George III of the United Kingdom (Born George William Frederick, June 4, 1738, Died on January 29, 1820) was the King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on January 1, 1801, becoming King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death.
It was also Duke and prince-elector of the Electorate of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. Jorge was the third British monarch Hanover House.
His life and reign were marked by political disputes in parliament and a series of military conflicts mainly against France, which Britain ended up defeating in the Seven Years’ War. However, soon many of its colonies in North America were lost in the United States’ War of Independence.
Other wars beginning in 1793 against revolutionary and Napoleonic France ended with the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. For the rest of his life, Jorge suffered from a recurring and finally permanent mental disorder.
The doctors were perplexed by his condition, although it has since been believed that the king suffered from porphyria. After the last relapse in 1810, a regency was established and Jorge, Prince of Wales, eldest son and heir to George III, reigned as prince regent. When George III died in 1820, the Prince Regent succeeded his father as George IV.
Quick Facts: George III
- Born: June 4, 1738, Norfolk House, St James’s Square, London, England
- Known For: King of Great Britain and King of Ireland
- Parents: (Father – Frederick, Prince of Wales) (Mother – Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha)
- Spouse: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (m. 1761; died 1818)
- Children: George IV (1762-1830), Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827), William IV (1765-1837), Charlotte, Princess Royal (1766-1828), Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820), Princess Augusta Sophia (1768-1840), Princess Elizabeth (1770-1840), Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (1771-1851), Augustus, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843), Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge (1774-1850), Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester (1776-1857), Princess Sophia (1777-1848), Prince Octavius (1779-1783), Prince Alfred (1780-1782), Princess Amelia (1783-1810).
- Religion: Protestant
- Reign: 25 October 1760 –; 29 January 1820
- Successor: George IV
- Died: 29 January 1820, Windsor Castle, Windsor, United Kingdom
- Burial: 16 February 1820, St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
- Quotes: “I spend money on war because it is necessary, but to spend it on science, that is pleasant to me. This object costs no tears; it is an honor to humanity.”
The Early Life of George III
George was born on the Early morning of June 4, 1738, at Norfolk House in London. He was a member of the royal family of the Guelphs, and his ancestors included Henry the Lion. His father was Frederick, Prince of Wales, his mother was Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. King George II was his grandfather.
Since Prince George was born two months early and his chances of survival seemed slim, he was baptized on the same day by Oxford’s Bishop Thomas Secker. A month later there was a public baptism at Norfolk House, again by Secker.
His godparents were King Friedrich of Sweden, his uncle Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, and his great aunt Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, who sent all deputies. George turned out to be a healthy, reserved, and shy child.
The family moved to Leicester Square, where private tutors taught him and his younger brother Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. According to the family’s letters, when he was eight he was able to read and write in both English and German and comment on current political events.
He was the first British monarch who received a systematic scientific education. In addition to chemistry and physics, his curriculum also included astronomy, mathematics, French, Latin, history, music, geography, trade, agriculture, and constitutional law, but also dancing, fencing, and riding. His religious education was completely Anglican.
Frederick Louis died on March 31, 1751, whereupon the Duke of Edinburgh’s title fell to his son. The new duke was now heir to the throne and accordingly received the title of Prince of Wales. His mother distrusted her father-in-law, who had kept her husband away from the royal court; for this reason, George lived separated from his grandfather.
The Earl of Bute, who later became prime minister, exerted great influence in his childhood.
Marriage
In 1759 George fell madly in love with Sarah Lennox, the Duke of Richmond’s sister, but John Stuart expressed his opposition to the union and George abandoned his ideas of marriage, “I am designated for the happiness and misery of a great people and therefore I must act contrary to my passion”.
The king’s attempts to marry him to the Princess Sophie Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel were rejected by George and his mother; the duchess will finally marry Frederick III, Margrave of Baden of Brandenburg-Bayreuth.
On October 25, 1760, George III, then aged 22, came to the throne under the name of George III after the sudden death of George II two weeks before his 77th birthday. The search for a suitable wife then accelerated sharply.
On September 8, 1761, he married in the royal chapel of the Saint James palace princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz whom he had met for the first time before the ceremony. Two weeks later, the royal couple was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
Unlike his predecessors and his sons, he had no extramarital affair; George III and Sophie Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz formed a united couple. They had nine sons and six daughters. In 1762, George bought Buckingham House (where today stands the Buckingham Palace) which was used as a second home for his family.
Its other residences were the Kew Palace and Windsor Castle while the Saint James Palace retained its status as an official residence. George III traveled little and spent all his life in the South of England. In the 1790s he took annual vacations at Weymouth he popularized as one of the first seaside resorts in England.
George III Children
Over time, the royal couple George III and Sarah Lennox came to enjoy true domestic happiness. From this relation 15 children were born:
- George IV (Palace of St James, August 12, 1762 – Windsor Castle, June 26, 1830), the successor to his father on the throne.
- Frederick of York (Buckingham Palace, August 16, 1763 – Rutland House, January 5, 1827), created Duke of York and Albany (November 29, 1784).
- William IV (Buckingham Palace, August 21, 1765 – Windsor Castle, June 20, 1837), created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews (1789); successor to his older brother on the throne by the name of William IV.
- Carlota Augusta Matilde (Buckingham Palace, September 29, 1766 – Ludwigsburg, October 6, 1828), created Princess Royal (October 1766) and formally since June 22, 1789; married with Federico I, king of Wurttemberg.
- Edward Augustus (Buckingham Palace, November 2, 1767 – Woodbrook Cottage, Sidmouth, Devon, January 23, 1820), created Duke of Kent and Strathearn (April 23, 1799), father of future Queen Victoria.
- Augusta Sofia (Buckingham Palace, November 8, 1768 – Clarence House, September 22, 1840).
The American War of Independence
The armed conflict broke out on April 19, 1775, with the battles of Lexington and Concord. After a final appeal to the king by the Second Continental Congress, the palm branch petition, the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.
The declaration of independence contained several passages directed against the British king, the British parliament, and the British in general. About George, it was said: “He abdicated here. He plundered our seas, devastated our coasts, burned down our cities, and destroyed the lives of our people” (He has abdicated Government here. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people).
A golden horseman statue in honor of George that had been erected in New York just ten years earlier was torn down. Although the British were initially at an advantage in the ensuing American Revolutionary War, the tide turned after Lieutenant General John Burgoyne surrendered during the Battle of Saratoga on October 17, 1777.
George is often accused of stubbornly holding on to the war against the American revolutionaries, against the advice of his ministers. According to the Victorian historian George Trevelyan, the king was determined to “never recognize the independence of Americans and punish their recalcitrance with the indefinite extension of the war.”
He wanted “the rebels harass, intimidate and impoverish until finally discontent and disappointment inevitably turned into remorse and remorse”. Later historians, however, hold George in good stead that in the context of that time no king would have willingly given up such a large territory.
His behavior was far less ruthless than that of any other European monarch at the time. After the setbacks in America, Lord North asked to step down in favor of William Pitt, who he considered more capable. Georg didn’t go into it and instead suggested that Pitt work as a sub-minister in North’s government.
Pitt refused to cooperate and died the same year. At the beginning of 1778, France allied with the United States and the conflict escalated. A little later, Spain and the Netherlands joined the alliance. Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth resigned from the government.
Lord North also offered to resign but remained in office at the king’s request. Opposition to the costly war increased and was one of the causes of the Gordon Riots in London in June 1780. After news of Lord Cornwallis’ surrender at the Battle of Yorktown reached London, Lord North lost his support in Parliament and resigned in March 1782.
The king wrote an abdication letter, which was never delivered. Finally, he accepted the defeat in North America and granted the authorization to conduct peace negotiations. The Peace of Paris, with which Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States, and Florida to Spain and Tobago ceded to France, was ratified in 1783.
King George III Madness
King George III of the United Kingdom never fully recovered “politically or personally” from the loss of the American colonies. He reflected on the loss of the colonies for many years and fell out of favor with the British public for extending the war.
However, in 1783, he was able to turn the disaster into a triumph at home when he opposed a plan by powerful ministers in Parliament to reform the East India Company. Although the king originally supported the reform, he saw this scheme as a way to promote corruption in Parliament.
George III let it be known that any minister who supported this scheme would become his enemy. The bill was eventually defeated, and King George regained some of its popularity with the British people as a result. However, in 1788, the king experienced an episode of insanity, believed to be caused by a genetic disease, porphyria, although some historians dispute this diagnosis.
Although the disease would eventually return, George III recovered the following year and, in association with his Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, sailed another war with France, the rise and fall of Napoleon, and the incorporation of Ireland into the United Kingdom.
George III Death
In 1810, George III became seriously ill, the possible cause of this sudden relapse being the death of his beloved youngest daughter, Princess Amelia, a victim of erysipelas or porphyria. Arsenic poisoning is also a credible cause of his death. By 1811 George III had been permanently insane and it was decided to confine him to Windsor Castle until his death.
Sometimes he talked without pause for hours, said he was conversing with angels, and once greeted an oak tree that he said was King Frederick William III of Prussia. His doctors administered ” James Powder”(a combination of tartar emetic and calomel) and they bled regularly. They also advised him to bathe in the sea, which he did in front of his people.
Parliament approved in 1811 the Regency Act, in which the royal assent was granted by the Commissioned Lords (who were appointed under the same irregular procedure that was adopted in 1788). The Prince of Wales has since acted as Regent for the rest of George III’s life.
Spencer Perceval was assassinated in 1812 (being the only British Prime Minister to have this ending) and replaced by Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool. Lord Liverpool oversaw the British victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequent Vienna Congress gave significant territorial increases for Hannover, which was elevated from electorate to kingdom (October 12, 1814).
Meanwhile, George III’s health was deteriorating. In Christmas of 1819, he suffered another attack of madness and spoke incoherently for 58 hours at the end of which he went into a coma. On January 29, 1820, died George III, blind, deaf, and mad at Windsor Castle, at 81 years old. He was buried on February 16 at St George’s Chapel in Windsor.
King George III was succeeded by the first of his sons George IV, and then by another son, William IV. William IV, who also left no legitimate children after his death, left the throne to his niece, Victoria, the last monarch of the House of Hannover.
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