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George III of the United Kingdom

George III (George William Frederick) (4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until 1 January 1801, and thereafter King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. He was concurrently Duke of Brunswick-L¸neburg, and thus Elector (and later King) of Hanover. The Electorate became the Kingdom of Hanover on 12 October 1814. George was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but the first to be born in Britain and use English as his first language. During George III's reign, Britain lost many of its colonies in North America, which became the United States. Also during his reign, the realms of Great Britain and Ireland were joined together to form the United Kingdom.

Later in his reign George III suffered from recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness. It is thought now that he suffered from mental and nervous disorders as a consequence of the blood disease porphyria, which struck several British monarchs. Recently, owing to studies showing high levels of the poison arsenic in King George's hair, arsenic is also thought to be a possible cause of King George's insanity and health problems. After a final relapse in 1811, George's eldest son, The Prince George, Prince of Wales ruled as Prince Regent. Upon George's death, the Prince of Wales succeeded his father as George IV.

George III has been nicknamed Farmer George, for "his plain, homely, thrifty manners and tastes".

Early life

His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales was born prematurely at Norfolk House in London at 7:45 A.M. on June 4, 1738. He was the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the grandson of George II. Prince George's mother was Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.

Because Prince George was born prematurely, he was baptised that same day at Norfolk House by the Bishop of Oxford, Thomas Secker. He was publicly baptised again at Norfolk House by Secker, on 4 July 1738. His godparents were the King of Sweden (for whom Lord Baltimore stood proxy), the Duke of Saxe-Gotha (for whom the Duke of Chandos stood proxy) and the Queen of Prussia (for whom Lady Charlotte Edwin, a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, stood proxy).

George II and the Prince of Wales had an extremely poor relationship. Prince George was consequently isolated from court in his early years. In 1751 the Prince of Wales died from a head injury, and Prince George became the Duke of Edinburgh. The new Duke of Edinburgh was Heir Apparent to the Throne, and was subsequently created Prince of Wales. His mother, now the Dowager Princess of Wales, mistrusted her father-in-law; thus, she kept the Prince of Wales separate from his grandfather. An important influence on the new Prince of Wales' childhood was John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who would later serve as Prime Minister.

Marriage

George, Prince of Wales inherited the Crown when his grandfather, George II, died on 25 October 1760. After his accession, a search throughout Europe ensued for a suitable wife. On 8 September 1761, the King married Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, London. A fortnight later, both were crowned at Westminster Abbey. Queen Charlotte was a descendant, through at least three and possibly as many as six lines, of Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a Portuguese noblewoman who lived in the 15th century. Castro was a descendant of the 13th-century monarch Alfonso III of Portugal and his mistress, Madragana, who was known as Alfonso's moor. Castro was an ancestor of most northern European royals, including George III.

It is said that George was smitten with Lady Sarah Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, and actually winced when he first saw the homely Charlotte, whom he met on their wedding day. However, he gamely went ahead with his marriage vows, and, remarkably, never took a mistress (in contrast with both his Hanoverian predecessors and his sons). The couple enjoyed a genuinely happy marriage. They had 15 children—nine sons and six daughters—more than any other British monarch. Two of his sons became Kings of the United Kingdom; another became King of Hanover; a daughter became Queen of W¸rttemberg.

George was, falsely, said to have married a Quakeress named Hannah Lightfoot on 17 April 1759, prior to his marriage to Charlotte. If such a marriage had existed, then his marriage to Charlotte would have been bigamous and all of George's successors would have been usurpers. But no legal marriage to Lightfoot could have occurred: she had married Isaac Axelford in 1753 and died in 1759, and therefore could not have produced legitimate children from a marriage in April that year. George's marriage to Charlotte was therefore not bigamous. The "marriage" to Hannah Lightfoot was mentioned in the 1866 trial of the daughter of imposter Olive Wilmot, who claimed to be "Princess Olive". A forged marriage certificate produced at her trial was impounded in 1866 and studied by the Attorney General. It is now in the Royal Archives in Windsor Castle.

Conflict in North America

The rest of the 1760s was marked by bureaucratic instability, which led to denunciations of George III by the Whigs as an autocrat in the manner of Charles I. The incompetent Lord Bute (who had probably been appointed only because of his agreement with George's views on royal power) resigned in 1763, allowing the Whigs to return to power. Later that year, the British government under George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that placed a boundary upon the westward expansion of the American colonies. The Proclamation's goal was to force colonists to negotiate with the Native Americans for the lawful purchase of the land and, therefore, to reduce the costly frontier warfare that had erupted over land conflicts. The Proclamation Line, as it came to be known, was incredibly unpopular with the Americans and ultimately became another wedge between the colonists and the British government, which would eventually lead to war. With the American colonists generally unburdened by British taxes, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the crown to pay for its military excursions and the defense of the American colonies from native uprisings. So, after George Grenville became Prime Minister, he introduced the Stamp Act, which levied a stamp duty on all printed paper in the British colonies in North America. Grenville attempted to reduce George III to a mere puppet. The King requested William Pitt the Elder to accept the office of Prime Minister, but was unsuccessful. George then settled on Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, and dismissed Grenville in 1765.

Lord Rockingham repealed Grenville's unpopular Stamp Act. He faced considerable internal dissent, and was replaced in 1766 by William Pitt, whom George created Earl of Chatham. Lord Chatham proved to be pro-American, criticising his colleagues' harsh attitudes towards the American colonists. George III, however, deemed that the chief duty of the colonists was to submit to him and to Great Britain and he resented the Americans' rebellious attitude. Lord Chatham fell ill 1767, allowing Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton to take over government, although he did not formally become Prime Minister until 1768. Political attacks led him to leave office in 1770, once again allowing the Tories to return to power.

The government of the new Prime Minister, Frederick North, Lord North, was chiefly

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