King George III of England

George III

George III, king of England during the American Revolution, was the longest reigning of male British monarchs. Born on June 4, 1738, he was the son of Frederick, prince of Wales, and the grandson of George II. He succeeded his grandfather in 1760, his father having died in 1751.

George had high but impractical ideas of kingship. On his accession he sought to rule without regard to party, to banish corruption from political practice, and to abandon the Hanoverian preoccupations of his predecessors. The chief minister chosen to implement his new system of politics, the third earl of Bute (1713-92), however, was an unpracticed politician who merely succeeded in disrupting the established politics of the day without creating a viable alternative. The result was 10 years of ministerial instability and public controversy, which ended only in 1770 with the appointment of Frederick, Lord North, an able and congenial minister.

Although never an autocratic monarch in the sense that his opponents contended, George III was always a powerful force in politics. He was a strong supporter of the war against America, and he viewed the concession of independence in 1783 with such detestation that he considered abdicating his throne. At the same time he fought a bitter personal feud with the Whig leader Charles James Fox, and his personal intervention brought the fall of the Fox-North ministry in 1783. He then found another minister, William Pitt, the Younger, who suited him. Even as late as 1801 he preferred, however, to force Pitt to resign as prime minister rather than permit Catholic Emancipation, a measure that he interpreted as contrary to his coronation oath to uphold the Church of England.

After 1801 George III was increasingly incapacitated by an illness, sometimes identified as porphyria, that caused blindness and senility. His recurring bouts of insanity became a political problem and ultimately compelled him to submit to the establishment of a formal Regency in 1811. The regent was his oldest son, the future George IV, one of 15 children borne him by his wife, Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

George III was bitterly criticized by Whig historians of his own and later days. But 20th-century scholarship has somewhat redressed the balance, and he is now seen as a strong-minded but public-spirited monarch who perhaps ascended the throne at an overly young and impressionable age. He learned quickly, however, and developed into a shrewd and sensible statesman, although one of conservative views. To the court he brought a sense of public duty and private morality that proved popular in a society already being transformed by the evangelical revival. He showed considerable interest in agricultural improvement and was an avid collector of paintings and books. The best loved of the Hanoverian rulers, he enjoyed a personal reputation that stood his house in good stead during the disastrous reign of his son George. George III died on Jan. 29, 1820.

(See Bibliography below)

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Author: Paul Langford
Picture Credits: National Portrait Galllery, London, c. 1762 (top). National Library of Australia, c. 1800 (bottom).
Bibliography: Brooke, John. King George III (1974); Butterfield, Herbert. George III and the Historians, rev. ed. (1959); Pares, Richard. King George III and the Politicians (1953; repr. 1988); Plumb, J.H.. The First Four Georges, 1714-1830 (1975) and New Light on the Tyrant George III (1978; repr. 1985); Watson, J. Steven. Reign of George III, 1760-1815 (1960).