783.[77] In early 1783, George III privately conceded "America is lost!" He reflected that the Northern colonies had developed into Britain's "successful rivals" in commercial trade and fishing.[78] Up to 70,000 Loyalists fled toCanada (where they became known as theUnited Empire Loyalists), theCaribbean, or England after their homes and businesses were looted and destroyed by pro-revolutionary Americans.[79]
John Adams was appointed Americanminister to London in 1785, by which time George had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies. He told Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."[80]
Mid-reign
Government
InA new way to pay the National Debt (1786),James Gillray caricatured King George III and Queen Charlotte awash with treasury funds to cover royal debts, with Pitt handing him anothermoney bag.
With the collapse of Lord North's ministry in 1782, the Whig Lord Rockingham became prime minister for the second time, but died within months. The King then appointedWilliam Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne to replace him.Charles James Fox, however, refused to serve under Shelburne, and demanded the appointment ofWilliam Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. In 1783, the House of Commons forced Shelburne from office and his government was replaced by theFox–North Coalition. Portland became prime minister, with Fox and Lord North, as foreign secretary and home secretary respectively.[9]
The King disliked Fox intensely, for his politics as well as his character: he thought Fox unprincipled and a bad influence on the Prince of Wales.[81] George III was distressed at having to appoint ministers not of his liking, but the Portland ministry quickly built up a majority in the House of Commons, and could not be displaced easily. He was further dismayed when the government introduced the India Bill, which proposed to reform the government of India by transferring political power from theEast India Company to Parliamentary commissioners.[82] Although George actually favoured greater control over the company, the proposed commissioners were all political allies of Fox.[83] Immediately after the House of Commons passed it, George authorisedLord Temple to inform theHouse of Lords that he would regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy. The bill was rejected by the Lords; three days later, the Portland ministry was dismissed, andWilliam Pitt the Younger was appointed prime minister, with Temple as his secretary of state. On 17 December 1783, the Commons voted in favour of a motion condemning the influence of the monarch in parliamentary voting as a "high crime" and Temple was forced to resign. Temple's departure destabilised the government, and three months later the government lost its majority and Parliament was dissolved; the subsequentelection gave Pitt a firm mandate.[9]
Pitt's appointment was a great victory for George. It proved that the King could appoint prime ministers on the basis of his own interpretation of the public mood without having to follow the choice of the current majority in the House of Commons. Throughout Pitt's ministry, George supported many of Pitt's political aims and created new peers at an unprecedented rate to increase the number of Pitt's supporters in the House of Lords.[84] During and after Pitt's ministry, George was extremely popular in Britain.[85] The British people admired him for his piety and for remaining faithful to his wife.[86] He was fond of his children and was devastated at the death of two of his sons in infancy, in 1782 and 1783 respectively.[87] Nevertheless, he set his children a strict regimen. They were expected to attend rigorous lessons from seven in the morning and to lead lives of religious observance and virtue.[88] When his children strayed from George's principles of righteousness, as his sons did as young adults, he was dismayed and disappointed.[89]
By this time, George's health was deteriorating. He hada mental illness characterised by acutemania. Until the mid-20th century, the King's illness was generally considered to be psychological. In 1966, a study byIda Macalpine andRichard Hunter suggested that the illness was physiological, caused by the blood diseaseporphyria.[90] Although meeting with some contemporary opposition,[91] the view subsequently gained widespread scholarly acceptance.[92] A study of samples of George's hair published in 2005 revealed high levels ofarsenic, a cause of metabolic blood disorders and thus a possible trigger for porphyria. The source of the arsenic is not known, but it could have been a component of medicines or cosmetics.[93] The theory was also established in the public mind through influential dramatisations, such asAlan Bennett's playThe Madness of George III, and inNicholas Hytner's subsequentfilm. From 2010, this view has been increasingly challenged, and Macalpine and Hunter's study criticised.[94][95][96] Recent scholarship discounts the porphyria theory and contends that George's illness was psychiatric, most probablybipolar disorder.[97]
