George III: Majesty and Madness

Detail of George III in Coronation Robes, a 1765 portrait by Allan Ramsay

King George III was born on this day in 1738. To the extent that he is remembered in America today, it either as the bloody tyrant who tried to oppress the freedom-loving Thirteen Colonies or as an insane weakling, good evidence of the foolishness of royal families and hereditary monarchy. One of these is glib, one is propaganda—both are inaccurate, as made clear by Jeremy Black’s excellent entry in the Penguin Monarchs series, George III: Majesty and Madness.

George’s reign

One thing that is often lost in the caricature versions of George is how long he reigned. He ascended the throne at the height of the French and Indian/Seven Years War and lived five years past the Battle of Waterloo—almost sixty years. Only Victoria and Elizabeth II have ruled England longer.

George rose to the throne relatively young, succeeding his grandfather George II at the age of twenty-two, in the midst of a global war. Over the course of this book’s 115 pages, Black concisely outlines George’s reign, from the crises facing George immediately upon his ascent (whom to marry, how to conclude the Seven Years War) and thereafter (how to recover the cost of the war, how to deal with unrest and rebellion in North America, how to deal with the threat of the French Revolution and, even later, Napoleon), to the ups and downs of George’s popularity among the people, the rising and falling tensions within the governments he formed, and the mental health problems that occasionally cropped up from about the middle of his reign to the Regency, when he was finally and totally overcome by them.

Owing to the length of George’s reign, the intricacy of some of the political questions raised during that time, and the brevity imposed by the Penguin Monarchs series, Black can only briefly treat many of these issues, such as the ongoing debate over the international slave trade at the time. Black also assumes you will know who certain important figures and factions are—Lord North, Pitt the Elder, Pitt the Younger, the Whigs, the Rockingham Whigs, the Wilkesites—so some familiarity with the period will help. But considering the vast time covered, Black does a good job presenting a concise, focused, and comprehensible account of the events of George’s reign.

Naturally, given the way hindsight reorders the importance of events, the American Revolution looms large in this book. Black presents the story well, showing both what motivated the colonials as well as George and his government, and how misunderstandings and mismatched expectations deepened the divide between the two sides.

Black also explodes the American myth of the Mad Tyrant King George, outlining the reasonableness of colonial taxation given the wildly successful but expensive Seven Years’ War—a war that started in the colonies, was fought to defend the colonies, and resulted in the opening of vast new territories for the colonies. Mismanagement of imperial policy, the passage of unpopular acts followed swiftly by their revocation—most famously the Stamp Act—created uncertainty and mistrust about the way the colonies would be run:

Indeed, the revolution occurred not because of a general desire to fight for liberty, but rather as a hesitant, if not unwilling, response on the part of many to the confused tergiversations of British policy, policy changes that apparently pointed the way to new forms of imperial governance. This concern led the colonies to a depth of alienation that was underrated in Britain, at least by the government, or that was misleadingly seen as restricted to a few troublemakers. Separation was a last resort for most of the colonists.

That George took the blame for mismanaged taxation policies is down to American propaganda—especially the Declaration of Independence, a laundry list “of charges thrown incontinently at George by Thomas Jefferson” and bearing only tenuous relation to reality and almost none to George’s role in the crisis.

But another part in the outbreak of revolution was played by George’s personality, and this presents us with some of the greatest ironies of George’s life, reign, and the empire’s loss of America. He saw monarchy not as a privilege to be exploited and enjoyed, but a divinely ordained office with immense responsibilities and obligations. The words “duty” and “conscientiousness” recur over and over in Black’s account. George’s sense of duty, his assumption that good men would cross party lines to cooperate and do the right thing, and his prickliness and disdain for those who refused or avoided their responsibilities or caved in to base instincts all played a role in his leadership before and during the Revolution. What the rebels who vandalized the East India Company’s tea in Boston Harbor needed was a firm line, a reminder that they were part of a whole and had duties incumbent upon them just as George did. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

George’s character

One of the ironies of accusing George of tyranny is precisely that sense of duty, which caused him to observe limits to his own power. He worked scrupulously to defend and uphold what had been entrusted to him. As Black puts it, “far from having unconstitutional tendencies, George saw himself as the constitution’s defender; but his determination to deploy the full powers that could be presented as his appeared to critics to be unconstitutional.” Much of the time he succeeded, but transatlantic miscommunication and misunderstanding frustrated George’s attempts to hold the empire together.

