George III of the United Kingdom

พระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 แห่งสหราชอาณาจักร (อังกฤษ: George III of the United Kingdom) (4 มิถุนายน ค.ศ. 1738 – 29 มกราคม ค.ศ. 1820) เป็นพระมหากษัตริย์ราชอาณาจักรบริเตนใหญ่และราชอาณาจักรไอร์แลนด์สมัยราชวงศ์แฮโนเวอร์ ระหว่างวันที่ 25 ตุลาคม ค.ศ. 1760 ถึงวันที่ 1 มกราคม ค.ศ. 1801 และหลังจากนั้นเป็นพระมหากษัตริย์สหราชอาณาจักรบริเตนใหญ่และไอร์แลนด์จนสวรรคตเมื่อวันที่ 29 มกราคม ค.ศ. 1820 ที่พระราชวังวินด์เซอร์ บาร์กเชอร์ สหราชอาณาจักร พระบรมศพอยู่ที่เซนต์จอร์จส์แชเปลที่พระราชวังวินด์เซอร์

พระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 เสด็จพระราชสมภพเมื่อวันที่ 4 มิถุนายน ค.ศ. 1738 ที่ตำหนักนอร์โฟล์ค กรุงลอนดอน เป็นพระราชโอรสในเจ้าชายเฟรเดอริก เจ้าชายแห่งเวลส์และเจ้าหญิงออกัสตาแห่งซัคเซิน-โกทา ต่อมาทรงได้อภิเษกสมรสกับดัชเชสชาร์ลอตต์แห่งเมคเลนบูร์ก-ชเตรลิทซ์และมีพระราชโอรสธิดาด้วยกัน 15 พระองค์ นอกจะเป็นพระมหากษัตริย์บริเตนใหญ่แล้ว พระองค์ยังมีพระอิสริยยศเป็นดยุกแห่งเบราน์ชไวก์-ลือเนบูร์กและผู้คัดเลือกแห่งฮันโนเวอร์แห่งจักรวรรดิโรมันอันศักดิ์สิทธิ์ และต่อมาเป็นพระมหากษัตริย์ฮันโนเวอร์เพราะรัฐผู้คัดเลือกเบราน์ชไวก์-ลือเนบูร์กได้เลื่อนฐานะขึ้นเป็นราชอาณาจักรฮันโนเวอร์เมื่อวันที่ 12 ตุลาคม ค.ศ. 1814 พระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 เป็นพระมหากษัตริย์อังกฤษพระองค์ที่สามในราชวงศ์แฮโนเวอร์ และเป็นพระมหากษัตริย์ฮันโนเวอร์องค์แรกของอังกฤษที่พระราชสมภพในราชอาณาจักรบริเตนใหญ่และตรัสภาษาอังกฤษเป็นภาษาแม่ และไม่เคยเสด็จไปเยอรมนี

รัชสมัยอันยาวนานของพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 เต็มไปด้วยความขัดแย้งทางทหารหลายครั้งระหว่างราชอาณาจักรของพระองค์และประเทศต่าง ๆ ในยุโรปเกือบทั้งหมด เมื่อต้นรัชสมัยบริเตนใหญ่ได้รับชัยชนะต่อฝรั่งเศสในสงครามเจ็ดปีซึ่งทำให้อังกฤษกลายเป็นประเทศมหาอำนาจของยุโรปผู้มีอิทธิพลในทวีปอเมริกาเหนือและอินเดีย แต่ต่อมาอังกฤษก็สูญเสียอาณานิคมอเมริกาไปกับสงครามปฏิวัติอเมริกัน (American Revolutionary War) ซึ่งเป็นสงครามที่ทำให้เกิดการก่อตั้งสหรัฐอเมริกา ต่อมาราชอาณาจักรก็เข้าไปเกี่ยวข้องกับการปฏิวัติฝรั่งเศสและสงครามกับจักรพรรดินโปเลียนที่ 1 ที่สิ้นสุดลงด้วยการพ่ายแพ้ของนโปเลียนในปี ค.ศ. 1815 นอกจากนั้นระหว่างรัชสมัยของพระองค์ราชอาณาจักรบริเตนใหญ่และราชอาณาจักรไอร์แลนด์ได้รวมตัวกันเป็นสหราชอาณาจักรบริเตนใหญ่และไอร์แลนด์อีกด้วย

