George III (Great Britain) (1738–1820; Ruled 1760–1820)

GEORGE III (GREAT BRITAIN) (1738–1820; ruled 1760–1820)

GEORGE III (GREAT BRITAIN) (1738–1820; ruled 1760–1820), king of Great Britain and Ireland. George III was also elector of Hanover (1760–1815), king of Hanover (1814–1820), and the last monarch to rule the thirteen colonies that became the United States of America. George III's father, Frederick Louis (1707–1751), the son of George II (ruled 1727–1760), died in 1751, leaving his eldest son to succeed him first as Prince of Wales and then as king. As prince George III developed a sense of antagonism toward the prevailing political system, which he thought oligarchical and factional. The young prince and his confidant, John Stuart (1713–1792), third earl of Bute, favored the idea of politics without party and a king above faction.

Succeeding his grandfather, George II, in 1760, George III was a figure of controversy from the outset because of his determination to reign without party. Unlike George I (ruled 1714–1727) and George II, George III was not a pragmatist, and he did have an agenda for Britain. He thought that much about the political system was corrupt and ascribed this in part to the size of the national debt. As a consequence George's moral reformism, which drew on his piety, was specifically aimed against faction and luxury. Like other rulers, George found it difficult to create acceptable relationships with senior politicians at his accession, and this contributed powerfully to the ministerial and political instability of the 1760s. Nevertheless, there was no fundamental political crisis, and after George found an effective political manager in Frederick North (1732–1792) in 1770, the political situation within Britain became far more quiescent. However, George's determination to maintain royal authority played a major role in the crisis of relations with the American colonies that led to revolution there in 1775. In turn failure there brought down the North ministry in 1782, beginning a period of instability that lasted until 1784.

George matured in office, becoming a practiced politician and a man more capable of defining deliverable goals. His conscientious nature shines through his copious correspondence. George felt the monarch could reach out, beyond antipathy and factional self-interest on the part of politicians, to a wider, responsible, and responsive public opinion.

George remained politically influential during the long ministry of William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806), but his ill health in 1788 led to a serious political crisis. George's attack of porphyria, which led to symptoms of insanity, caused the regency crisis. George's recovery in 1789 ended the crisis, and he again became a factor to reckon with. His obduracy created problems for his ministers when in the 1790s he opposed the extension of rights to Catholics in Ireland or Britain. Arguing that such moves would breach his coronation oath, George stated that he would not give royal assent to such legislation. This helped precipitate Pitt's resignation in 1801 and the fall of the ministry of William Wyndham Grenville (1759–1834) in 1807.

George's attitude also made religious issues even more central in the politics of the early nineteenth century than they might otherwise have been. His firmness, not to say rigidity, contrasted with the more flexible attitude of his non-Anglican predecessors, George II, George I, William III (ruled 1689–1702), and arguably Charles II (ruled 1660–1685). It also helped focus the defense of order, hierarchy, and continuity much more on religion than would otherwise have been the case in a period of revolutionary threats. George was motivated not only by his religious convictions but also by the argument that the position of the Church of England rested on fundamental parliamentary legislation. Any repeal would also thus challenge the constitutional safeguards that were similarly founded and secured. It is not surprising therefore that Edmund Burke's emphasis, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), on continuity and the value of the Glorious Revolution found favor with George III.

The monarchy became a more potent symbol of national identity and continuity in response to the French Revolution. In 1809, when George celebrated his jubilee, the public event not only symbolized the stability he had provided in an age of volatile politics but also expressed the genuine affection and admiration his subjects now had for the monarch. The social elite and the bulk of public opinion had rallied around the themes of country, crown, and church.

George's health broke down permanently in 1811. The following year his eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, became regent; in 1820 he succeeded his father as George IV (ruled 1820–1830).

George III was a keen family man. His wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whom he married in 1761, struck up a genuinely close relationship with him, but as their numerous children grew to adulthood (Charlotte bore a total of nine sons and six daughters), there arose a conflict between George's own sense of propriety and the dissolute lifestyle adopted by most of his boys. The members of the younger generation were especially loath to accept the king and queen's choices of marriage partners and entered into liaisons that, while often stable and personally fulfilling, hardly redounded to the increasingly prudish image George wished to promote. The alienation between the generations was represented most strikingly in the endless disputes between the king and the Prince of Wales.

George was a major art collector and a supporter of the astronomer Sir William Herschel (1738–1822). His cultural preferences, particularly his interest in the work of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), were related to his moral concerns. George was interested in farming and was known as "Farmer George." Although this led to satire at his expense, his domestication of the monarchy and his lack of ostentatious grandeur was important to a revival in popularity for the monarchy that served it well in the political crisis of the 1790s caused by the French Revolution. He was the originator of the emphasis on domesticity in the British royal family. The contrast between the fates of the British and French monarchies was due to many factors, but the differences between the personalities and attitudes of George III and Louis XVI (ruled 1774–1792) were important. Similarly George was subsequently favorably contrasted by British commentators with the apparently tyrannical and bellicose Napoléon I.

See also American Independence, War of (1775–1783) ; George II (Great Britain) ; Handel, George Frideric ; Hanoverian Dynasty (Great Britain) ; Pitt, William the Elder and William the Younger ; Revolutions, Age of .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, Jeremy. Eighteenth-Century Britain, 1688–1783. Basingstoke, U.K., 2001.

Ditchfield, G. M. George III: An Essay on Monarchy. Basingstoke, U.K., 2002.

Newman, Gerald. Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714– 1837: An Encyclopedia. New York and London, 1997.

Pares, Richard. George III and the Politicians. Oxford, 1953.

Thomas, P. D. G. George III: King and Politicians, 1760– 1770. Manchester, U.K., 2002.

Jeremy Black