George III
George III (1738-1820), was king of Great Britain and Ireland and elector of Hanover for 60 momentous years (1760-1820), and was insane off and one for years. His reign is noted for losing the first British Empire with a loss in the American Revolution, the building of a second empire based in India, Asia and Africa, the beginnings of the industrial revolution that made Britain a n economic powerhouse, and above all the life and death struggle with the French, 1793-1815, which ended with the defeat of Napoleon in 1915.
Life
He was born in London as George William Frederick, the first son of Frederick Lewis, prince of Wales (1707–1751), and his wife, Augusta (1719–1772) of Saxe-Gotha; he was the grandson of king George II. His education suffered at first from the quarrels between his father his grandfather, and from the folly of his ignorant and overprotective mother. His tutors were political appointees and usually of little ability, while the small group gathered around his mother thought very highly of Bolingbroke's Patriot King and urged young George to follow its precepts.
King
Following Bolingbroke's advice when he succeeded his grandfather as king in 1760, he tried to rule through ministers of his own choosing. In 1761 he brought about the resignations of the rather domineering William Pitt and of Newcastle, who had long controlled the bribery that held Whig majorities together. George was able to do this partly because he took control of the Crown patronage and so could build up a party devoted to his wishes, and partly because the Whig oligarchy was divided into bitterly opposed factions that could be played off against each other. Thus the king recovered some of the constitutional authority that had been lost by George I and George II since 1714. From 1760 to 1780 he dismissed and appointed ministers at his pleasure and dictated their general policy.
American Revolution
George controlled the policies to reassert imperial control over the restive colonies that caused the American Revolution in 1775; most Britons supported the king, though a vocal minority warned they had strong claims to the rights of Englishmen.
Americans were slow to appreciate the king was not their ally; they had hailed him in 1766 as the 'Patriot King' when the Stamp Act was repealed by the Rockingham ministry, unaware he had privately opposed its lifting. The king was delighted by the series of tough acts of Parliament passed in 1774 collectively known as the Coercive Acts, which were the immediate cause of revolt. He pressed for the royal proclamation of August 1775 that announced that his American subjects were "engaged in open and avowed rebellion."
During the war the king refused to compromise and selected inept ministers who caused disaster aster disaster, including the formation of a powerful coalition in support of the Americans, the loss of traditional British allies, and the surrender of two main armies at Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781). George wanted to send more soldiers but he lost control of Parliament and his Prime Minister Lord North was forced to resign. Negotiations that led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783 proved highly fabourable to the Americans.
Although the king exercised considerable influence in politics from 1783 onward, the emergence of the younger Pitt, who had secured his majority in 1784 through royal support, meant that the king's power of interference was curtailed. Yet, in 1801 the king blocked Catholic emancipation and in 1804 refused to approve Charles James Fox as a minister.
Insanity
George's first serious attack of insanity, in October 1788, led to a bitter political struggle over the regency, for the Prince of Wales, the obvious regent, had quarreled with his father and was supporting the opposition to Pitt. The king recovered in March 1789, but his madness recurred in 1801, 1804, and 1810. After 1811 it became a permanent condition. From 1808 he had also been totally blind. Modern medicine suggests that his insanity stemmed from porphyria, a rare metabolic disease. He died on Jan. 29, 1820.
Image and memory
George was the punctual, abstemious, uxorious, musical Hanoverian who liked clocks, disliked gambling and worried about his country's economy, tried to protect his empire, and worried about his eldest son's astronomical debts. Admirers of the sober and prudish king called attention to the loving husband, devoted (albeit domineering) father, connoisseur of fine art, and the patron of literature. In 1819 the poet Shelley had already written his epitaph: "An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king."
Bibliography
- Ayling, S. E. George III (1972)
- Black, Jeremy. George III: America's Last King (The English Monarchs Series) (2006). 448pp; a standard scholarly biography
- Brooke, John. King George III (1972)
- Butterfield, Hebert. George III, Lord North and the People (1949, 2nd ed. 1959)
- Cannon, John. "George III (1738–1820)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004); online edn, Jan 2008
- Clarke, J. C. (1972)
- Colley, Linda. "The apotheosis of George III: loyalty, royalty, and the British nation, 1760–1820", Past and Present, 102 (1984), 94–129 ·
- Ehrman, John. The younger Pitt, 1: The years of acclaim (1969); The younger Pitt, 2: The reluctant transition (1983); The younger Pitt, 3: The consuming struggle (1996)
- Hibbert, Christopher. George III A Personal History (1998). 464pp; favourable popular history. online edition; also excerpt and text search
- Lloyd, Alan. The King Who Lost America: A Portrait of the Life and Times of George III (2002), popular excerpt and text search
- Namier, Lewis. England in the Age of the American Revolution (1961), advanced treatise online edition
- Parissien, Steven. "George III" History Today, Vol. 52, June 2002; the reputation of the controversial king who lost the American colonies and spent much of his life in psychological distress but whose active interest in the arts and sciences, and his generous patronage, distinguished him from his Hanoverian predecessors online edition; also in EBSCO
- Plumb, J. H. England in the Eighteenth Century. (1950) online edition
- Plumb, J. H. (1985)
- Pares, Richard. George III and the politicians (1953) online edition
- Thomas, P. D. G. Lord North (1976)
- Watson, J. Steven The Reign of George III, 1760-1815 (1960), the standard political history of the era; online edition
Historiography
- Butterfield, Hebert. George III and the Historians (1959) online edition
Primary Sources
- Sedgwick, Romney, ed. Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 1756-1766 (1939) online edition