แต่ต่อมาพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 ทรงเสียพระสติเป็นครั้งคราวและในที่สุดก็เป็นการถาวร พระอาการของพระองค์เป็นปัญหาที่ทำให้นักวิทยาศาสตร์การแพทย์สมัยนั้นงงงวยเพราะไม่ทราบสาเหตุและไม่ทราบวิธีถวายการรักษา แต่ในปัจจุบันเชื่อกันว่าพระอาการต่าง ๆ ตรงกับอาการของโรคพอร์ฟิเรีย (porphyria) ซึ่งเป็นโรคที่อาจจะเกิดจากการที่ร่างกายได้รับสารพิษ การศึกษาเมื่อไม่นานมานี้พบว่ามีสารพิษระดับสูงในเส้นพระเกษาของพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 หลังจากเมื่อพระอาการทรุดลงเป็นครั้งสุดท้ายจนทรงไม่สามารถปกครองประเทศได้เมื่อปี ค.ศ. 1810 เจ้าชายจอร์จ เจ้าชายแห่งเวลส์จึงทรงปกครองราชอาณาจักรในฐานะผู้สำเร็จราชการแทนพระองค์ เมื่อพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 สวรรคต เจ้าชายแห่งเวลส์จึงขึ้นครองราชย์เป็นพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 4 แห่งสหราชอาณาจักร การวิจัยทางพระราชประวัติพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 3 เปลี่ยนแปลงภาพพจน์ของพระองค์ตลอดมา ซึ่งอาจจะเป็นสาเหตุมาจากการศึกษาจากเอกสารอ้างอิงที่ไม่เป็นธรรมต่อพระองค์

พระเจ้าจอร์จเสด็จพระราชสมภพที่พระตำหนักนอร์โฟล์กในกรุงลอนดอน เป็นพระนัดดาในพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 2 และพระโอรสของเจ้าชายเฟรเดอริก เจ้าชายแห่งเวลส์และเจ้าหญิงออกัสตาแห่งซัคเซิน-โกทา ประสูติก่อนกำหนดถึงสองเดือนและไม่ทราบกันในขณะนั้นว่าจะทรงรอดหรือไม่ ทรงได้รับบัพติศมาในวันเดียวกันโดยศาสนาจารย์ทอมัส เซกเกอร์ บิชอปแห่งอ๊อกซฟอร์ด เดือนหนึ่งต่อมาก็ทรงรับบัพติศมาอีกครั้งหนึ่งอย่างเป็นทางการที่พระตำหนักนอร์โฟล์กโดยเซกเกอร์เช่นกัน โดยมีพระเจ้าเฟรเดอริกที่ 1 แห่งสวีเดนเป็นพระราชอัยกาทูนหัว (ผู้ทรงมอบฉันทะให้ชาลส์ คาลเวิร์ต บารอนบัลติมอร์ที่ 5 เป็นผู้แทนพระองค์) ฟรีดริชที่ 3 ดยุกแห่งซัคเซิน-โกทา-อัลเทนแบร์ก พระปิตุลา (ผู้มอบฉันทะให้เฮนรี บริดเจส ดยุกที่ 2 แห่งแชนดอสเป็นผู้แทน) และพระนางโซฟี โดโรเทอาแห่งปรัสเซีย พระอัยกี (ผู้ทรงมอบฉันทะให้เลดีชาร์ลอต เอ็ดวินเป็นผู้แทนพระองค์) ).

