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George III,
as G. M. Ditchfield readily acknowledges in his authorial preface,
has hardly been ignored by historians. Biographical studies by
John Brooke and Stanley Ayling appeared in 1972, and another
by Christopher Hibbert in 1998.(1)
George�s kingship, and particularly the question of whether he
was trying to restore a more politically active type of monarchy,
have been much debated by devotees of high politics. Indeed,
so extensive and intensive has been the concentration on the
king�s alleged unconstitutional behaviour that in 1974 John Cannon,
reviewing Brooke�s study, questioned whether there was any more
to be said on George�s actions and motives, and even suggested
that detailed biographical work on the leading players in the
politics of the period � in the manner pioneered by Namier �
was making the eighteenth century dull and off-putting compared
with the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.
Ditchfield deals with this issue very directly: he uses Cannon�s
view as a launching pad for his explanation of the need for another
study of George III. The justification he offers is convincing
� or at any rate convinced me. He highlights three major recent
developments in historical studies of the eighteenth century
that earlier work on George III inevitably failed to address.
The first is the recognition of the centrality of religion to
a period in which it was once thought to be of declining importance.
The second is the increasing awareness of the need to understand
British history in a properly European context. A growing interest
in monarchy as an institution that played a key role in popular
identification with the nation is the third. Ditchfield accordingly
offers us chapters on George III�s religion, his role as a European
figure, and his later popular phase, when he acted as a focus
for national revival after defeat in the American war, and for
a new form of patriotic pride at the time of the conflict with
revolutionary France.
Unavoidably, Ditchfield is obliged to consider again some of
the older perspectives on the king. The fluctuating fortunes
of George�s historical reputation are the subject of the first
chapter, in which various interpretations of his role in high
politics are summarized and studies of the king�s health are
evaluated (his famous bouts of insanity are now widely recognized
to have been a form of porphyria). In another chapter, Ditchfield
offers his own judgements on George III and British politics
from his accession to the throne in 1760 until the general election
of 1784 � perhaps the most contentious period of the king�s long
reign. The promotion of the Earl of Bute, George�s former tutor,
to senior political office, despite his lack of experience or
following in parliament; the king�s continuing to show greater
confidence in Bute than in his immediate successors; the dismissal
of the first Rockingham administration in 1766; and, perhaps
most serious of all, the undermining of the Fox-North coalition
and the imposition of Pitt the Younger on a hostile parliament
at the end of 1783 � all were cited at the time, and have been
cited many times by historians since, as instances of George
III�s willingness to ignore constitutional proprieties. Ditchfield
is generally sympathetic to his subject, but far from uncritical.
The king�s direct interventions in decision-making, and the issue
of whether he pushed monarchical power beyond what was considered
to be constitutionally acceptable, are dealt with fairly and
judiciously.
George III is often remembered by non-specialists as the king
who lost America, a view based partly on the language of the
Declaration of Independence (�The history of the present King
of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object the establishment of absolute Tyranny
over these States�) and partly on the interpretation of the Whig
historians of the nineteenth century who saw a more authoritarian
monarchy as the root cause of the conflict with the colonies.
We now know, of course, that the Declaration of Independence
placed all the blame on the king at least partly to destroy continuing
affection for him in the thirteen colonies/states. We also know
that the perspective of the Whig historians was anachronistic;
they read back into George III�s reign many of the constitutional
assumptions current in their own century. Nevertheless, given
George�s reputation, Ditchfield could hardly have avoided this
issue, and he devotes a chapter to the king and empire. Here
George III emerges in much the same way as he does in the chapter
on high politics � as a monarch who was not afraid to have his
say, but who was not his own first minister. On American affairs,
at least until the outbreak of war with the thirteen colonies,
George generally supported his governments rather than imposed
his views upon them. He does not come across as a hard-liner.
Occasionally, indeed, he acted as a restraining influence, as
when, in 1769, he cautioned against remodelling the charter of
Massachusetts to strengthen executive authority. Once armed conflict
with the rebel colonies began, George came more to the forefront
and was clearly determined that the war should be pursued to
a successful conclusion; but even then he made it abundantly
clear that he saw himself as contending for the rights of the
British Parliament, not his own independent authority.
The chapter entitled �The Changing Nature of the British Monarchy,
1784-1810� analyses George III�s period of greatest popularity.
If the first decade and a half of his reign were dogged by controversy
about his role in politics, from the general election of 1784
until the end of his active reign (from 1810 the king was so
incapacitated that his son acted as regent) he enjoyed a good
deal of popular affection. The transformation in George�s standing
owed less to any changes that he made to his image than to changing
circumstances. In the aftermath of the unsuccessful American
war, as Linda Colley has demonstrated, George became a symbol
of national determination to recover from defeat. His simple
lifestyle seemed to exemplify the virtues of middle-class thrift
and sobriety, and contrasted sharply with the aristocratic extravagance
of leading opposition politicians, especially Charles James Fox.
