Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn (Henry Frederick;He is called simply "(His Royal Highness) Prince Henry" in the ''London Gazette'8 September 1761
Anne Horton. The King considered her inappropriate as a royal bride: she was from a lower social class
A social class is a set of concepts in the social sciences
Social science is the Branches of science, branch of science devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among individuals within those soc ...
and German law barred any children of the couple from the Hanoverian succession.[Brooke, pp. 272–282; Cannon and Griffiths, p. 498.]
George insisted on a new law that essentially forbade members of the Royal Family from legally marrying without the consent of the Sovereign. The subsequent bill was unpopular in Parliament, including among George's own ministers, but passed as the Royal Marriages Act 1772
The Royal Marriages Act 1772 was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of UnionAct of Union may refer to:
In Great Britain and Ireland
* Law ...
. Shortly afterwards, another of George's brothers, Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh
Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, (25 November 1743 – 25 August 1805), was a grandson of George II of Great Britain, King George II and a younger brother of King George III of the United Kingdom.
Life
Youth
Prince Will ...
, revealed he had been secretly married to Maria, Countess Waldegrave, the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole
Sir Edward Walpole KB PC (Ire) (1706 – 12 January 1784) was a British politician, and a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742.
Early life
The second son of Sir Robert Walpole, he was educated at Eton (1718) ...
. The news confirmed George's opinion that he had been right to introduce the law: Maria was related to his political opponents. Neither lady was ever received at court.
Lord North's government was chiefly concerned with discontent in America. To assuage American opinion most of the custom duties were withdrawn, except for the tea duty, which in George's words was "one tax to keep up the right o levy taxes. In 1773, the tea ships moored in Boston Harbor were boarded by colonists and the tea was thrown overboard, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. In Britain, opinion hardened against the colonists, with Chatham now agreeing with North that the destruction of the tea was "certainly criminal".
With the clear support of Parliament, Lord North introduced measures, which were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists: the Port of Boston was shut down and the Explanatory charter, charter of Province of Massachusetts Bay, Massachusetts was Massachusetts Government Act, altered so that the upper house of the legislature was appointed by the Crown instead of elected by the lower house. Up to this point, in the words of Professor Peter Thomas, George's "hopes were centred on a political solution, and he always bowed to his cabinet's opinions even when sceptical of their success. The detailed evidence of the years from 1763 to 1775 tends to exonerate George III from any real responsibility for the American Revolution." Though the Americans characterised George as a tyrant, in these years he acted as a constitutional monarch supporting the initiatives of his ministers.
American War of Independence
The American War of Independence was the culmination of the civil and political American Revolution resulting from the American Enlightenment. Thirteen British-American colonies ruled by Britain proved difficult to govern. Brought to a head over the lack of American representation in Parliament, which was seen as a denial of their Rights of Englishmen, rights as Englishmen and often popularly focused on direct taxes levied by Parliament on the colonies without their consent, the colonists resisted the imposition of direct rule after the Boston Tea Party. Creating self-governing provinces, they circumvented the British ruling apparatus in each colony by 1774. Armed conflict between British regulars and colonial militiamen broke out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. After Olive Branch Petition, petitions to the Crown for intervention with Parliament were ignored, the rebel leaders were Proclamation of Rebellion, declared traitors by the Crown and a year of fighting ensued. Thomas Paine's published work ''Common Sense'' abrasively referred to George III as "the Royal Brute of Great Britain".
The colonies United States Declaration of Independence, declared their independence in July 1776, listing Grievances of the United States Declaration of Independence, twenty-seven grievances against the British king and legislature while asking the support of the populace. Among George's other offenses, the Declaration charged, "He has abdicated Government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." The gilded equestrian statue of the king in New York was pulled down. The British captured the city in 1776 but lost Boston, and the Saratoga campaign, grand strategic plan of invading from Canada and cutting off New England failed with the surrender of British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne following the battles of Saratoga.
Although Prime Minister Lord North
Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title
Courtesy (from the word ''courteis'', from the 12th century) is gentle politeness and courtly manners. In the Middle Ages
I ...

was not an ideal war leader, George III managed to give Parliament a sense of purpose to fight, and Lord North was able to keep North ministry, his cabinet together. Lord North's cabinet ministers, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, however, proved to lack leadership skills suited for their positions, which in turn, aided the American war effort.