เจ้าชายจอร์จทรงเจริญพระชันษาขึ้นมาเป็นเด็กที่พระสุขภาพพลานามัยดีแต่ทรงไว้องค์และขี้อาย ครอบครัวของพระองค์ย้ายจากจตุรัสเลสเตอร์ไปยังที่ประทับใหม่ที่พระองค์และเจ้าชายเอ็ดเวิร์ด ดยุกแห่งยอร์กและออลบานี พระอนุชา ทรงได้รับการศึกษาจากพระอาจารย์ส่วนพระองค์ จดหมายจากครอบครัวแสดงว่าทรงเขียนและอ่านได้ทั้งภาษาอังกฤษและเยอรมัน และทรงมีความคิดเห็นทางการเมืองตั้งแต่มีพระชนมายุได้เพียง 8 พรรษา เจ้าชายจอร์จเป็นพระมหากษัตริย์อังกฤษองค์แรกที่ทรงศึกษาวิทยาศาสตร์อย่างเป็นทางการ นอกจากเคมีศาสตร์และฟิสิกส์แล้วพระองค์ก็ยังทรงศึกษาดาราศาสตร์ คณิตศาสตร์ ภาษาฝรั่งเศส ภาษาละติน ประวัติศาสตร์ ดนตรี ภูมิศาสตร์ การพาณิชย์ การเกษตรกรรม และกฎหมายรัฐธรรมนูญนอกไปจากการกีฬาและการสังคมเช่นการเต้นรำ การดวลดาบ และการขี่ม้า การศึกษาทางศาสนาเป็นการศึกษาภายใต้คริสตจักรแห่งอังกฤษ

พระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 2ไม่ทรงสนพระทัยในพระนัดดาเท่าใดนัก แต่ในปี ค.ศ. 1751 เมื่อเจ้าชายเฟรเดอริก เจ้าชายแห่งเวลส์ พระโอรสสิ้นพระชนม์โดยกะทันหันจากการบาดเจ็บที่ปอด เจ้าชายจอร์จก็กลายเป็นรัชทายาท และทรงได้รับตำแหน่งของพระราชบิดาและทรงดำรงตำแหน่งเป็นดยุกแห่งเอดินบะระ พระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 2 ทรงหันมาสนพระทัยในตัวพระนัดดา สามอาทิตย์หลังจากนั้นก็พระราชทานตำแหน่งให้เจ้าชายจอร์จเป็นเจ้าชายแห่งเวลส์ ในฤดูใบไม้ผลิปี ค.ศ. 1756 เมื่อทรงใกล้จะมีพระชนมายุ 18 พรรษาพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 2 ก็พระราชทานพระราชวังเซนต์เจมส์ให้แก่เจ้าชายจอร์จ แต่เจ้าชายจอร์จไม่ทรงยอมรับโดยคำแนะนำของพระมารดาและจอห์น สจวต เอิร์ลที่ 3 แห่งบิวต์ พระสหายของพระมารดา ผู้ต่อมาได้รับตำแหน่งเป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี พระมารดาของเจ้าชายจอร์จทรงพอพระทัยที่จะให้เจ้าชายจอร์จประทับอยู่กับพระองค์เพื่อได้อบรมเลี้ยงดูอย่างเข้มงวดทางจริยธรรมด้วยพระองค์เอง

ในปี ค.ศ. 1760 ขณะที่เจ้าชายจอร์จทรงมีพระชนมายุได้ 22 ชันษา ทรงเสวยราชย์เป็นพระมหากษัตริย์สืบต่อจากพระเจ้าจอร์จที่ 2 ผู้เป็นพระอัยกาเมื่อวันที่ 25 ตุลาคม ค.ศ. 1760 สองสัปดาห์ก่อนพระองค์ทรงเข้าพิธีอภิเษกสมรสเมื่อวันที่ 8 กันยายน ในโบสถ์หลวง, พระราชวังเซนต์เจมส์กับดัสเชสชาร์ลอตแห่งเม็คเล็นบูร์ก-สเตรลิตธ์ และทั้งสองพระองค์ทรงเข้าพิธีบรมราชาภิเษกในวันที่ 22 กันยายน ในการเป็นพระมหากษัตริย์และสมเด็จพระราชินีแห่งบริเตนใหญ่และสหราชอาณาจักร

George, in his accession speech to Parliament, proclaimed: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain". He inserted this phrase into the speech, written by Lord Hardwicke, in order to demonstrate his desire to distance himself from his German forebears, who were perceived as caring more for Hanover than for Britain.