George’s observation of propriety and limitation was not only political but personal. Consider this telling anecdote from Black’s description of George’s lifestyle:

George’s first country residence, Richmond Lodge, was to be demolished, having been judged too small for his rapidly growing family. He turned to the White House in Kew, the country home of his parents, but wanted a new palace in the area; initially at Richmond, for which, in 1765, [architect William] Chambers produced a design for a major neo-classical work in accordance with the traditions of country-house (i.e. rural-palace) building[.] . . . The main façade was to be 328 feet long, but this was never built because, in contradiction to the Declaration of Independence, George was no tyrant: the cost was too great for the modest royal finances. Also, he was unable to purchase some land adjacent to his property which he saw as necessary for the palace, and certainly could not expropriate it as he very much regarded himself as under the law.

Here Black presents us with a king striving to live within his means and refusing to take advantage of his position to confiscate private property for his own use. Recent American presidents have been considerably less scrupulous about running up debt or the use of eminent domain for personal projects.

That’s the low-hanging fruit that first came to mind when I read that passage, but there’s much more, and this is the bitterest irony of all—George was a good man. He married well, to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and never took a mistress or was otherwise unfaithful to his wife at a time when infidelity among monarchs was commonplace. Indeed, his open and public affection toward Charlotte was the subject of approving comment by contemporaries, and his vigorous outdoor walks with her were a customary part of his routine. They had fifteen children in nineteen years and he strove to inculcate in them the same senses of piety and responsibility that had been imparted to him by his mother.

George had a keen interest in and generously patronized the arts and sciences. He helped lead a revival of Handel’s religious oratorios and played several instruments himself, as well as promoting the historical paintings and portraiture of artists like Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West and taking a personal interest—both through study in his own extensive library or conversation with experts—in everything from architecture and engineering to new farming techniques and astronomy. Visitors to court, including John Adams as ambassador of the young American republic, found George approachable and even friendly, talkative, and well-informed on a huge array of subjects.

And he was devoutly and sincerely religious, another trait atypical of monarchs at the time. His faith, indeed, undergirds everything else. “This commitment,” Black notes, “is apt to be downplayed in a secular age, but it was fundamental to George’s life, character and policies, and contemporaries noted the energy with which he said his amens.” George’s senses of duty and even patriotism were religious ones, and his reign was a religious mission to uphold and strengthen what he, by providential accident, had inherited. He only partially succeeded, though not for insincerity or lack of effort.

That George’s memory is denigrated while we excuse, ignore, or personally disavow the failings and evils of the strivers, would-be dictators, and tyrants that have paraded through the office of President simply because they are elected is and should be a judgement on us.

Culture and George’s reputation

So why does this reputation, all these years after the grievances of the Revolution should have faded, still cling to him?

This brings me to one of the most distinctive parts of this volume. Black is not the most elegant writer I’ve read, but he writes capably, commands an astonishing array of sources, and pays careful attention to two things it is easy to neglect in political history—the roles of personality and culture. In the final chapter of George III: Majesty and Madness, Black treats the reader to a tour of George by way of Jane Austen, Hamilton, and others. About Hamilton he doesn’t have much to say, nor should he: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s George, a figure both “comic relief” and “sinister,” is “wildly inaccurate.” Period. The earlier play and film The Madness of King George gets more right, particularly about the treatments endured by George during his bouts of insanity, but raised George’s late-life mental health to such visibility that this problem, along with the loss of the North American colonies, has come to define him. That George’s reputation has suffered under the smears and imbalances of depictions in popular culture is clear—and it continues.

But the window into George’s life and reign offered by the works of Jane Austen—a woman whose interests, beliefs, and priorities overlapped a great deal with her king’s—is fascinating, and Black’s examination of George’s reign through her writing is one of the best parts of the book. Black also includes an interesting comparison of George III with George Washington, a man the king—who respected strength of duty and character—was humble enough to praise when Washington turned down dictatorial power.

Conclusion

George III: Madness and Majesty, with its sweeping scope balanced by careful but concise examination of key political events, and most especially in its attention to its subject’s personal life and character, is a very good short biography and a good introduction to a much-maligned and misunderstood man. I highly recommend it.

More if you’re interested

Black has also written a full-scale biography of George III subtitled America’s Last King, which I intend to read soon. Andrew Roberts also has a biography of George coming out this fall; read the description on Amazon and you’ll see that it’s designed precisely to be a corrective. For an extended, fair, and beautifully illustrated kids’ version of the George III/George Washington comparison, let me recommend Rosalyn Schanzer’s George vs. George: The American Revolution As Seen from Both Sides. You can read my old Amazon review here. I’ve previously reviewed another excellent entry in the Penguin Monarchs series, Elizabeth I: A Study in Insecurity, by Helen Castor, here.