George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the revolutionaries in America, despite the opinions of his own ministers. In the words of the British historian Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, George Otto Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal." The King wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse". Later historians defend George by saying in the context of the times no king would willingly surrender such a large territory,[Cannon and Griffiths, pp. 510–511.] and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporary monarchs in Europe. After Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were in favour of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and although political opponents were vocal, they remained a small minority.[
]
With the setbacks in America, Lord North asked to transfer power to Lord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in North's administration, but Chatham refused. He died later in the same year. Lord North was allied to the "King's Friends" in Parliament and believed George III had the right to exercise powers. In early 1778, Early modern France, France (Britain's chief rival) signed a Treaty of Alliance (1778), treaty of alliance with the United States and the confrontation soon escalated from "civil war" to something that has been characterized as "world war".[Willcox & Arnstein, pp. 161, 165.] The French fleet was able to outrun the British naval blockade of the Mediterranean and sailed to North America.[ The conflict now affected North America, Europe and India.][ The United States and France were joined by Enlightenment in Spain, Spain in 1779 and the Dutch Republic, while Britain had no major allies of its own, except for the Loyalists (American Revolution), Loyalists and Germans in the American Revolution#Auxiliaries hired by Britain, German auxiliaries. Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, Lord Gower and Thomas Thynne, 1st Marquess of Bath, Lord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence. Opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as the Gordon riots.
As late as the siege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their eventual victory, as British troops inflicted defeats on the Continental forces at the Battle of Camden and the Battle of Guilford Court House. In late 1781, the news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at the siege of Yorktown reached London; Lord North's parliamentary support ebbed away and he resigned the following year. The King drafted an abdication notice, which was never delivered,][ finally accepted the defeat in North America, and authorized peace negotiations. The Peace of Paris (1783), Treaties of Paris, by which Britain recognized the independence of the American states and Spanish Florida, returned Florida to Spain, were signed in 1782 and 1783. In early 1783, George III privately conceded "America is lost!" He reflected that the Northern colonies had developed into Britain's "successful rivals" in commercial trade and fishing.
When John Adams was appointed United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, American Minister to London in 1785, George had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies. He told Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."
]
William Pitt
With the collapse of Lord North's ministry in 1782, the Whig Lord Rockingham became Prime Minister for the second time but died within months. The King then appointed Lord Shelburne to replace him. Charles James Fox, however, refused to serve under Shelburne, and demanded the appointment of William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. In 1783, the House of Commons forced Shelburne from office and his government was replaced by the Fox–North Coalition. Portland became Prime Minister, with Fox and Lord North, as Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary respectively.[
The King disliked Fox intensely, for his politics as well as his character: he thought Fox unprincipled and a bad influence on the Prince of Wales. 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. He was further dismayed when the government introduced the India Bill, which proposed to reform the government of India by transferring political power from the East India Company to Parliamentary commissioners. Although the King actually favoured greater control over the company, the proposed commissioners were all political allies of Fox. Immediately after the House of Commons passed it, George authorised George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham, Lord Temple to inform the House of Lords that he would regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy. The bill was rejected by the Lords; three days later, the Portland ministry was dismissed, and William Pitt the Younger was appointed Prime Minister, with Temple as his Secretary of State. On 17 December 1783, Parliament voted in favour of a motion condemning the influence of the monarch in parliamentary voting as a "high crime" and Temple was forced to resign. Temple's departure destabilised the government, and three months later the government lost its majority and Parliament was dissolved; the subsequent 1784 British general election, election gave Pitt a firm mandate.][
]
Signs of illness
Pitt's appointment was a great victory for George. It proved that the King could appoint prime ministers on the basis of his own interpretation of the public mood without having to follow the choice of the current majority in the House of Commons. Throughout Pitt's ministry, George supported many of Pitt's political aims and created new peers at an unprecedented rate to increase the number of Pitt's supporters in the House of Lords. During and after Pitt's ministry, George was extremely popular in Britain. The British people admired him for his piety and for remaining faithful to his wife. He was fond of his children and was devastated at the death of two of his sons in infancy, in 1782 and 1783 respectively. Nevertheless, he set his children a strict regimen. They were expected to attend rigorous lessons from seven in the morning and to lead lives of religious observance and virtue. When his children strayed from George's principles of righteousness, as his sons did as young adults, he was dismayed and disappointed.
By this time, George's health was deteriorating. He had a mental illness characterised by acute mania, which was possibly a symptom of the genetic disease porphyria
Porphyria is a group of liver disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system. The types that affect the nervous system are also known as Porphyria#Acute porphyrias, acute po ...

