On this day (June 4) in 1738, America’s last king, the insecure, somewhat slow-witted and lethargic George William Frederick (the future George III) was born in London, the son of the Prince of Wales, Frederick Louis, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and grandson of King George II.
As Britain’s monarch before and during the Revolutionary War, “farmer George” has been blamed somewhat undeservedly (as in the Declaration of Independence) for pursuing policies that made the American War for Independence seemingly inevitable.
Estranged at an early age from his father and raised by a strong-willed domineering mother who frequently admonished the seemingly apathetic and introverted George “to be a king” (i.e., act confidently and authoritatively), the overly serious George William Frederick had a troubled and unhappy upbringing.
Perhaps unduly and sometimes negatively influenced by his overbearing mother and his boyhood Scottish tutor (John Stuart, third Earl of Bute), the impressionable young boy did not even learn to read until the age of 11. At the age of 12, George became the heir-apparent to the British throne upon the death in 1750 of his father, Frederick.
On Oct. 25, 1760, George’s grandfather, King George II, died and the 22-year-old George ascended the British throne as George III. He was, at that time, politically inexperienced and ill-prepared to guide Britain to victory in the then raging Seven Years’ War (in America, the French and Indian War) and then to solve the many post-war problems facing his debt-ridden country.
However, during the first 10 years of his long tenure as the British monarch, George laboriously learned to be a king. With the appointment in 1770 of Lord Frederick North as prime minister, George III seemingly at last became “the king” his contriving mother always had urged him to be. Although often depicted as the twin British villains of the American Revolution, the Oxford-educated Lord North and the king worked well together.
Throughout most of his long reign (1760-1820), George III was the model constitutional monarch. He believed in parliamentary supremacy and usually worked within that framework to achieve what he thought was best for his beloved Great Britain.
Unfortunately, during the last 36 years of his reign (1784-1820), George III was tormented intermittently with periods of what was thought to be insanity. The specific nature of his affliction is not known for sure, but a plausible guess is that the unfortunate king had inherited a condition known as porphyria, which is defined as a pathological state characterized by abnormalities of the metabolism. Porphyria causes periods of disillusionment and bouts of abnormal and inappropriate behavior. These are the very attributes displayed by George III during the latter decades of his life.
During his last years, George III became much beloved by the British people. He had successfully guided Britain through the tumultuous times of the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Period. Unfortunately, however, he will always be remembered, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, as the king who lost the American colonies.
Upon his death on Jan. 29, 1820, at Windsor Castle, George III was eulogized as one of Great Britain’s most politically maligned, but also the most well-intentioned and beloved monarchs.
• Crystal Lake resident Joseph C. Morton is professor emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University and author of “The American Revolution” and “Shapers of the Great Debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.”