KING GEORGE III
Thoughts on American Revolution
King George III saw himself and Great Britain as the parent of the misbehaving American colonies. Some of this attitude came from the fact that the British government had to provide protection to the American colonists from the French and Native Americans (Krawczynski). This protection was expensive for the British which required them to tax the colonists which created unrest. When the American colonists protested the increase in taxes, George thought that they should be quiet and behave (Krawczynski). The colonists did not want to be quiet and felt ignored by the British government. They tried appealing to King George, but he believed in a more passive role of the monarch desiring to uphold the authority of parliament (Krawczynski). Thus, he ignored the pleas of the American colonists leading them to rebel. We can see this attitude towards the colonists in the song “You’ll Be Back.” King George thought that this rebellion was a temper tantrum being thrown by the colonists. Once Britain gave them a firm military response, the colonies would fall back in line and submit to British authority. He ultimately raised both naval and land forces in a military response to the Americans (Cobbett). In Hamilton, when King George says “I’ll love you till my dying days” his sentiment is on par with the feelings of the real King George III. In an address to parliament he said that once the American colonies had been subdued he would “be ready to receive the misled with tenderness and mercy” (Cobbett). He truly did see the colonists as the children of Britain and treated them thusly.
King George also desired to continue the war after the Battle of Yorktown as “he regarded that engagement only as a temporary setback” (Krawczynski). We can see this in the song “What Comes Next” when King George states “The price of my war is not a price that they are willing to pay.” George III wanted to continue the fighting, but parliament would not give him permission to do so. If it was up to him he would have levied more soldiers and continued the fight.
KING GEORGE'S MADNESS
King George III is also noted for being clinically insane, nicknamed “Mad King George.” George’s family was notable for a long history of inbreeding, with at least two generations before him marrying close cousins (Ceballos and Alvarez). As a result, he suffered from multiple inherited mental illnesses. He was said to frequently talk “until the foam ran out of his mouth,” and often had convulsions. When his illness flared up, his writing has shown evidence of sentences up to 400 words long (Worsley). George reportedly suffered from Poryphoria, which is a disease of the nervous system. Modern psychologists, however, feel this diagnosis was inaccurate and rather he suffered from mania and psychiatric illnesses instead as a result of his close breeding history (Worsley).