, although this has been questioned. A study of samples of the King's hair published in 2005 revealed high levels of arsenic, a possible trigger for the disease. The source of the arsenic is not known, but it could have been a component of medicines or cosmetics. The King may have had a brief episode of disease in 1765, but a longer episode began in the summer of 1788. At the end of the parliamentary session, he went to Cheltenham Spa to recuperate. It was the furthest he had ever been from London—just short of 100 miles (150 km)—but his condition worsened. In November of that year, he became seriously deranged, sometimes speaking for many hours without pause, causing him to foam at the mouth and his voice to become hoarse. George would frequently repeat himself and write sentences with over 400 words at a time, and his vocabulary became "more complex, creative and colourful", possible symptoms of bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder
A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of ...

. His doctors were largely at a loss to explain his illness, and spurious stories about his condition spread, such as the claim that he shook hands with a tree in the mistaken belief that it was the Frederick William II of Prussia, King of Prussia. Treatment for mental illness was primitive by modern standards, and the King's doctors, who included Francis Willis (physician), Francis Willis, treated the King by forcibly restraining him until he was calm, or applying caustic poultices to draw out "evil humours".
In the reconvened Parliament, Fox and Pitt wrangled over the terms of a regency during the King's incapacity. While both agreed that it would be most reasonable for the Prince of Wales to act as regent, Fox suggested, to Pitt's consternation, that it was the Prince's absolute right to act on his ill father's behalf with full powers. Pitt, fearing he would be removed from office if the Prince of Wales were empowered, argued that it was for Parliament to nominate a regent, and wanted to restrict the regent's authority. In February 1789, the Regency Bill, authorising the Prince of Wales to act as regent, was introduced and passed in the House of Commons, but before the House of Lords could pass the bill, George III recovered.
Slavery
According to the historian Andrew Roberts (historian), Andrew Roberts, George wrote a document in the 1750s "denouncing all of the arguments for slavery, and calling them an execration and ridiculous and 'absurd'." "George never bought or sold a slave in his life. He never invested in any of the companies that did such a thing. He signed legislation to abolish slavery."
During George III's lengthy reign, a coalition of abolitionists and Atlantic slave trade, Atlantic slave uprisings caused the British public to spurn slavery, but George and his son, the William IV, Duke of Clarence, supported the efforts of the London Society of West India Planters and Merchants to delay the abolition of the British slave trade for almost 20 years. Pitt conversely wished to see slavery abolished but, because the cabinet was divided and the King was in the pro-slavery camp, Pitt decided to refrain from making abolition official government policy. Instead, he worked toward abolition in an individual capacity.
On 7 November 1775, during the American War of Independence, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation that freed slaves of Rebel masters. Dunmore was the last Royal Governor of Virginia, appointed by King George III in July 1771. Dunmore's Proclamation inspired slaves to escape from captivity and fight for the British. On 30 June 1779, George III's Commanding General Henry Clinton (British Army officer, born 1730), Henry Clinton broadened Dunmore's proclamation with his Philipsburg Proclamation. For all colonial slaves who fled their Rebel masters, Clinton forbade their recapture and resale, giving them protection by the British military. Approximately 20,000 freed slaves joined the British, fighting for George III. In 1783, given British certificates of freedom, 3,000 former slaves, including their families, settled in Nova Scotia
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, official_lang = English (''de facto'')
, RegionalLang = French, Scots Gaelic
, capital ...

.
Between 1791 and 1800, almost 400,000 Africans were shipped to the Americas, by 1,340 slaving voyages, mounted from British ports, including Liverpool and Bristol. On 25 March 1807 George III signed into law ''Slave Trade Act 1807, An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade'', under which the transatlantic slave trade was banned in all of the British Empire.
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
After George's recovery, his popularity, and that of Pitt, continued to increase at the expense of Fox and the Prince of Wales. His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants, Margaret Nicholson in 1786 and John Frith (assailant), John Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity. James Hadfield's failed attempt to shoot the King in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 15 May 1800 was not political in origin but motivated by the apocalyptic delusions of Hadfield and Bannister Truelock. George seemed unperturbed by the incident, so much so that he fell asleep in the interval.
