The Madness Of King George

Download or read book The Madness of King George written by Alan Bennett and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 30 years into his reign, the King of England starts to go a little mad; his court hires a new, radical doctor to try to cure him, but what he really needs in the love of a good queen.

Download or read book The Last King of America written by Andrew Roberts and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 1033 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill and Napoleon The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating--and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy. Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon--a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpretation of him is Jonathan Groff's preening, spitting, and pompous take in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway masterpiece. But this deeply unflattering characterization is rooted in the prejudiced and brilliantly persuasive opinions of eighteenth-century revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, who needed to make the king appear evil in order to achieve their own political aims. After combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of never-before-published correspondence, award-winning historian Andrew Roberts has uncovered the truth: George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck. In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III's American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch.

Download or read book George III written by Andrew Roberts and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Times Book of the Year *Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, 2022* *Winner of the General Society of Colonial Wars' Distinguished Book Award, 2021* *Winner of the History Reclaimed Book of the Year, 2022* *Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, 2021* Andrew Roberts, one of Britain's premier historians, overturns the received wisdom on George III George III, Britain's longest-reigning king, has gone down in history as 'the cruellest tyrant of this age' (Thomas Paine, eighteenth century), 'a sovereign who inflicted more profound and enduring injuries upon this country than any other modern English king' (W.E.H. Lecky, nineteenth century), 'one of England's most disastrous kings' (J.H. Plumb, twentieth century) and as the pompous monarch of the musical Hamilton (twenty-first century). Andrew Roberts's magnificent new biography takes entirely the opposite view. It portrays George as intelligent, benevolent, scrupulously devoted to the constitution of his country and (as head of government as well as head of state) navigating the turbulence of eighteenth-century politics with a strong sense of honour and duty. He was a devoted husband and family man, a great patron of the arts and sciences, keen to advance Britain's agricultural capacity ('Farmer George') and determined that her horizons should be global. He could be stubborn and self-righteous, but he was also brave, brushing aside numerous assassination attempts, galvanising his ministers and generals at moments of crisis and stoical in the face of his descent - five times during his life - into a horrifying loss of mind. The book gives a detailed, revisionist account of the American Revolutionary War, persuasively taking apart a significant proportion of the Declaration of Independence, which Roberts shows to be largely Jeffersonian propaganda. In a later war, he describes how George's support for William Pitt was crucial in the battle against Napoleon. And he makes a convincing, modern diagnosis of George's terrible malady, very different to the widely accepted medical view and to popular portrayals. Roberts writes, 'the people who knew George III best loved him the most', and that far from being a tyrant or incompetent, George III was one of our most admirable monarchs. The diarist Fanny Burney, who spent four years at his court and saw him often, wrote 'A noble sovereign this is, and when justice is done to him, he will be as such acknowledged'. In presenting this fresh view of Britain's most misunderstood monarch, George III shows one of Britain's premier historians at his sparkling best.

Download or read book A Royal Experiment written by Janice Hadlow and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Originally published as The strangest family in the U.K. in 2014 by William Collins"--Title page verso.

Download or read book George III (Penguin Monarchs) written by Jeremy Black and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: King of Britain for sixty years and the last king of what would become the United States, George III inspired both hatred and loyalty and is now best known for two reasons: as a villainous tyrant for America's Founding Fathers, and for his madness, both of which have been portrayed on stage and screen. In this concise and penetrating biography, Jeremy Black turns away from the image-making and back to the archives, and instead locates George's life within his age: as a king who faced the loss of key colonies, rebellion in Ireland, insurrection in London, constitutional crisis in Britain and an existential threat from Revolutionary France as part of modern Britain's longest period of war. Black shows how George III rose to these challenges with fortitude and helped settle parliamentary monarchy as an effective governmental system, eventually becoming the most popular monarch for well over a century. He also shows us a talented and curious individual, committed to music, art, architecture and science, who took the duties of monarchy seriously, from reviewing death penalties to trying to control his often wayward children even as his own mental health failed, and became Britain's longest reigning king.

Download or read book A Royal Experiment written by Janice Hadlow and published by Picador. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stunning debut of an important new history writer In this magnificent biography of a marriage-between Great Britain's King George III and Queen Charlotte-Janice Hadlow exposes with astonishing emotional force King George's attempt to achieve what none of his forebears had accomplished: a happy family life. To Americans, King George III has long been doubly famous-as the "tyrant" from whom colonial revolutionaries wrested their nation's liberty and, owing to his late-life illness, as "the mad king." In A Royal Experiment, he is also a man with a poignant agenda, determined to be a new kind of king, one whose power will be rooted in the affection and approval of his people, and a new kind of man, a faithful husband capable of companionship and domestic harmony. For a long time, it seems as if, against the odds, George's great experiment might succeed. Queen Charlotte shares his sense of moral purpose, and together they do everything they can to raise their tribe of thirteen sons and daughters in a climate of loving attention. But in a rapidly more populous and prosperous England, through years of revolution in America and in France, the struggle to achieve a new balance between politics and privacy places increasing stress on George and Charlotte. The story that roils across the long arc of George's life and reign is high drama-tragic and riveting.

Download or read book The Strangest Family written by Janice Hadlow and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intensely moving account of George III's doomed attempt to create a happy, harmonious family, written with astonishing emotional force by a stunning new history writer. George III came to the throne in 1760 as a man with a mission. He was determined to break with the extraordinarily dysfunctional home lives of his Hanoverian predecessors. He was sure that as a faithful husband and a loving father, he would be not just a happier man but a better ruler as well. During the early part of his reign it seemed as if, against all the odds, his great family project was succeeding. His wife, Queen Charlotte, shared his sense of moral purpose, and together they raised their fifteen children in a climate of loving attention. But as the children grew older, and their wishes and desires developed away from those of their father, it became harder to maintain the illusion of domestic harmony. 'The Strangest Family' is an epic, sprawling family drama, filled with intensely realised characters who leap off the page as we are led deep inside the private lives of the Hanoverians. Written with astonishing emotional force by a stunning new voice in history writing, it is both a window on another world and a universal story that will resonate powerfully with modern readers.