George III

George III., the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in 1751, was born in London on June 4, 1738. His health was always feeble, and as he grew up it became evident that he was weak in mind as well as in body. He was brought up by his mother, to whom he owed the notion of making his power absolute and using it for the welfare of his subjects. His political mentor was Bolingbroke (q.v.), the author of the Patriot King. On October 25,1760, he succeeded his grandfather, George II. In the following year he espoused the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. George at once exerted himself to end the war with France, and thus remove an obstacle which threatened the establishment of his supremacy. This policy was strongly opposed to the feeling of the country. The Peace of Paris was signed, but Lord Bute, a royal favourite, who had succeeded the Dukeof Newcastle as Premier (1762), was driven from power by the popular clamour in 1763. Foiled in his first effort, the king attempted to realise his aim by making use of the mutual jealousies of the various Whig sections. Successive Whig Ministries were formed under George Grenville (1763-65), Lord Rockingham (1765-66), and the Duke of Grafton (1766-70). This period was marked by the successful assertion of important rights - the freedom of the Press, freedom of Parliamentary election, the publication of Parliamentary debates - through the agency of the popular champion, John Wilkes (q.v.). It was also during these years that a feeling of hostility was aroused in our American colonies by the imposition of unconstitutional taxes. In 1770 Grafton was succeeded by Lord North, but he was merely a tool in the hands of the king, who bribed members of Parliament to vote as he wished, and reserved preferment in Church and State, in the army and the law, for those whom he considered his "friends." In spite of the remonstrances of Chatham, the resistance of the American colonists was regarded as rebellion, and a war broke out (1775) which ended in the discomfiture of the royal troops and the recognition of American independence (1782). While America was thus slipping from our grasp, the British power in India was being established under the able administration of Warren Hastings (q.v.) (1773-85). Meantime Lord North had been forced to resign, and, after a short-lived union of the Whigs under the Marquis of Rockingham (1782), Lord Shelburne, who represented the views of Chatham, became Premier, with the younger Pitt as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Shelburne Ministry was overthrown by an unprincipled coalition of the Tories under North, with the disaffected Whigs who rallied round Fox, under the nominal leadership of the Duke of Portland. Fox was disliked by George III., who believed that he exercised a pernicious influence over the Prince of Wales, and, after his India Bill had been thrown out by the Lords, he and his colleagues were dismissed (1783).

Pitt then became Prime Minister. Throughout his long tenure of office he was a consistent Tory, and aimed at strengthening the power of the Crown, although the king was incapable of appreciating his far-reaching constitutional aims. In November, 1788, the king was stricken with madness, but he recovered in the following February. The universal joy expressed at the thanksgiving ceremony at St. Paul's showed that he had completely regained his lost popularity. Although strenuous in his efforts to maintain peace, Pitt was in 1793 forced into war by the aggressive attitude of the French revolutionary government. His policy was approved by the king, who sympathised with the misfortunes of the French monarch. George also regarded the Act of Union (1800) with much favour; but when Pitt attempted to follow up this measure by removing the political disabilities of the Irish Roman Catholics the king rejected the proposal on the ground that he "could not break his coronation oath," and Pitt was forced to resign (1801). After a short administration under the incapable Adclington, during which the Treaty of Amiens was concluded with the French Republic, Pitt returned to power in 1804 to carry on the war against Napoleon. On his death in 1806 the danger from France led to a temporary union of parties, but the "Ministry of All the Talents," headed by Grenville and Fox, adopted a policy too Liberal for the king, and was dismissed in 1807. The Government again became Tory, and remained so for the rest of the reign, the Premiers being the Duke of Portland (1807-9), Perceval (1809-12), and Lord Liverpool (1812-27). In 1810, the king, overcome with grief at the death of his favourite daughter, the Princess Amelia, became hopelessly insane, and in 1811 was declared by Parliament incapable of ruling, the Prince of Wales assuming the royal functions as Prince Regent. The second war with France - in which the victories of Wellington were a source of as much glory to England as those of Nelson had been in the previous struggle - was brought to a close in 1815. The closing years of the reign were marked by a spirit of discontent, among the labouring classes, which manifested itself in an agitation for the "radical reform" of the Constitution. The foolish violence with which all public expression of opinion was repressed by the Government led to fatal results in the Peterloo Massacre at Manchester (1819).

George III. died on January 29,1820. His private life was blameless. Unlike his predecessors of the same name, he was an Englishman in character and temperament as well as by birth and education.

He was well-meaning, though narrow-minded and bigoted, and was greatly attached to his native country.