The French Revolution of 1789, in which the French monarchy had been overthrown, worried many British landowners. France declared war on Great Britain in 1793; in response to the crisis, George allowed Pitt to increase taxes, raise armies, and suspend the right of ''habeas corpus''. The War of the First Coalition, First Coalition to oppose revolutionary France, which included Austria, Prussia, and Spain, broke up in 1795 when Prussia and Spain made separate peace with France. The War of the Second Coalition, Second Coalition, which included Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire, was defeated in 1800. Only Great Britain was left fighting Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Consulate, First Consul of the French First Republic, French Republic.
A brief lull in hostilities allowed Pitt to concentrate effort on Ireland, where there had been an uprising and attempted French landing in 1798. In 1800, the British and Irish Parliaments passed an Acts of Union 1800, Act of Union that took effect on 1 January 1801 and united Great Britain and Ireland into a single state, known as the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". George used the opportunity to abandon the title "king of France", which British claims to the French throne, English and British Sovereigns had maintained since the reign of Edward III.[Weir, p. 286.] It was suggested that George adopt the title "British Emperor, Emperor of the British Isles", but he refused.[ As part of his Irish policy, Pitt planned to remove certain Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom, legal disabilities that applied to Roman Catholicism in the United Kingdom, Roman Catholics. George III claimed that to emancipate Catholics would be to violate his coronation oath, in which Sovereigns promise to maintain Protestantism. Faced with opposition to his religious reform policies from both the King and the British public, Pitt threatened to resign. At about the same time, the King had a relapse of his previous illness, which he blamed on worry over the Catholic question. On 14 March 1801, Pitt was formally replaced by the Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom), Speaker of the House of Commons, Henry Addington. Addington opposed emancipation, instituted annual accounts, abolished income tax and began a programme of disarmament. In October 1801, he made peace with the French, and in 1802 signed the Treaty of Amiens.
George did not consider the peace with France as real; in his view it was an "experiment". The war resumed in 1803, but public opinion distrusted Addington to lead the nation in war, and instead favoured Pitt. An invasion of England by Napoleon seemed imminent, and a massive volunteer movement arose to defend England against the French. George's review of 27,000 volunteers in Hyde Park, London, on 26 and 28 October 1803 and at the height of the invasion scare, attracted an estimated 500,000 spectators on each day. ''The Times'' said: "The enthusiasm of the multitude was beyond all expression." A courtier wrote on 13 November that "The King is really prepared to take the field in case of attack, his beds are ready and he can move at half an hour's warning." George wrote to his friend Richard Hurd (bishop), Bishop Hurd, "We are here in daily expectation that Bonaparte will attempt his threatened invasion ... Should his troops effect a landing, I shall certainly put myself at the head of mine, and my other armed subjects, to repel them." After Admiral Lord Nelson's famous naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, the possibility of invasion was extinguished.
]
In 1804, George's recurrent illness returned; after his recovery, Addington resigned and Pitt regained power. Pitt sought to appoint Fox to his ministry, but George refused. Lord Grenville perceived an injustice to Fox, and refused to join the new ministry.[ Pitt concentrated on forming a coalition with Austria, Russia, and Sweden. This War of the Third Coalition, Third Coalition, however, met the same fate as the First and Second Coalitions, collapsing in 1805. The setbacks in Europe took a toll on Pitt's health, and he died in 1806, reopening the question of who should serve in the ministry. Grenville became Prime Minister, and his "Ministry of All the Talents" included Fox. Grenville pushed through the Slave Trade Act 1807, which passed both houses of Parliament with large majorities.][ The King was conciliatory towards Fox, after being forced to capitulate over his appointment. After Fox's death in September 1806, the King and ministry were in open conflict. To boost recruitment, the ministry proposed a measure in February 1807 whereby Roman Catholics would be allowed to serve in all ranks of the Armed Forces. George instructed them not only to drop the measure, but also to agree never to set up such a measure again. The ministers agreed to drop the measure then pending, but refused to bind themselves in the future. They were dismissed and replaced by William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, as the nominal Prime Minister, with actual power being held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spencer Perceval. Parliament was dissolved, and the 1807 United Kingdom general election, subsequent election gave the ministry a strong majority in the House of Commons. George III made no further major political decisions during his reign; the replacement of Portland by Perceval in 1809 was of little real significance.
