George iii of the united kingdom

George III  ©George III was the third Hanoverian king of Great Britain. During his reign, Britain lost its American colonies but emerged as a leading power in Europe. He suffered from recurrent fits of madness and after , his son acted as regent.

George III was born on 4 June in London, son of Frederick, Prince of Wales and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He became heir to the throne when his father died in , succeeding his grandfather George II in He was the first Hanoverian monarch to use English as his first language. In , George married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and they enjoyed a happy marriage, with 15 children.

George chose his mentor the Earl of Bute as his first chief minister. He was a poor choice, isolating George from senior politicians. Effective government became almost impossible, and George was increasingly vilified. The instability following Bute's resignation in did little to solve the crown's financial difficulties, made worse by the Seven Years' War. In , George appointed Lord North as his first minister. Although an effective administrator, North's government was dominated by disagreements with the American colonists over British attempts to levy taxes on them. War began in and was prolonged in , at the king's insistence, to prevent copycat protests elsewhere. The British defeat in prompted North to resign.

In , North and the prominent Whig politician Fox formed a coalition government. Their plans to reform the East India Company gave George the chance to regain popularity. He forced the bill's defeat in Parliament, and the two resigned. In their place George appointed William Pitt the Younger. The combination of Pitt's skill and war with France in strengthened George's position, but disagreements over emancipation of the Catholics - Pitt was in favour and George vehemently opposed - led to Pitt's resignation in

The American war, its political aftermath and family quarrels put great strain on George. After serio

King of Great Britain and Ireland from to

For other uses, see George III (disambiguation).

George III (George William Frederick; 4 June &#;&#; 29 January ) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October until his death in The Acts of Union unified Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with George as its king. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October He was a monarch of the House of Hanover, who, unlike his two predecessors, was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

George was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, King George II, as the first son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Following his father's death in , Prince George became heir apparent and Prince of Wales. He succeeded to the throne on George II's death in The following year, he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, with whom he had 15 children. George III's life and reign were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the

George III lived from 4 June to 29 January He was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October until 1 January , and was then King of the United Kingdom until his death. He was also Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Elector (and later King) of Hanover. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

George was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but the first to be born in Britain and use English as his first language: indeed, he never actually visited Germany. He succeeded to the throne on the death of his grandfather George II, because his father Frederick, Prince of Wales had died in After his accession to the throne, a search was mounted across the royal families of Europe for a suitable bride for George, and on 8 September , he married Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in the Chapel Royal, St James' Palace, London. Later that month both were crowned in Westminster Abbey.

Unlike his predecessors, George was faithful to his wife, and the two went on to have 15 children, nine sons and six daughters, more than any other British monarchs. Two of the sons, George, Prince of Wales, and William, Duke of Clarence, would go on to become Kings of the United Kingdom; another son, Ernest Augustus, would become King of Hanover; and a daughter, Charlotte, would become Queen of Württemberg. George III was also the grandfather of Queen Victoria, who was the daughter of his fourth son, Edward Augustus, the Duke of Kent.

The latter part of the s did not show British Government at its best. At home, a variety of political crises caused George III to become widely disliked. And from as early as , George III's Government started taking steps that were to make it extremely unpopular in the North American colonies. British attempts to raise taxes in the colonies led to the Boston Tea Party

As King of Great Britain during the American Revolution, George III has become to many Americans a byword for tyranny and the arrogance of the old European aristocracy. The popular musical Hamilton, for instance, portrays the King as a vain figure. Others, meanwhile, have emphasized the mental illness he struggled with later in life, emblazoned in the public consciousness in films like The Madness of King George. But his life and current reputation in Britain, paints a portrait of a far more complicated figure. His year reign was the longest in English history up to that point and remains surpassed only by those of his granddaughter Victoria and the current monarch Elizabeth II. The legacy of that reign, during which he presided over some of the most important events in world history, and George’s domestic life during it, remains a controversial yet fascinating subject for historians to this day. 

Born as George William Frederick on June 4th, , Prince George’s childhood began during a period of intense transition for both Great Britain as well as his own family. The dynasty, the House of Hanover, had ascended to the British throne upon the death of childless Queen Anne Stuart in All of Anne’s nearest relations, such as her half-brother James Francis Edward Stuart, were Roman Catholics, and few people in the mostly-Protestant Britain were able to stomach the thought of another Catholic King. Parliament therefore designated her second cousin George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, commonly known as Hanover, as Anne’s heir and he ascended to the throne as George I. As men of German extraction, George I and his son George II made great attempts to win over the British people by patronizing the arts and sciences. They also entrusted the day-to-day running of the Kingdom to Parliament and the civil government, but neither of them seemed to completely over