George may have had a brief episode of disease in 1765, and a longer episode began in the summer of 1788. At the end of the parliamentary session, he went toCheltenham Spa to recuperate and in August visited theBishop of Worcester atHartlebury Castle[98] andViscount Mount Edgcumbe atCotehele, Cornwall, with the Queen, and their daughters the Princess Royal and Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth.[99] It was the furthest he had ever been from London, but his condition worsened. In November of that year, he became seriously deranged, sometimes speaking for many hours without pause, causing him to foam at the mouth and his voice to become hoarse. George would frequently repeat himself and write sentences with over 400 words at a time, and his vocabulary became "more complex, creative and colourful", possible symptoms of bipolar disorder.[100] His doctors were largely at a loss to explain his illness, and spurious stories about his condition spread, such as the claim that he had shaken hands with a tree in the mistaken belief that it was theKing of Prussia.[101] Treatment for mental illness was primitive by modern standards; George's doctors, who includedFrancis Willis, treated the King by forcibly restraining him until he was calm, or applying causticpoultices to draw out "evil humours".[102]
In the reconvened Parliament, Fox and Pitt wrangled over the terms of a regency during the King's incapacity. While both agreed that it would be most reasonable for the Prince of Wales to act as regent, Fox suggested, to Pitt's consternation, that it was the Prince's absolute right to act on his ill father's behalf with full powers. Pitt, fearing he would be removed from office if the Prince of Wales were empowered, argued that it was for Parliament to nominate a regent, and wanted to restrict the regent's authority.[103] In February 1789, theRegency Bill, authorising the Prince of Wales to act as regent, was introduced and passed in the House of Commons, but before the House of Lords could pass the bill, George recovered.[104]
He would suffer brief temporary relapses in 1801 and 1804, followed by permanent illness from 1810 onward.[105]
After George's recovery, his popularity, and that of Pitt, continued to increase at the expense of Fox and the Prince of Wales.[106] His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants,Margaret Nicholson in 1786 andJohn Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity.[107]James Hadfield's failed attempt to shoot George in theTheatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 15 May 1800 was not political in origin but motivated by the apocalyptic delusions of Hadfield andBannister Truelock. George seemed unperturbed by the incident, so much so that he fell asleep in the interval.[108]
TheFrench Revolution of 1789, in which theFrench monarchy had been overthrown, worried many British landowners.France declared war on Great Britain in 1793; in response to the crisis, George allowed Pitt to increase taxes, raise armies, and suspend the right ofhabeas corpus. Pittprosecuted British radicals for treason in 1794, and in October 1795, crowds attacked George's carriage on his way to opening Parliament, demanding an end to the war and lower bread prices. In response, Parliament passed theTreason andSeditious Meetings Acts a month later.[109] TheFirst Coalition to oppose revolutionary France, which includedAustria,Prussia, andSpain, broke up in 1795 when Prussia and Spain made separate peace with France.[110] TheSecond Coalition, which included Austria,Russia, and theOttoman Empire, was defeated in 1800. Only Great Britain was left fightingNapoleon Bonaparte, theFirst Consul of the French Republic.
George did not consider the peace with France as real; in his view it was an "experiment".[117] The war resumed in 1803, but public opinion distrusted Addington to lead the nation in war, and instead favoured Pitt. Aninvasion of England by Napoleon seemed imminent, and a massive volunteer movement arose todefend England against the French. George's review of 27,000 volunteers inHyde Park, London, on 26 and 28 October 1803 and at the height of the invasion scare, attracted an estimated 500,000 spectators on each day.[118]The Times said: "The enthusiasm of the multitude was beyond all expression."[119] A courtier wrote on 13 November that "The King is really prepared to take the field in case of attack, his beds are ready and he can move at half an hour's warning."[120] George wrote to his friendBishop Hurd, "We are here in daily expectation that Bonaparte will attempt his threatened invasion ... Should his troops effect a landing, I shall certainly put myself at the head of mine, and my other armed subjects, to repel them."[121] After AdmiralLord Nelson's famous naval victory at theBattle of Trafalgar, the possibility of invasion was extinguished.[122]
InA Kick at the Broad-Bottoms! (1807), James Gillray caricatured George's dismissal of the Ministry of All the Talents.
