David Starkey TV - Lucy Worsley TV - Horace Walpole - The Real King & Queen TV - Caroline of Ansbach - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Lord Byron - Edmund Clerihew Bentley - Richard Price - Beau Brummell - Byron Rogers - John Byrom - George III - Robert Hardman TV - Private Lives of the Monarchs TV -
King George III: who was only just recovering from his first bout of madness. Monarchy by David Starkey s3e5: Survival, Channel 4 2006
At the time of his collapse [George III] the Prince of Wales ... was already 48, under the combined influences of drinks, drugs, like the opium compound Laudanum ... He spent gigantically too. ibid.
Amelia was the favourite of her father George III. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 1/3, BBC 2011
It was this sickly girl who was responsible for the birth of the Regency. ibid.
George III: he did rule for sixty years. Dr Lucy Worsley, Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History II: Bad Blood: Stuarts to Hanoverians, BBC 2013
Winter 1788: King George III is hallucinating violently and abusive. He is losing control of himself and the country. This is a crisis. Britain can’t have a mentally ill king. Lucy Worsley Investigates: Madness of King George, BBC 2022
He was plagued by bouts of mental illness which were barely understood in his lifetime. ibid.
Now there is a rival diagnoses: was Porphyria, now Bipolar Affective Disorder. ibid.
He lost his dominions in America, his authority over Ireland, and all influence in Europe, by aiming at despotism in England; and exposed himself to more mortifications and humiliations than can happen to a quiet Doge of Venice. Horace Walpole, re George III
Legend has it that King George III, the grandfather of Queen Victoria, had a secret wife and three children before his official marriage. If it’s true, every monarch since then has been a pretender to the throne. The Real King & Queen
The evidence that Hannah married George appears to exist in the form of a marriage certificate. ibid.
My dear firstborn is the greatest ass, and the greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the world, and I heartily wish he was out of it. Caroline of Ansbach, wife of George II, re her eldest son Frederick Prince of Wales
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King. Percy Bysshe Shelley, re George III
And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,
It seemed the mockery of hell to fold
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. Lord Byron, re burial of George III
George the Third
Ought never to be occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder. Edmund Clerihew Bentley 1875-1956
May you be led to such a sense of nature of your situation to consider yourself more properly the servant than the sovereign of the people. Dr Richard Price to King George III
Alvanley, who’s your fat friend? Beau Brummell
The generation that we’re concerned with – George III and his brothers – they made secret marriage into a sort of art form. George IV was a bigamist. Byron Rogers, author
God bless the king, I mean the faith’s defender;
God bless – (no harm in blessing) – the pretender;
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless them all – that’s quite another thing. John Byrom, Extempore Intended to Allay the Violence of Party Spirit
Come all ye foreign strolling gentry,
Into Great Britain make your entry;
Abjure the Pope, and take the oaths,
And you shall have meat, drink, and clothes. John Byrom, Four Epigrams on the Naturalization Bill (i)
Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton. George III, speech 18th November 1760
A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me. George III
The King who went mad. Yet George III reigned longer than any king in British history through tumultuous change. He was the last king of America and the first of Australia … A champion of science, art and music. Robert Hardman, George III – The Genius of the Mad King, BBC 2017
George III was halfway though his reign when his first bout of mental illness began: it lasted four months. ibid.
He arranged his own marriage to Charlotte – the German princess he had never met who bore him fifteen children. He was driven by his sense of duty to his family and his country. ibid.
What is the truth about the madness of King George III? The Private Lives of the Monarchs s1e2: George III and the Prince Regent, Yesterday 2017
‘He wanted to be regarded as totally British.’ ibid. Tom McMahon, historian
A very happy marriage that lasted for 57 years and produced 16 children. ibid.