1. George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820.
60 Facts About George III
1. 2.
George III was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814.
3.
George III was a monarch of the House of Hanover, who, unlike his two predecessors, was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.
4.
George III succeeded to the throne on George II's death in 1760.
5.
In 1810, George III suffered a final relapse, and his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was named Prince Regent the following year.
6.
George III reigned during much of the Georgian and Regency eras.
7.
George III's godparents were King Frederick I of Sweden, his uncle Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha, and his great-aunt Sophia Dorothea, Queen in Prussia.
8.
George III was the first British monarch to study science systematically.
9.
King George III II disliked Prince Frederick and took little interest in his grandchildren.
10.
However, in 1751, Frederick died unexpectedly from a lung injury at the age of 44, and his son George III became heir apparent to the throne and inherited his father's title of Duke of Edinburgh.
11.
In 1759, George III was smitten with Lady Sarah Lennox, sister of Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, but Lord Bute advised against the match and George III abandoned his thoughts of marriage.
12.
The search for a suitable wife intensified: after giving consideration to a number of Protestant German princesses, George III's mother sent Colonel David Graeme with, on her son's behalf, an offer of marriage to Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
13.
George III never took a mistress, and the couple enjoyed a happy marriage until his mental illness struck.
14.
In 1762, George III purchased Buckingham House for use as a family retreat.
15.
George III did not travel extensively and spent his entire life in southern England.
16.
George III came to be perceived as favouring Tory ministers, which led to his denunciation by the Whigs as an autocrat.
17.
George III surrendered the Crown Estate to Parliamentary control in return for a civil list annuity for the support of his household and the expenses of civil government.
18.
Meanwhile, George III had become exasperated at Grenville's attempts to reduce the King's prerogatives, and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade William Pitt the Elder to accept the office of prime minister.
19.
Rockingham's government was weak, and he was replaced as prime minister in 1766 by Pitt, whom George III created Earl of Chatham.
20.
The actions of Lord Chatham and George III in repealing the Act were so popular in America that statues of them both were erected in New York City.
21.
George III was re-elected and expelled twice more, before the House of Commons resolved that his candidature was invalid and declared the runner-up as the victor.
22.
George III was deeply devout and spent hours in prayer, but his piety was not shared by his brothers.
23.
George III was appalled by what he saw as their loose morals.
24.
George III insisted on a new law that essentially forbade members of the royal family from legally marrying without the consent of the sovereign.
25.
George III declared the American leaders to be traitors and a year of fighting ensued.
26.
George III has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
27.
Prime Minister Lord North was not an ideal war leader, but George III managed to give Parliament a sense of purpose to fight, and North was able to keep his cabinet together.
28.
George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the rebels, despite the opinions of his own ministers.
29.
Later historians defend George III by saying that, in the context of the times, no king would willingly surrender such a large territory, and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporaneous monarchs in Europe.
30.
North was allied to the "King's Friends" in Parliament and believed that George III had the right to exercise powers.
31.
George III said that Britain was confronted by the "most serious crisis the nation ever knew".
32.
In late 1779, George III advocated sending more British warships and troops across the Atlantic to the West Indies.
33.
George III finally accepted the defeat in America and authorized peace negotiations.
34.
John Adams was appointed American minister to London in 1785, by which time George III had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies.
35.
George III was distressed at having to appoint ministers not of his liking, but the Portland ministry quickly built up a majority in the House of Commons, and could not be displaced easily.
36.
Immediately after the House of Commons passed it, George III authorised Lord Temple to inform the House of Lords that he would regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy.
37.
George III was fond of his children and was devastated at the death of two of his sons in infancy, in 1782 and 1783 respectively.
38.
George III had a mental illness characterised by acute mania.
39.
Recent scholarship discounts the porphyria theory and contends that George III's illness was psychiatric, most probably bipolar disorder.
40.
George III's doctors were largely at a loss to explain his illness, and spurious stories about his condition spread, such as the claim that he had shaken hands with a tree in the mistaken belief that it was the King of Prussia.
41.
George III seemed unperturbed by the incident, so much so that he fell asleep in the interval.
42.
France declared war on Great Britain in 1793; in response to the crisis, George III allowed Pitt to increase taxes, raise armies, and suspend the right of habeas corpus.
43.
George III claimed that to emancipate Catholics would be to violate his coronation oath, in which sovereigns promise to maintain Protestantism.
44.
At about the same time, George III had a relapse of his previous illness, which he blamed on worry over the Catholic question.
45.
George III did not consider the peace with France as real; in his view it was an "experiment".
46.
George III was conciliatory towards Fox, after being forced to capitulate over his appointment.
47.
George III instructed them not only to drop the measure, but to agree never to set up such a measure again.
48.
George III made no further major political decisions during his reign; the replacement of Portland by Perceval in 1809 was of little real significance.
49.
George III developed dementia, and became completely blind and increasingly deaf.
50.
George III was incapable of knowing or understanding that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818.
51.
George III never invested in any of the companies that did such a thing.
52.
On 25 March 1807, George III signed into law An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, under which the transatlantic slave trade was banned in the British Empire.
53.
George III was succeeded by two of his sons, George III IV and William IV in turn, who both died without surviving legitimate children, leaving the throne to Victoria, the only legitimate child of his fourth son Prince Edward.
54.
George III lived for 81 years and 239 days, and reigned for 59 years and 96 days: both his life and his reign were longer than those of any of his predecessors and subsequent kings; only queens Victoria and Elizabeth II lived and reigned longer.
55.
George III was dubbed "Farmer George" by satirists, at first to mock his interest in mundane matters rather than politics, but later to portray him as a man of the people, contrasting his homely thrift with his son's grandiosity.
56.
George III had the King's Observatory built in Richmond-upon-Thames for his own observations of the 1769 transit of Venus.
57.
However, in the mid-twentieth century the work of Lewis Namier, who thought George III was "much maligned", started a re-evaluation of the man and his reign.
58.
Scholars of the later twentieth century, such as Butterfield and Pares, and Macalpine and Hunter, are inclined to treat George III sympathetically, seeing him as a victim of circumstance and illness.
59.
In Great Britain, George III used the official style "George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and so forth".
60.
George III then continued as duke until the Congress of Vienna declared him "King of Hanover" in 1814.