Although his accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties,[a] the first years of his reign were marked by political instability, largely generated as a result of disagreements over the Seven Years' War. George was also perceived as favouring Tory ministers, which led to his denunciation by the Whigs as an autocrat. On his accession, the Crown lands produced relatively little income; most revenue was generated through taxes and excise duties. George surrendered the Crown Estate to Parliamentary control in return for a civil list annuity for the support of his household and the expenses of civil government. Claims that he used the income to reward supporters with bribes and gifts are disputed by historians who say such claims "rest on nothing but falsehoods put out by disgruntled opposition". Debts amounting to over ?3 million over the course of George's reign were paid by Parliament, and the civil list annuity was increased from time to time. He aided the Royal Academy of Arts with large grants from his private funds, and may have donated more than half of his personal income to charity. Of his art collection, the two most notable purchases are Johannes Vermeer's Lady at the Virginals and a set of Canalettos, but it is as a collector of books that he is best remembered. The King's Library was open and available to scholars and was the foundation of a new national library.

In May 1762, the incumbent Whig government of the Duke of Newcastle was replaced with one led by the Scottish Tory Lord Bute. Bute's opponents worked against him by spreading the calumny that he was having an affair with the King's mother, and by exploiting anti-Scottish prejudices amongst the English.John Wilkes, a Member of Parliament, published The North Briton, which was both inflammatory and defamatory in its condemnation of Bute and the government. Wilkes was eventually arrested for seditious libel but he fled to France to escape punishment; he was expelled from the House of Commons, and found guilty in absentia of blasphemy and libel. In 1763, after concluding the Peace of Paris which ended the war, Lord Bute resigned, allowing the Whigs under George Grenville to return to power.

Later that year, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 placed a limit upon the westward expansion of the American colonies. The Proclamation aimed to divert colonial expansion to the north (to Nova Scotia) and to the south (Florida). The Proclamation Line did not bother the majority of settled farmers, but it was unpopular with a vocal minority and ultimately contributed to conflict between the colonists and the British government. With the American colonists generally unburdened by British taxes, the government thought it appropriate for them to pay towards the defence of the colonies against native uprisings and the possibility of French incursions.[b] The central issue for the colonists was not the amount of taxes but whether Parliament could levy a tax without American approval, for there were no American seats in Parliament. The Americans protested that like all Englishmen they had rights to "no taxation without representation". In 1765, Grenville introduced the Stamp Act, which levied a stamp duty on every document in the British colonies in North America. Since newspapers were printed on stamped paper, those most affected by the introduction of the duty were the most effective at producing propaganda opposing the tax. Meanwhile, the King had become exasperated at Grenville's attempts to reduce the King's prerogatives, and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade William Pitt the Elder to accept the office of Prime Minister. After a brief illness, which may have presaged his illnesses to come, George settled on Lord Rockingham to form a ministry, and dismissed Grenville.

Lord Rockingham, with the support of Pitt and the King, repealed Grenville's unpopular Stamp Act, but his government was weak and he was replaced in 1766 by Pitt, whom George created Earl of Chatham. The actions of Lord Chatham and George III in repealing the Act were so popular in America that statues of them both were erected in New York City. Lord Chatham fell ill in 1767, and the Duke of Grafton took over the government, although he did not formally become Prime Minister until 1768. That year, John Wilkes returned to England, stood as a candidate in the general election, and came top of the poll in the Middlesex constituency. Wilkes was again expelled from Parliament. Wilkes was re-elected and expelled twice more, before the House of Commons resolved that his candidature was invalid and declared the runner-up as the victor. Grafton's government disintegrated in 1770, allowing the Tories led by Lord North to return to power.

George was deeply devout and spent hours in prayer, but his piety was not shared by his brothers. George was appalled by what he saw as their loose morals. In 1770, his brother Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, was exposed as an adulterer, and the following year Cumberland married a young widow, Anne Horton. The King considered her inappropriate as a royal bride: she was from a lower social class and German law barred any children of the couple from the Hanoverian succession. George insisted on a new law that essentially forbade members of the Royal Family from legally marrying without the consent of the Sovereign. The subsequent bill was unpopular in Parliament, including among George's own ministers, but passed as the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Shortly afterward, another of George's brothers, Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, revealed he had been secretly married to Maria, Countess Waldegrave, the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole. The news confirmed George's opinion that he had been right to introduce the law: Maria was related to his political opponents. Neither lady was ever received at court.