In 1804, George's recurrent illness returned; after his recovery, Addington resigned and Pitt regained power. Pitt sought to appoint Fox tohis ministry, but George refused.Lord Grenville perceived an injustice to Fox, and refused to join the new ministry.[9] Pitt concentrated on forming a coalition with Austria, Russia, andSweden. ThisThird Coalition, however, met the same fate as the First and Second Coalitions, collapsing in 1805. The setbacks in Europe took a toll on Pitt's health, and he died in 1806, reopening the question of who should serve in the ministry. Grenville became prime minister, and his "Ministry of All the Talents" included Fox. Grenville pushed through theSlave Trade Act 1807, which passed both houses of Parliament with large majorities.[123] George was conciliatory towards Fox, after being forced to capitulate over his appointment. After Fox's death in September 1806, the King and ministry were in open conflict. To boost recruitment, the ministry proposed a measure in February 1807 whereby Roman Catholics would be allowed to serve in all ranks of the armed forces. George instructed them not only to drop the measure, but also to agree never to set up such a measure again. The ministers agreed to drop the measure then pending, but refused to bind themselves in the future.[124] They were dismissed and replaced by the Duke of Portland, as the nominal prime minister, with actual power being held by theChancellor of the Exchequer,Spencer Perceval. Parliament was dissolved, and thesubsequent election gave the ministry a strong majority in the House of Commons. George III made no further major political decisions during his reign; the replacement of Portland by Perceval in 1809 was of little real significance.[125]
Final years and death
Engraving byHenry Meyer, 1817, depicting an elderly George
In late 1810, at the height of his popularity,[126] King George, already virtually blind withcataracts and in pain fromrheumatism, suffered a relapse into his mental disorder and became dangerously ill. In his view, the malady had been triggered by stress over the death of his youngest and favourite daughter,Princess Amelia.[127] The princess's nurse reported that "the scenes of distress and crying every day... were melancholy beyond description."[128] George accepted the need for theRegency Act 1811,[129] and the Prince of Wales (laterGeorge IV) acted as regent for the remainder of the King's life. Despite signs of a recovery in May 1811, by the end of the year, George III had become permanently insane, and lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle until his death.[130]
Prime Minister Spencer Perceval wasassassinated in 1812 and was replaced byLord Liverpool. Liverpool oversaw British victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequentCongress of Vienna led to significant territorial gains for Hanover, which was elevated from anelectorate to akingdom. Meanwhile, George's health deteriorated. He developeddementia, and became completely blind and increasingly deaf. He was incapable of knowing or understanding that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818.[131] At Christmas 1819, he spoke nonsense for 58 hours, and for the last few weeks of his life was unable to walk.[132]
Over the course of George's reign, a coalition ofabolitionists andAtlantic slave uprisings caused the British public to spurn slavery. According to the historianAndrew Roberts, "George never bought or sold a slave in his life. He never invested in any of the companies that did such a thing. He signed legislation to abolish slavery." George wrote a document in the 1750s "denouncing all of the arguments for slavery, and calling them an execration and ridiculous and 'absurd'",[137] but the King and his son, theDuke of Clarence, supported the efforts of theLondon Society of West India Planters and Merchants to delay the abolition of the British slave trade for almost 20 years.[138][139]William Pitt the Younger conversely wished to see slavery abolished but, because the cabinet was divided and the King was in the pro-slavery camp,[123][better source needed] Pitt decided to refrain from making abolition official government policy. Instead, he worked toward abolition in an individual capacity.[140]
On 7 November 1775, during the American War of Independence,John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, issued a proclamation that offered freedom to the slaves of rebel masters if they enlisted to put down the colonial rebellion. Dunmore was the lastRoyal Governor of Virginia, appointed by King George III in July 1771.Dunmore's Proclamation inspired slaves to escape from captivity and fight for the British. On 30 June 1779, George III's Commanding GeneralHenry Clinton broadened Dunmore's proclamation with hisPhilipsburg Proclamation. For all colonial slaves who fled their rebel masters, Clinton forbade their recapture and resale, giving them protection by the British military. Approximately 20,000 freed slaves joined the British, fighting for George III. In 1783, given British certificates of freedom, 3,000 former slaves, including their families, settled inNova Scotia.[141]
Between 1791 and 1800, almost 400,000 Africans were shipped to the Americas by 1,340 slaving voyages mounted from British ports. On 25 March 1807, George III signed into lawAn Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, under which the transatlantic slave trade was banned in the British Empire.[142]
Legacy
George was succeeded by two of his sons,George IV andWilliam IV in turn, who both died without surviving legitimate children, leaving the throne toVictoria, the only legitimate child of his fourth son Prince Edward.
George III lived for 81 years and 239 days, and reigned for 59 years and 96 days: both his life and his reign were longer than those of any of his predecessors and subsequent kings; only queens Victoria andElizabeth IIlived andreigned longer.
Extract fromObservations on the Transit of Venus, a manuscript notebook from the collections of George III, showing George, Charlotte and those attending them.
George III was dubbed "Farmer George" by satirists, at first to mock his interest in mundane matters rather than politics, but later to portray him as a man of the people, contrasting his homely thrift with his son's grandiosity.[143] Under George III, theBritish Agricultural Revolution reached its peak and great advances were made in fields such as science and industry. There was unprecedented growth in the rural population, which in turn provided much of the workforce for the concurrentIndustrial Revolution.[144] George's collection of mathematical and scientific instruments is now owned byKing's College London but housed in theScience Museum, London, to which it has been on long-term loan since 1927. He had theKing's Observatory built inRichmond-upon-Thames for his own observations of the1769 transit of Venus. WhenWilliam Herschel discoveredUranus in 1781, he at first named itGeorgium Sidus (George's Star) after the King, who later funded the construction and maintenance of Herschel's 178540-foot telescope, which at the time was the biggest ever built.
George III hoped that "the tongue of malice may not paint my intentions in those colours she admires, nor the sycophant extoll me beyond what I deserve"[145] but, in the popular mind, George III has been both demonised and praised. While very popular at the start of his reign, by the mid-1770s George had lost the loyalty of revolutionary American colonists.[146] The grievances in theUnited States Declaration of Independence were presented as "repeated injuries and usurpations" that he had committed to establish an "absolute Tyranny" over the colonies. The declaration's wording has contributed to the American public's perception of George as a tyrant. Contemporary accounts of George III's life fall into two camps: one demonstrating "attitudes dominant in the latter part of the reign, when the King had become a revered symbol of national resistance to French ideas and French power", while the other "derived their views of the King from the bitter partisan strife of the first two decades of the reign, and they expressed in their works the views of the opposition".[147]
Building on the latter of these two assessments, British historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such asTrevelyan andErskine May, promoted hostile interpretations of George III's life. However, in the mid-twentieth century the work ofLewis Namier, who thought George was "much maligned", started a re-evaluation of the man and his reign.[148] Scholars of the later twentieth century, such asButterfield and Pares, and Macalpine and Hunter,[149] are inclined to treat George sympathetically, seeing him as a victim of circumstance and illness. Butterfield rejected the arguments of his Victorian predecessors with withering disdain: "Erskine May must be a good example of the way in which an historian may fall into error through an excess of brilliance. His capacity for synthesis, and his ability to dovetail the various parts of the evidence ... carried him into a more profound and complicated elaboration of error than some of his more pedestrian predecessors ... he inserted a doctrinal element into his history which, granted his original aberrations, was calculated to project the lines of his error, carrying his work still further from centrality or truth."