Never forgiving the king for opposing their hegemony, they sniped incessantly from the sidelines – the Whig historian Horace Walpole even cattily said of George’s choice of bride, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, that her “bloom of ugliness” started fading at 17. The denigration of his character began early, and was carried out initially by his opponents in the “Old Whig” faction, which had dominated British politics since the Glorious Revolution. He purchased Buckingham House (now Palace) bought almost half the present Royal Collection of art and configured the monarch’s “constitutional role in terms of duty, piety and virtue”. Over the nearly 60 years of his reign (he ascended to the throne aged 22 in 1760), George III “did much to shape the monarchy as it is known today”, said Ruth Scurr in The Times. Instead, he thinks bipolar disorder was to blame. If anything, he was slightly boring – he had no obvious vices (he rarely drank and was never unfaithful) and his “idea of fun was writing an article about farming”.Īs for George’s mental health, Roberts has no truck with the common idea that his late-life insanity was caused by porphyria (a genetic blood disease). George, he insists, was not remotely tyrannical he was “well-meaning, hard-working, decent, dutiful, moral, cultured and kind”. Yet in this mammoth and meticulous biography, Andrew Roberts presents a compelling case for the defence. Book of the week: Broken Heartlands by Sebastian Payne.Book of the week: Black Gold by Jeremy Paxman.Book of the week: Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen.
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