Lord North's government was chiefly concerned with discontent in America. To assuage American opinion most of the custom duties were withdrawn, except for the tea duty, which in George's words was "one tax to keep up the right [to levy taxes]". In 1773, the tea ships moored in Boston Harbor were boarded by colonists and the tea thrown overboard, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. In Britain, opinion hardened against the colonists, with Chatham now agreeing with North that the destruction of the tea was "certainly criminal". With the clear support of Parliament, Lord North introduced measures, which were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists: the Port of Boston was shut down and the charter of Massachusetts was altered so that the upper house of the legislature was appointed by the Crown instead of elected by the lower house. Up to this point, in the words of Professor Peter Thomas, George's "hopes were centred on a political solution, and he always bowed to his cabinet's opinions even when sceptical of their success. The detailed evidence of the years from 1763 to 1775 tends to exonerate George III from any real responsibility for the American Revolution." Though the Americans characterised George as a tyrant, in these years he acted as a constitutional monarch supporting the initiatives of his ministers.

ดูบทความเพิ่มเติมได้ที่: การปฏิวัติอเมริกา และสงครามปฏิวัติอเมริกา The American Revolutionary War was the culmination of the civil and political American Revolution resulting from the American Enlightenment. Brought to a head over the lack of American representation in Parliament, which was seen as a denial of their rights as Englishmen and often popularly focused on direct taxes levied by Parliament on the colonies without their consent, the colonists resisted the imposition of direct rule after the Boston Tea Party. Creating self-governing provinces, they circumvented the British ruling apparatus in each colony by 1774. Armed conflict between British regulars and colonial militiamen broke out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. After petitions to the Crown for intervention with Parliament were ignored, the rebel leaders were declared traitors by the Crown and a year of fighting ensued. The colonies declared their independence in July 1776, listing grievances against the British king and legislature while asking the support of the populace. Among George's other offences, the Declaration charged, "He has abdicated Government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." The gilded equestrian statue of George III in New York was pulled down. The British captured the city in 1776, but lost Boston, and the grand strategic plan of invading from Canada and cutting off New England failed with the surrender of the British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga.

George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the revolutionaries in America, despite the opinions of his own ministers. In the words of the Victorian author George Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal." The King wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse". However, more recent historians defend George by saying in the context of the times no king would willingly surrender such a large territory, and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporary monarchs in Europe. After Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were in favour of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and although political opponents were vocal, they remained a small minority. With the setbacks in America, Prime Minister Lord North asked to transfer power to Lord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in Lord North's administration, but Chatham refused to cooperate. He died later in the same year. In early 1778, France (Britain's chief rival) signed a treaty of alliance with the United States and the conflict escalated. The United States and France were soon joined by Spain and the Dutch Republic, while Britain had no major allies of its own. Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence. Opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as the Gordon Riots.

As late as the Siege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their eventual victory, as British troops inflicted heavy defeats on the Continental forces at the Battle of Camden and the Battle of Guilford Court House. In late 1781, the news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at the Siege of Yorktown reached London; Lord North's parliamentary support ebbed away and he resigned the following year. The King drafted an abdication notice, which was never delivered, finally accepted the defeat in North America, and authorised peace negotiations. The Treaties of Paris, by which Britain recognised the independence of the American states and returned Florida to Spain, were signed in 1782 and 1783. When John Adams was appointed American Minister to London in 1785, George had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies. He told Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."

With the collapse of Lord North's ministry in 1782, the Whig Lord Rockingham became Prime Minister for the second time, but died within months. The King then appointed Lord Shelburne to replace him. Charles James Fox, however, refused to serve under Shelburne, and demanded the appointment of the Duke of Portland. In 1783, the House of Commons forced Shelburne from office and his government was replaced by the Fox–North Coalition. The Duke of Portland became Prime Minister, with Fox and Lord North, as Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary respectively.

The King disliked Fox intensely, for his politics as well as his character; he thought Fox was unprincipled and a bad influence on the Prince of Wales. George III was distressed at having to appoint ministers not of his liking, but the Portland ministry quickly built up a majority in the House of Commons, and could not be displaced easily. He was further dismayed when the government introduced the India Bill, which proposed to reform the government of India by transferring political power from the East India Company to Parliamentary commissioners. Although the King actually favoured greater control over the Company, the proposed commissioners were all political allies of Fox. Immediately after the House of Commons passed it, George authorised Lord Temple to inform the House of Lords that he would regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy. The bill was rejected by the Lords; three days later, the Portland ministry was dismissed, and William Pitt the Younger was appointed Prime Minister, with Temple as his Secretary of State. On 17 December 1783, Parliament voted in favour of a motion condemning the influence of the monarch in parliamentary voting as a "high crime" and Temple was forced to resign. Temple's departure destabilised the government, and three months later the government lost its majority and Parliament was dissolved; the subsequent election gave Pitt a firm mandate.