[150] In pursuing war with the American colonists, George III believed he was defending the right of an elected Parliament to levy taxes, rather than seeking to expand his own power or prerogatives.[151] In the opinion of modern scholars, during the long reign of George III, the monarchy continued to lose its political power and grew as the embodiment of national morality.[9]
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
4 June 1738 – 31 March 1751:His Royal Highness Prince George[152]
31 March 1751 – 20 April 1751:His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh
20 April 1751 – 25 October 1760:His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
25 October 1760 – 29 January 1820:His Majesty The King
In Great Britain, George III used the officialstyle "George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,Defender of the Faith, and so forth". In 1801, whenGreat Britain united withIreland, he dropped the title of King of France, which had been used for every English monarch sinceEdward III'sclaim to the French throne in the medieval period.[112] His style became "George the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith."[153]
Before his succession, George was granted theroyal arms differenced by alabel of five pointsAzure, the centre point bearing afleur-de-lisOr on 27 July 1749. Upon his father's death, and along with the dukedom of Edinburgh and the position of heir-apparent, he inherited his difference of a plain label of three pointsArgent. In an additional difference, the crown of Charlemagne was not usually depicted on thearms of the heir, only on the Sovereign's.[157]
Following theActs of Union 1800, the royal arms were amended, dropping the French quartering. They became: Quarterly, I and IV England; II Scotland; III Ireland; overall an escutcheon of Hanover surmounted by an electoral bonnet.[160] In 1816, after theElectorate of Hanover became a kingdom, the electoral bonnet was changed to a crown.[161]
Coat of arms from 1749 to 1751
Coat of arms from 1751 to 1760 as Prince of Wales
Coat of arms used from 1760 to 1801 as King of Great Britain
Coat of arms used from 1801 to 1816 as King of the United Kingdom
Coat of arms used from 1816 until death, also as King of Hanover
^George was falsely said to have marriedHannah Lightfoot, aQuaker, on 17 April 1759, prior to his marriage to Charlotte, and to have had at least one child by her. However, Lightfoot had married Isaac Axford in 1753, and had died in or before 1759, so there could have been no legal marriage or children. The jury at the 1866 trial ofLavinia Ryves, the daughter of imposterOlivia Serres who pretended to be "Princess Olive of Cumberland", unanimously found that a supposed marriage certificate produced by Ryves was a forgery.[19]
^For example, the letters ofHorace Walpole written at the time of the accession defended George but Walpole's later memoirs were hostile.[26]
^An American taxpayer would pay a maximum of sixpence a year, compared to an average of twenty-five shillings (50 times as much) in England.[41] In 1763, the total revenue from America amounted to about £1,800, while the estimated annual cost of the military in America was put at £225,000. By 1767, it had risen to £400,000.[42]
References
^Ditchfield, G. M. (2002), Ditchfield, G. M. (ed.), "The Religion of George III",George III: An Essay in Monarchy, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 77–108,doi:10.1057/9780230599437_5,ISBN978-0-230-59943-7
^abc"George III".Official website of the British monarchy. Royal Household. 31 December 2015. Retrieved18 April 2016.
^Bullion, John L. (2004)."Augusta, princess of Wales (1719–1772)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/46829. Retrieved 17 September 2008 (Subscription required): "George III adopted the moral standards she tried to teach."
^Stein, Stanley; Stein, Barbara (2003).Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759–1789. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 338–340.ISBN978-0-8018-7339-3.
^Adams, C.F., ed. (1850–1856).The works of John Adams, second president of the United States. Vol. VIII. pp. 255–257, quoted in Ayling, p. 323 and Hibbert, p. 165.