]
Final years, illnesses and death
In late 1810, at the height of his popularity, King George, already virtually blind with cataracts and in pain from rheumatism, suffered a relapse into his mental disorder and became dangerously ill. In his view the malady had been triggered by stress over the death of his youngest and favourite daughter, Princess Amelia of the United Kingdom, Princess Amelia. The Princess's nurse reported that "the scenes of distress and crying every day ... were melancholy beyond description." George accepted the need for the Regency Act 1811, and the Prince of Wales (later George IV) acted as Regent for the remainder of the King's life. Despite signs of a recovery in May 1811, by the end of the year George III had become permanently insane, and lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle until his death.
Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was Assassination of Spencer Perceval, assassinated in 1812 and was replaced by Lord Liverpool. Liverpool oversaw British victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequent Congress of Vienna led to significant territorial gains for Hanover, which was upgraded from an Electorate of Hanover, electorate to a Kingdom of Hanover, kingdom.
Meanwhile, George's health deteriorated. He developed dementia, and became completely blind and increasingly deaf. He was incapable of knowing or understanding that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818. At Christmas 1819, he spoke nonsense for 58 hours, and for the last few weeks of his life was unable to walk. He died, of pneumonia, at Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a at in the English county of . It is strongly associated with the and succeeding , and embodies almost a millennium of .
The original castle was built in the 11th century after the by . Since the time of (who re ...

at 8:38 pm on 29 January 1820, six days after the death of his fourth son Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. His favourite son, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, was with him. George III lay in state for two days, and his funeral and interment took place on 16 February in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Legacy
George was succeeded in turn by two of his sons, George IV and William IV of the United Kingdom, William IV, who both died without surviving legitimate children, leaving the throne to Queen Victoria, Victoria, the only legitimate child of his fourth son Prince Edward.
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 List of British monarchs by longevity, lived and List of monarchs in Britain by length of reign, reigned longer.
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. Under George III, the British Agricultural Revolution reached its peak and great advances were made in fields such as science and industry. There was unprecedented growth in the rural population, which in turn provided much of the workforce for the concurrent Industrial Revolution. George's collection of mathematical and scientific instruments is now owned by King's College London but housed in the Science Museum, London, to which it has been on long-term loan since 1927. He had the King's Observatory built in Richmond-upon-Thames for his own observations of the 1769 transit of Venus. When William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he at first named it ''Georgium Sidus'' (George's Star) after the King, who later funded the construction and maintenance of Herschel's 1785 40-foot telescope, which at the time was the biggest ever built.
George III hoped that "the tongue of malice may not paint my intentions in those colours she admires, nor the sycophant extoll me beyond what I deserve" but, in the popular mind, George III has been both demonised and praised. While very popular at the start of his reign, by the mid-1770s George had lost the loyalty of revolutionary American colonists, though it has been estimated that as many as half of the colonists remained loyal. The grievances in the United States Declaration of Independence were presented as "repeated injuries and usurpations" that he had committed to establish an "absolute Tyranny" over the colonies. The Declaration's wording has contributed to the American public's perception of George as a tyrant. Contemporary accounts of George III's life fall into two camps: one demonstrating "attitudes dominant in the latter part of the reign, when the King had become a revered symbol of national resistance to French ideas and French power", while the other "derived their views of the King from the bitter partisan strife of the first two decades of the reign, and they expressed in their works the views of the opposition".
Building on the latter of these two assessments, British historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, Trevelyan and Erskine May, promoted hostile interpretations of George III's life. However, in the mid-twentieth century the work of Lewis Bernstein Namier, Lewis Namier, who thought George was "much maligned", started a re-evaluation of the man and his reign. Scholars of the later twentieth century, such as Herbert Butterfield, Butterfield and Pares, and Macalpine and Hunter, are inclined to treat George sympathetically, seeing him as a victim of circumstance and illness. Butterfield rejected the arguments of his Victorian predecessors with withering disdain: "Erskine May must be a good example of the way in which an historian may fall into error through an excess of brilliance. His capacity for synthesis, and his ability to dovetail the various parts of the evidence ... carried him into a more profound and complicated elaboration of error than some of his more pedestrian predecessors ... he inserted a doctrinal element into his history which, granted his original aberrations, was calculated to project the lines of his error, carrying his work still further from centrality or truth." In pursuing war with the American colonists, George III believed he was defending the right of an elected Parliament to levy taxes, rather than seeking to expand his own power or prerogatives. In the opinion of modern scholars, during the long reign of George III, the monarchy continued to lose its political power and grew as the embodiment of national morality.[
]
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
* 4 June 1738 – 31 March 1751: ''His Royal Highness'' Prince George
* 31 March 1751 – 20 April 1751: ''His Royal Highness'' The Duke of Edinburgh
* 20 April 1751 – 25 October 1760: ''His Royal Highness'' The Prince of Wales
* 25 October 1760 – 29 January 1820: ''His Majesty'' The King
In Great Britain, George III used the official Style (manner of address), style "George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Fidei defensor, Defender of the Faith, and so forth". In 1801, when Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain united with Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, he dropped the title of king of France, which had been used for every English monarch since Edward III of England, Edward III's British claims to the French throne, claim to the French throne in the medieval period.[ His style became "George the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith."][Brooke, p. 390.]
