King George III
George III reigned for fifty-nine years, lost the American colonies, and spent his last decade insane. Born in London in 1738, he was the first Hanoverian monarch born in Britain and the first to speak English as a first language, and he succeeded his grandfather in 1760 at twenty-two. He was conscientious, industrious and moral in private life — he married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, had fifteen children, took a serious interest in agriculture, and assembled a library of sixty-five thousand books that he opened to scholars and that became the foundation of the British Library. He intended to govern rather than reign, breaking with the Whig oligarchy that had run the country under his predecessors, which produced a decade of unstable ministries. The American crisis defined him. He supported the taxation of the colonies, regarded their resistance as rebellion against lawful authority, and refused compromise long after his ministers wavered. The Declaration of Independence lists grievances against him personally. He drafted an abdication message after Yorktown and did not send it. His later reign brought better ministers — the younger Pitt for most of two decades — the union with Ireland in 1801, and the long war against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, during which he became genuinely popular as a symbol of national resistance. He suffered episodes of derangement from 1788, with a severe attack in 1801 and a permanent collapse from 1810, probably from porphyria or bipolar disorder. He was kept at Windsor, blind and deaf, while his son ruled as regent from 1811. He blocked Catholic emancipation on the grounds of his coronation oath. He died in 1820.
- Lived: 1738 CE – 1820 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: king, monarch
