George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Sashsen-Gotha. He became heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his grandfather, George II, in 1760. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the first one to be born in England and to use English as his first language. George III is widely remembered for two things: losing the American colonies and going mad. This is far from the whole truth. George's direct responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. He opposed their bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies (such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper and other products) which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of Parliament. These policies were largely due to the financial burdens of garrisoning and administering the vast expansion of territory brought under the British Crown in America, the costs of a series of wars with France and Spain in North America, and the loans given to the East India Company (then responsible for administering India). By the 1770s, and at a time when there was no income tax, the national debt required an annual revenue of £4 million to service it. The declaration of American independence on 4 July 1776, the end of the war with the surrender by British forces in 1782, and the defeat which the loss of the American colonies represented, could have threatened the Hanoverian throne. However, George's strong defence of what he saw as the national interest and the prospect of long war with revolutionary France made him, if anything, more popular than before. The American war, its political aftermath and family anxieties placed great strain on George in the 1780s. George's accession in 1760 marked a significant change in royal finances. Since 1697, the monarch had received an annual grant of £700,000 from Parliament as a contribution to the Civil List, i.e. civil government costs (such as judges' and ambassadors' salaries) and the expenses of the Royal Household. In 1760, it was decided that the whole cost of the Civil List should be provided by Parliament in return for the surrender of the hereditary revenues by the King for the duration of his reign. (This arrangement still applies today, although civil government costs are now paid by Parliament, rather than financed directly by the monarch from the Civil List.) The first 25 years of George's reign were politically controversial for reasons other than the conflict with America. The King was accused by some critics, particularly Whigs (a leading political grouping), of attempting to reassert royal authority in an unconstitutional manner. In fact, George took a conventional view of the constitution and the powers left to the Crown after the conflicts between Crown and Parliament in the 17th century.
Although he was careful not to exceed his powers, George's limited ability and lack of subtlety in dealing with the shifting alliances within the Tory and Whig political groupings in Parliament meant that he found it difficult to bring together ministries which could enjoy the support of the House of Commons. His problem was solved first by the long-lasting ministry of Lord North (1770-82) and then, from 1783, by Pitt the Younger, whose ministry lasted until 1801. George III was the most attractive of the Hanoverian monarchs. He was a good family man (there were 15 children) and devoted to his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom he bought the Queen's House (later enlarged to become Buckingham Palace). However, his sons disappointed him and, after his brothers made unsuitable secret marriages, the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 was passed at George's insistence. (Under this Act, the Sovereign must give consent to the marriage of any lineal descendant of George II, with certain exceptions.) Being extremely conscientious, George read all government papers and sometimes annoyed his ministers by taking such a prominent interest in government and policy. His political influence could be decisive. In 1801, he forced Pitt the Younger to resign when the two men disagreed about whether Roman Catholics should have full civil rights. George III, because of his coronation oath to maintain the rights and privileges of the Church of England, was against the proposed measure. One of the most cultured of monarchs, George started a new royal collection of books (65,000 of his books were later given to the British Museum, as the nucleus of a national library) and opened his library to scholars. In 1768, George founded and paid the initial costs of the Royal Academy of Arts (now famous for its exhibitions). He was the first king to study science as part of his education (he had his own astronomical observatory), and examples of his collection of scientific instruments can now be seen in the Science Museum.
George III also took a keen interest in agriculture, particularly on the crown estates at Richmond and Windsor, being known as 'Farmer George'. In his last years, physical as well as mental powers deserted him and he became blind. He died at Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820, after a reign of almost 60 years - the second longest in British history. In 1786 a deranged woman, Margaret Nicholson, tried to stab the king of England outside St. James's Palace. Fortunately the king escaped injury and Nicholson was captured. As she was taken away, King George was heard to exclaim, Pray do not harm the poor woman As the king had wished, Nicholson was shown a certain amount of mercy. In an age when a child could be hung for stealing a spoon, the life of this would-be royal assassin was spared. She was sent to a mental institution, Bethlem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam. She became something of a celebrity, even writing a bestselling book (it was actually ghostwritten). It's not surprising that King George III showed compassion toward the poor woman who had tried to kill him. He was a kind-hearted man, and he knew first hand what it was like to be mentally ill. In 1765 he had suffered a breakdown. He was depressed, then cheerful, then depressed again. At first his doctors attributed his distress to a violent cold, which they treated by bleeding him. Weeks passed, and the king remained sulky and agitated; eventually, however, he seemed to recover. There is dispute today about the cause of this illness and whether it was related to King George's later madness. His wife, Queen Charlotte, felt that he was overly stressed by the duties of kingship, and certainly that was a difficult time for George, who was struggling to hang on to the rebellious American colonies. In 1788, two years after Margaret Nicholson's assassination attempt, King George had another breakdown. He suffered fits of gloom alternating with excited spells during which he talked incessantly and behaved oddly -- for instance, he presented a visitor to the palace with a blank sheet of paper for no apparent reason. Again his physician, Sir George Baker, tried to cure him by bleeding him. When this failed, Baker concluded that the king's problem was more than physical. He later commented, Nothing is more embarrassing to families as well as physicians than the condition of persons half-disordered, whom the law will not confine, though they ought not to be at liberty. Such appeared to me to have been His Majesty's case. Not wanting to call public attention to the king's problem, Baker did little to treat it. He tried to keep it secret, but the Prince of Wales had different ideas. Eager to seize his father's power, the Prince spread word of George's illness all over town. He further advanced his cause by bringing in his own physician, Dr. Warren, to treat the king. George was by turns depressed and agitated, and did and said things people found strange, but he had not taken leave of his senses. Indeed, some observers thought he was thinking more clearly than ever before. But he was not fit to rule, and no one understood what was wrong or how to help him. Under Dr. Warren's enlightened leadership, the royal physicians blistered the king's forehead to draw the poison out of his brain. They forced him to take useless drugs -- ordering servants to sit on the king when he resisted -- and refused to let him have a fire in his room during the terribly cold winter.
Of course, the king did not thrive under this regime. Even Dr. Warren didn't expect his patient to recover. He will not live to be certified a lunatic, the doctor stated.
A new set of physicians, Dr. Francis Willis and his son John, arrived on the scene. The Willises confined the king to a straitjacket when they deemed it necessary, and gave him medicine to make him vomit when they felt his behavior was getting out of hand, but on the whole they treated George more gently than the other doctors had. The king began to get better, and within a few months he was able to resume his royal duties. Over the next 20 years King George suffered occasional brief relapses, but it wasn't until 1810 that he truly became the mad King George depicted in film and legend. The Prince of Wales was named Prince Regent and assumed the king's powers, and George was relegated to the role of laughable lunatic. Wild stories were told about him -- that he had addressed a tree as the King of Prussia, insisted on ending every sentence with the word peacock, etc. etc. -- and many of these stories were completely untrue. What is true is that he spent his last years deaf, blind, lonely and confused, talking to the ghosts of his dead children. He died in 1820 and the Prince Regent became King George IV. Today it is widely believed that the king suffered from porphyria, a rare genetic disorder which interferes with the body's chemical balance.