But it was above all the French Revolution that made George III
the �father of his people�. True, the Revolution was initially
viewed benignly, or even actively supported, by significant sections
of the British public. As the Revolution developed, however,
its violence, its attacks on property and religion, and finally
its rejection of monarchy in any form, persuaded large numbers
of Britons that it represented a major threat. The anarchy associated
with the Revolution in France made the apparent stability and
order of Britain�s political and social system all the more attractive
� especially to property owners. And the middle-aged and long-reigning
George, devoted and pious family man, constitutional monarch
and defender of the faith, was an almost perfect symbol of stability
and order. �Patriotism� had, in earlier decades of the eighteenth
century, been the language of those who were critical of existing
political arrangements � the parliamentary opposition and its
extra-parliamentary following. From the 1790s it increasingly
was appropriated by defenders of the status quo, a development
symbolized by the way in which the song �God Save the King� became
popular, and started to supplant the more libertarian �Rule,
Britannia� as the national anthem.
One of the most interesting chapters in Dr Ditchfield�s study
attempts to locate George III as a European monarch. George started
his reign announcing his pride in his Britishness. Before he
came to the throne he had � like his father Frederick, Prince
of Wales, before him � looked critically on George II�s partiality
for his Hanoverian territories. His determination to end the
German aspect of the Seven Years' War was apparent. But, as Ditchfield
shows, this early anti-Hanoverian disposition softened with time.
As a mature monarch, George III was perfectly prepared to attend
closely to the interests of the Electorate, even if those interests
were not always in harmony with the policies pursued by his British
ministers. This no doubt owed something to the loss of America;
in 1782, deeply unhappy at having to accept another Rockingham
ministry, committed to recognizing the independence of the United
States, George contemplated abdicating and moving permanently
to Hanover. But George�s change of heart towards Hanover seems
to have predated the end of the American war. The conflict itself
demonstrated Hanover�s value, as George was able to deploy Hanoverian
troops to help the British war effort and his status as Hanoverian
ruler facilitated the negotiation of treaties with other German
states that provided Britain with still more manpower. The chapter
also considers George�s personal continental connections and
his attitudes to other monarchs. His lack of royal solidarity
is striking � in the early stages of the French Revolution, George
sympathized with Louis XVI�s plight on a personal level; but
he had no love for the French monarchy as such, and he did not
press his ministers to make restoration of the Bourbons a war
aim in 1793.
Dr Ditchfield is a leading historian of religion in eighteenth-century
Britain, so it comes as no surprise that the chapter on George�s
religious views is the most original and insightful. George�s
refusal to accept Catholic emancipation as part of the Act of
Union with Ireland in 1800 is often taken as an indication of
his inflexible hostility to Catholicism and his unrelenting Protestantism.
The picture painted by Ditchfield is certainly of George as a
committed and pious Anglican, but as far from a hard-liner. He
comes across in Ditchfield�s account as a moderate Anglican �
determined to maintain the Church�s special position in national
life, but sympathetic to Catholic grievances. Despite his unwillingness
to accept full Catholic emancipation, he is not known to have
objected to the relief measures for Catholics passed in the American
and French Revolutionary Wars. While he was not prepared in 1800
to complete the process, he appears to have accepted that changing
circumstances made Catholicism less of a threat to the British
constitution than the republicanism of the rebellious American
Protestants and the atheism of the French revolutionaries. George�s
attitude to Protestant Dissent was, if anything, more cautious
than his attitude to Catholicism. In 1772-3 he was critical of
bills coming before the British Parliament to exempt Dissenting
ministers and schoolmasters from the requirement that they subscribe
to the majority of the Anglican Church�s 39 Articles. The support
for the American rebels offered by many Dissenters no doubt increased
the king�s suspicions, as did the prominent part played by Dissenters
in the movement for parliamentary reform. Yet even Dissenters
could be viewed sympathetically. George established cordial relations
with the English Moravians and he appointed the Quaker John Fothergill
as one of the royal physicians.
Ditchfield has produced a rounded, readable, and well-balanced
assessment of George III. It must have been tempting for him
simply to draw on existing scholarship, supplemented by the well-known
printed editions of the king�s correspondence. The author has
resisted that temptation and researched well beyond this body
of sources. The manuscripts used include, no doubt, material
consulted for his other work on religious history (the Scott
Collection, a set of papers of the Revd Russell Scott, still
in private hands, would surely not have been tracked down on
the off-chance that they might reveal something about George
III); but the Royal Archives at Windsor have also been profitably
employed. The extensive bibliography lists the titles of two
dozen contemporary newspapers and periodicals consulted, and
over one hundred printed primary sources � memoirs, diaries,
letters, sermons, and pamphlets. Equally, Ditchfield might have
settled for a work of synthesis; instead, he has given us rather
more. While this book�s main achievement is to increase our understanding
of George III by using some of the insights of recent scholarship
on monarchy, religion, and Britain�s relationship to continental
Europe, the author has added more than a few insights of his
own, based on a thorough knowledge of the period, and particularly
its religious dimensions.
February 2003
Notes
(1) John Brooke, King George
III (Constable; London, 1972); Stanley Ayling, George
the Third (Collins; London, 1972); Christopher Hibbert, George
III: a Personal History (Viking; London, 1998). |