^Peters, Timothy J.; Wilkinson, D. (2010). "King George III and porphyria: a clinical re-examination of the historical evidence".History of Psychiatry.21 (1):3–19.doi:10.1177/0957154X09102616.PMID21877427.S2CID22391207.
^Pinches, John Harvey; Pinches, Rosemary (1974).The Royal Heraldry of England. Heraldry Today. Slough, Buckinghamshire: Hollen Street Press. pp. 215–216.ISBN978-0-900455-25-4.
Bullion, John L. (1994). "George III on Empire, 1783".The William and Mary Quarterly.51 (2). Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture:305–310.doi:10.2307/2946866.JSTOR2946866.
Pares, Richard (1953).King George III and the Politicians. Oxford University Press.
Reitan, E. A., ed. (1964).George III, Tyrant Or Constitutional Monarch?. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company. A compilation of essays encompassing the major assessments of George III up to 1964.
Röhl, John C. G.; Warren, Martin; Hunt, David (1998).Purple Secret: Genes, "Madness" and the Royal Houses of Europe. London: Bantam Press.ISBN0-593-04148-8.
Sedgwick, Romney, ed. (1903).Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 1756–1766. Macmillan.
Simms, Brendan; Riotte, Torsten (2007).The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837. Cambridge University Press.
Butterfield, Herbert (1965). "Some Reflections on the Early Years of George III's Reign".Journal of British Studies.4 (2):78–101.doi:10.1086/385501.JSTOR175147.S2CID162958860.
Colley, Linda. (1984) “The Apotheosis of George III: Loyalty, Royalty and the British Nation 1760-1820.”Past & Present, no. 102, 1984, pp. 94–129.online
Dickinson, H. T. (2011) "George III and Parliament."Parliamentary history 30.3: 395-413.online
Namier, Lewis B. (1955). "King George III: A Study in Personality".Personalities and Power. London: Hamish Hamilton.
O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson (Spring 2004). "'If Others Will Not Be Active, I Must Drive': George III and the American Revolution".Early American Studies.2 (1): iii,1–46.doi:10.1353/eam.2007.0037.S2CID143613757.
Percy, Carol. (2012) "The king's speech: metalanguage of nation, man and class in anecdotes about George III1."English Language & Linguistics 16.2: 281-299. [
Sawyer. Sean. "Sir John Soane's Symbolic Westminster: The Apotheosis of George IV,"Architectural History, Vol. 39 (1996), pp. 54-76.online
Historiography
Christie, Ian R. "George III and the historians–thirty years on."History 71.232 (1986): 205–221.online
Detweiler, Robert. "Retreat from Environmentalism: A Review of the Psychohistory of George III."The History Teacher 6.1 (1972): 37-46.online
Gopaul, Paul A. "George III of England and his role in the American Revolution as seen in the writings of American history, 1920--1950" (PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1958;online.
Hecht, J. Jean (1966). "The Reign of George III in Recent Historiography". In Furber, Elizabeth Chapin (ed.).Changing views on British history: essays on historical writing since 1939. Harvard University Press. pp. 206–234.
Mooney, Francis T., "The American historiography of King George III : the monarch as mirror. " (Thesis, U of Tennessee, 1982;online
Mowat, C. L. "George III: The Historians' Whetstone." (1959): 121-128.online
Neill, Scott C. " 'Almighty God placed her Sceptre in the Hands of a Prince:' George III and the Historians--Sixty Years On" (Thesis, U. Of Nebraska, 2022)online
Robson, Eric (1952). "The American Revolution Reconsidered".History Today.2 (2):126–132. British views
Smith, Robert A. (1984). "Reinterpreting the Reign of George III". In Schlatter, Richard (ed.).Recent Views on British History: Essays on Historical Writing since 1966. Rutgers University Press. pp. 197–254.
1 Not a British prince by birth, but createdPrince Consort.2 Not a British prince by birth, but created a Prince of the United Kingdom. Princes whose titles were removed and eligible people who do not use the title are shown in italics.
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