In Germany, he was "Duke of Braunschweig, Brunswick and Lüneburg, Arch-Treasurer and Prince-elector
The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, la, Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the that elected the of the .
From the 13th century onwards, the prince-electors had the privilege of who would ...
of the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire ( la, Sacrum Romanum Imperium; german: Heiliges Römisches Reich) was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town i ...
" (''Herzog von Braunschweig und Lüneburg, Erzschatzmeister und Kurfürst des Heiligen Römischen Reiches'') until the end of the empire in 1806. He then continued as duke until the Congress of Vienna declared him "King of Hanover" in 1814.[
]
Honours
* : Order of the Garter, Royal Knight of the Garter, ''22 June 1749''[Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) ''The Knights of England'', I, London]
p. 44
* Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland: Founder of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick, ''5 February 1783''[Shaw]
p. ix
Arms
Before his succession, George was granted the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, royal arms differenced by a Label (heraldry), label of five points Azure (heraldry), Azure, the centre point bearing a fleur-de-lis Or (heraldry), Or on 27 July 1749. Upon his father's death, and along with the dukedom of Edinburgh and the position of heir-apparent, he inherited his difference of a plain label of three points Argent. In an additional difference, the crown of Charlemagne was not usually depicted on the Coat of arms of the Prince of Wales, arms of the heir, only on the Sovereign's.
From his succession until 1800, George bore the royal arms: Quartering (heraldry), Quarterly, I Gules three lions Attitude (heraldry)#Passant, passant guardant in Pale (heraldry), pale Or (Royal Arms of England, for England) Impalement (heraldry), impaling Or a lion Attitude (heraldry)#Rampant, rampant within a Orle (heraldry)#Tressure, tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (Royal coat of arms of Scotland, for Scotland); II Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or (for France); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (Coat of arms of Ireland, for Ireland); IV Division of the field, tierced per pale and per chevron (for Hanover), I Gules two lions passant guardant Or (for Brunswick), II Or a Variation of the field#Semé, semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure (for Lüneburg), III Gules a horse Attitude (heraldry)#Courant, courant Argent (Saxon Steed, for Saxony), overall an escutcheon Gules charged with the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, crown of Charlemagne Or (for the dignity of Archtreasurer of the Holy Roman Empire).
Following the Acts of Union 1800, the royal arms were amended, dropping the French quartering. They became: Quarterly, I and IV England; II Scotland; III Ireland; overall an escutcheon of Hanover surmounted by an electoral bonnet. In 1816, after the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Electorate of Hanover became a kingdom, the electoral bonnet was changed to a crown.
File:Coat of arms of George William Frederick, Duke of Edinburgh.svg, Coat of arms from 1749 to 1751
File:Coat of Arms of the Hanoverian Princes of Wales (1714-1760).svg, Coat of arms from 1751 to 1760 as Prince of Wales
File:Coat of Arms of Great Britain (1714-1801).svg, Coat of arms used from 1760 to 1801 as King of Great Britain
File:Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (1801-1816).svg, Coat of arms used from 1801 to 1816 as King of the United Kingdom
File:Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (1816-1837).svg, Coat of arms used from 1816 until death, also as King of Hanover
Issue
Ancestry
See also
* Cultural depictions of George III of the United Kingdom
* List of mentally ill monarchs
Notes
References
Bibliography
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* A compilation of essays encompassing the major assessments of George III up to 1964
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Further reading
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online 90-minute video lecture given at Ohio State in 2006; requires Real Player
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* British views
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External links
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Georgian Papers Programme
George III papers, including references to madhouses and insanity from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
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{{DEFAULTSORT:George 03 Of The United Kingdom
George III of the United Kingdom,
1738 births
1820 deaths
18th-century British people
19th-century British monarchs
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Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew