George III was a custodial not a tyrannical monarch, demonstrating a principled constitutionality and remaining above faction without undermining those in power. Initially unpopular and enduring a series of irresolute or unprepared prime ministers, during the French Revolutionary era he showed himself determined and muchly helpful to Pitt the Younger’s success. The recasting of the British monarchy as constitutional head of state commenced with him, not Victoria.
George’s education was superior to public schooling but reclusive. He learned to value the balanced constitution while developing lifelong hostility to Whig oligopoly. Self-denying for the sake of country, he was the first Hanover to see himself as primarily British. He was kindly and at ease among the populace; many less flattering characteristics aspects of his character are attributable to the salacious Horace Walpole, an entertaining but often misleading diarist.
Just prior to reaching his majority, Parliament entered the Seven Years War having sacked Pitt the Elder, its best strategist, in favor of the corrupt Henry Fox. (George II, though conscious of his rights, did so at the Duke of Cumberland’s urging; he merely agreed with the Old Whigs.) Bute’s tutelage of George was held against his ministry, and the king was at first seen as grasping both by contemporaries and historians, wrongly in Roberts’ view.
At the French war’s denouement, Bute ceded the sugar island Guadeloupe, after having instead considered Canada on grounds that French pressure would have kept the American colonies loyal to Britain. Once safe, economic matters were a pretext for the real issue of self-government. Bute and Blackstone’s Commentaries (1765) fashioned George’s opinion that American claims to self-government had no standing in English law. In addition to the strategic error of tethering the Americans to the Atlantic seaboard (the Proclamation of 1763), this conservative view propelled Britain toward losing the colonies.
George tended to appoint prime ministers and leave them to legislate and execute, notwithstanding the unwonted predominance of the Grenvilles (George and his brother Richard Temple) and the Pitts (the elder being married to Temple’s sister). The Stamp Act was Grenville’s responsibility, and having insisted on dismissing Stuart-Mackenzie as Lord Privy Seal of Scotland, forcing George to break a promise, Grenville alienated George to the family for making him subject to factional interests. Lasting but two months, Grenville was replaced by Rockingham, who had never sat in Commons nor anyone else’s cabinet. Contra Conor Cruise O’Brien, on his return Pitt the Elder (now Lord Chatham) was given more scope than Rockingham, one of several occasions on which Roberts disagrees with the Irish historian. Later the sons of Pitt and Grenville would become PMs, indicating George’s essential forbearance.
In the years following the Stamp Act’s repeal, George contended with keeping Grenville out as PM, Wilkes out of the Commons, Parliamentary review of royal finances and appointments, and France out of the West Indies. Historians who contend George tried to gather power ignore the politicians who wished to avoid responsibility – including Lord North, who had otherwise ended the merry go round. Relatedly, contemporary European governments often resorted to genuine tyranny (e.g., mass arrests, execution of civilians without trial) whereas there had been arrests at all following the Boston Tea Party. George behaved with constitutional propriety during the American unrest, going along with hawkish ministries (admittedly to his liking) rather than driving policy. Of the 28 charges laid against George in the Declaration of Independence, only 2, regarding taxation and parliamentary authority to legislate for the colonists, are logical.
In post facto war gaming, the UK wins the war 45 percent of the time. Even as the war deteriorated, George, stepping back from hopes of an outright win, was determined to hold Canada, Nova Scotia, and Florida. The stakes were more patriotic than economic: circa 1776, imports from the British Windies totaled £4.5 million, versus 1.5 million from India, while the Americans were far below.
1779 marked existential danger for Britain. A French fleet of 63 ships and 30,000 regulars gained control of the English Channel. George showed a decisiveness that North lacked, pressing for attack in the Windies, Gibraltar, and Minorca, recognizing that France and Spain’s joining the war converted the conflict from a domestic question of Parliament’s constitutional rights in the colonies to the UK’s survival as a great power. Colonial possessions had to be defended, even at the risk of the homeland’s invasion, because of the sugar islands’ revenue. However, he was less clear sighted about responsibilities for the American war’s military losses. (NB: ‘Hessians’ werer from several small principalities, representing one-third of the soldiery. Not mercenaries, they were paid by the German states. Though effective they made for poor propaganda, especially during the New Jersey winter of 1777-78.)
Though not ignoring the denouement, Roberts’ current thus turns toward domestic matters. Thinking George a moderate, he is generally unsympathetic to Burke, described as a ‘radical Whig’ (e.g., pp. 417, 445, 486, 490). Pitt on Burke: ‘much to admire, nothing to agree with’ (p. 526). Irish repeal of the Declaratory Act demonstrates Westminster had learned from America, rather panic in the Rockingham administration. Whig attempts to arrogate East India Company patronage to Parliament in 1778 seemed an oligarchical revival to George; parallels to the Whigs’ 1766’s repeal of the Stamp Act make them seem hypocritical.
1784’s dismissal of the Fox-North coalition stemmed from the East India Bill, and was quite constitutional of George. The subsequent election, a hotly contested affair which produced ‘Fox’s martyrs’, indicated that the Whig leader had overplayed his hand regarding East India, the loss of America, and near-republican critique of the monarch. Pitt’s rout result in George’s having a genuine ally for the first time, at time when the king could still have his choice of ministers. Had he died in 1783, he might have been lumped together with his Hanoverian predecessors; but instead he and Pitt saw off the French revolutionaries and Bonaparte. By 1792, Pitt as PM was no longer immediately responsible to the king, but to Parliament; he, Dundas, and Grenville were a united front in dealing with the monarch; Addington extended the trend. Pitt’s success was muchly due to George’s support.
As when recovering from illness, so with the initial period of the Revolutionary wars. Evident homeliness, piety, and commitment to national victory established his bona fides. Whereas during the American revolution George’s principled stance was unhelpful, in the French wars it was invaluable. Ironically, he traveled little, never visiting Scotland, Wales, or Ireland; nor Hanover; nor the American colonies or Windies. Indeed, did he travel north of Worcester or west of Plymouth. He never went to see the newly industrializing Manchester, Birmingham, or Leeds.
In Ireland, George supported toleration of the Catholic Church but not equality, for he was head of the Church of England (and of Ireland), and so was unhappy with the Earl of Fitzwilliam’s concessions. His successor, Earl of Camden, confiscated 50,000 muskets and 70,000 pikes – indicative of 1798. Neoclassical architecture, already underway, reached its apogee during his reign as he frequently paid interest in public projects.
(NB: amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.)
(NB: as an insult, a XXX husband, rather than not remarry, should as condign punishment marry the devil’s daughter. The riposte: the law prohibited marrying one’s deceased wife’s sister – p. 407)