After George’s recovery, his popularity, and that of Pitt, continued to increase at the expense of Fox and the Prince of Wales. His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants, Margaret Nicholson in 1786 and John Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity.James Hadfield's failed attempt to shoot the King in the Drury Lane Theatre on 15 May 1800 was not political in origin but motivated by the apocalyptic delusions of Hadfield and Bannister Truelock. George seemed unperturbed by the incident, so much so that he fell asleep in the interval.

The French Revolution of 1789, in which the French monarchy had been overthrown, worried many British landowners. France declared war on Great Britain in 1793; in the war attempt, George allowed Pitt to increase taxes, raise armies, and suspend the right of habeas corpus. The First Coalition to oppose revolutionary France, which included Austria, Prussia, and Spain, broke up in 1795 when Prussia and Spain made separate peace with France. The Second Coalition, which included Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire, was defeated in 1800. Only Great Britain was left fighting Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of the French Republic.

A brief lull in hostilities allowed Pitt to concentrate effort on Ireland, where there had been an uprising and attempted French landing in 1798. In 1800, the British and Irish Parliaments passed an Act of Union that took effect on 1 January 1801 and united Great Britain and Ireland into a single state, known as the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". George used the opportunity to drop the title "king of France", which English and British Sovereigns had maintained since the reign of Edward III. It was suggested that George adopt the title "Emperor of the British Isles", but he refused. As part of his Irish policy, Pitt planned to remove certain legal disabilities that applied to Roman Catholics. George III claimed that to emancipate Catholics would be to violate his coronation oath, in which Sovereigns promise to maintain Protestantism. Faced with opposition to his religious reform policies from both the King and the British public, Pitt threatened to resign. At about the same time, the King had a relapse of his previous illness, which he blamed on worry over the Catholic question. On 14 March 1801, Pitt was formally replaced by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Henry Addington. Addington opposed emancipation, instituted annual accounts, abolished income tax and began a programme of disarmament. In October 1801, he made peace with the French, and in 1802 signed the Treaty of Amiens.

George did not consider the peace with France as real; in his view it was an "experiment". In 1803, the war resumed but public opinion distrusted Addington to lead the nation in war, and instead favoured Pitt. An invasion of England by Napoleon seemed imminent, and a massive volunteer movement arose to defend England against the French. George's review of 27,000 volunteers in Hyde Park, London, on 26 and 28 October 1803 and at the height of the invasion scare, attracted an estimated 500,000 spectators on each day.The Times said, "The enthusiasm of the multitude was beyond all expression." A courtier wrote on 13 November that, "The King is really prepared to take the field in case of attack, his beds are ready and he can move at half an hour's warning". George wrote to his friend Bishop Hurd, "We are here in daily expectation that Bonaparte will attempt his threatened invasion ... Should his troops effect a landing, I shall certainly put myself at the head of mine, and my other armed subjects, to repel them." After Admiral Lord Nelson's famous naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, the possibility of invasion was extinguished.

In 1804, George's recurrent illness returned; after his recovery, Addington resigned and Pitt regained power. Pitt sought to appoint Fox to his ministry, but George III refused. Lord Grenville perceived an injustice to Fox, and refused to join the new ministry. Pitt concentrated on forming a coalition with Austria, Russia, and Sweden. This Third Coalition, however, met the same fate as the First and Second Coalitions, collapsing in 1805. The setbacks in Europe took a toll on Pitt's health and he died in 1806, reopening the question of who should serve in the ministry. Lord Grenville became Prime Minister, and his "Ministry of All the Talents" included Fox. The King was conciliatory towards Fox, after being forced to capitulate over his appointment. After Fox's death in September 1806, the King and ministry were in open conflict. To boost recruitment, the ministry proposed a measure in February 1807 whereby Roman Catholics would be allowed to serve in all ranks of the Armed Forces. George instructed them not only to drop the measure, but also to agree never to set up such a measure again. The ministers agreed to drop the measure then pending, but refused to bind themselves in the future. They were dismissed and replaced by the Duke of Portland as the nominal Prime Minister, with actual power being held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spencer Perceval. Parliament was dissolved, and the subsequent election gave the ministry a strong majority in the House of Commons. George III made no further major political decisions during his reign; the replacement of the Duke of Portland by Perceval in 1809 was of little actual significance.

