The King was accused by some critics, particularly Whigs (a leading political grouping), of attempting to reassert royal authority in an unconstitutional manner. The first 25 years of George's reign were politically controversial for reasons other than the conflict with America. In 1760, it was decided that the whole cost of the Civil List should be provided by Parliament, in return for the surrender of the hereditary revenues by the King for the duration of his reign. civil government costs (such as judges' and ambassadors' salaries) and the expenses of the Royal Household. Since 1697, the monarch had received an annual grant of £700,000 from Parliament as a contribution to the Civil List, i.e. George's accession in 1760 marked a significant change in royal finances. Some medical historians have said that George III's mental instability was caused by a hereditary physical disorder called porphyria. He was mentally unfit to rule in the last decade of his reign his eldest son - the later George IV - acted as Prince Regent from 1811. After serious bouts of illness in 1788-89 and again in 1801, George became permanently deranged in 1810. The American war, its political aftermath and family anxieties placed great strain on George in the 1780s. However, George's strong defence of what he saw as the national interest and the prospect of long war with revolutionary France made him, if anything, more popular than before. Read a letter by George III on the loss of America The declaration of American independence on 4 July 1776, the end of the war with the surrender by British forces in 1782, and the defeat which the loss of the American colonies represented, could have threatened the Hanoverian throne.
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These policies were largely due to the financial burdens of garrisoning and administering the vast expansion of territory brought under the British Crown in America, the costs of a series of wars with France and Spain in North America, and the loans given to the East India Company (then responsible for administering India).īy the 1770s, and at a time when there was no income tax, the national debt required an annual revenue of £4 million to service it. He opposed their bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper and other products, which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of Parliament. George's direct responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. George III is widely remembered for two things: losing the American colonies and going mad. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the first one to be born in England and to use English as his first language. He became heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his grandfather, George II, in 1760.
George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.
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