In late 1810, at the height of his popularity but already virtually blind with cataracts and in pain from rheumatism, George III became dangerously ill. In his view the malady had been triggered by stress over the death of his youngest and favourite daughter, Princess Amelia. The Princess's nurse reported that "the scenes of distress and crying every day ... were melancholy beyond description." He accepted the need for the Regency Act of 1811, and the Prince of Wales acted as Regent for the remainder of George III's life. Despite signs of a recovery in May 1811, by the end of the year George had become permanently insane and lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle until his death.

Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in 1812 and was replaced by Lord Liverpool. Liverpool oversaw British victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequent Congress of Vienna led to significant territorial gains for Hanover, which was upgraded from an electorate to a kingdom.

Meanwhile, George's health deteriorated. He developed dementia, and became completely blind and increasingly deaf. He was incapable of knowing or understanding either that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818. At Christmas 1819, he spoke nonsense for 58 hours, and for the last few weeks of his life was unable to walk. He died at Windsor Castle at 8:38 pm on 29 January 1820, six days after the death of his fourth son, the Duke of Kent. His favourite son, Frederick, Duke of York, was with him. George III was buried on 16 February in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

George III was dubbed "Farmer George" by satirists, at first to mock his interest in mundane matters rather than politics, but later to contrast his homely thrift with his son's grandiosity and to portray him as a man of the people. Under George III, the British Agricultural Revolution reached its peak and great advances were made in fields such as science and industry. There was unprecedented growth in the rural population, which in turn provided much of the workforce for the concurrent Industrial Revolution. George's collection of mathematical and scientific instruments is now housed in the Science Museum, London; he funded the construction and maintenance of William Herschel's 40-foot telescope, which was the biggest ever built at the time. Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, which he at first named Georgium Sidus (George's Star) after the King, in 1781.

George III hoped that "the tongue of malice may not paint my intentions in those colours she admires, nor the sycophant extoll me beyond what I deserve", but in the popular mind George III has been both demonised and praised. While very popular at the start of his reign, by the mid-1770s George had lost the loyalty of revolutionary American colonists, though it has been estimated that as many as half of the colonists remained loyal. The grievances in the United States Declaration of Independence were presented as "repeated injuries and usurpations" that he had committed to establish an "absolute Tyranny" over the colonies. The Declaration's wording has contributed to the American public's perception of George as a tyrant. Contemporary accounts of George III's life fall into two camps: one demonstrating "attitudes dominant in the latter part of the reign, when the King had become a revered symbol of national resistance to French ideas and French power", while the other "derived their views of the King from the bitter partisan strife of the first two decades of the reign, and they expressed in their works the views of the opposition".

Building on the latter of these two assessments, British historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Trevelyan and Erskine May, promoted hostile interpretations of George III's life. However, in the mid-twentieth century the work of Lewis Namier, who thought George was "much maligned", kick-started a re-evaluation of the man and his reign. Scholars of the later twentieth century, such as Butterfield and Pares, and Macalpine and Hunter, are inclined to treat George sympathetically, seeing him as a victim of circumstance and illness. Butterfield rejected the arguments of his Victorian predecessors with withering disdain: "Erskine May must be a good example of the way in which an historian may fall into error through an excess of brilliance. His capacity for synthesis, and his ability to dovetail the various parts of the evidence ... carried him into a more profound and complicated elaboration of error than some of his more pedestrian predecessors ... he inserted a doctrinal element into his history which, granted his original aberrations, was calculated to project the lines of his error, carrying his work still further from centrality or truth." In pursuing war with the American colonists, George III believed he was defending the right of an elected Parliament to levy taxes, rather than seeking to expand his own power or prerogatives. In the opinion of modern scholars, during the long reign of George III the monarchy continued to lose its political power, and grew as the embodiment of national morality.

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