1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Dana. One quick reminder, Noble Blood is

2
00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:07,920
Speaker 1: on Patreon. If you love the show and want to

3
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:10,640
Speaker 1: throw me some extra support, go to patreon dot com

4
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:14,200
Speaker 1: slash Noble Blood Tales, where you can get access to

5
00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:19,480
Speaker 1: episode scripts and bibliographies, random comments, and behind the scenes material,

6
00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:22,760
Speaker 1: or just to say hi. But as always, the best

7
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:26,080
Speaker 1: possible support for the show is just listening. I'm so

8
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:32,839
Speaker 1: grateful that you do. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

9
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:36,440
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.

10
00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:45,800
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In the forties, there was a

11
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:51,159
Speaker 1: young princess of Bavaria named Alexandra. By all accounts, Alexandra

12
00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,640
Speaker 1: was brilliant. She would go on to write a number

13
00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:58,520
Speaker 1: of books and published translations, and she was beautiful. But

14
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:03,160
Speaker 1: in her early twenties some peculiarities began to reveal themselves.

15
00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:09,200
Speaker 1: Alexandra always obsessed with ideas of purity and cleanliness. Dressed

16
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:14,360
Speaker 1: only in white, she walked gingerly in her slippers, turning

17
00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:18,839
Speaker 1: sideways to go through doorways, and she avoided touching most things.

18
00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:23,040
Speaker 1: Why was she being so careful, her family asked when

19
00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:26,360
Speaker 1: they noticed the fear behind her eyes. When she narrowed

20
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:29,600
Speaker 1: her elbows to make her way down a hallway. The

21
00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:35,160
Speaker 1: explanation for her behavior, Alexandra said, was quite simple. She

22
00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:39,520
Speaker 1: had swallowed a grand piano as a child, a full

23
00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:44,840
Speaker 1: sized grand piano made of glass, and now years later,

24
00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:50,280
Speaker 1: the glass piano was still inside her unbroken. That was

25
00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:54,520
Speaker 1: why she needed to move so carefully to protect her body,

26
00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:57,880
Speaker 1: because the glass grand piano was always at risk of

27
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:03,640
Speaker 1: shattering inside of her. Though the quote unquote glass delusion

28
00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:07,880
Speaker 1: all but disappeared after the nineteenth century, for hundreds of

29
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 1: years up until then, it was a well documented phenomenon.

30
00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,440
Speaker 1: Descartes mentioned it, and it's included in the sixteen twenty

31
00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:21,400
Speaker 1: one medical book Anatomy of Melancholy. Princess Alexandra's case is

32
00:02:21,440 --> 00:02:24,119
Speaker 1: one of the most famous, no doubt, because of her

33
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:28,880
Speaker 1: royal rank and also the poetic specificity of the grand

34
00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:33,240
Speaker 1: piano made of glass. But another famous royal was also

35
00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:37,440
Speaker 1: struck by the glass delusion, Charles the Six, who would

36
00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:40,680
Speaker 1: become King of France in the thirteen hundreds and whom

37
00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:44,640
Speaker 1: I covered in the podcast episode Charles the Beloved, the Mad,

38
00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:49,520
Speaker 1: the Fool, convinced that his body had transformed into glass

39
00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:54,160
Speaker 1: Charles would spend hours motionless in his bed, protected by

40
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:57,440
Speaker 1: layers of blankets. When he had to go out into

41
00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:01,480
Speaker 1: the world, he did so with specially made iron ribs

42
00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:04,960
Speaker 1: built into his clothing to protect his organs that he

43
00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:09,080
Speaker 1: so believed might shatter with the most delicate of touches.

44
00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:14,000
Speaker 1: It's not a coincidence that the glass delusion seemed to

45
00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:18,280
Speaker 1: mostly attach itself to high ranking royals. At the time,

46
00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:24,119
Speaker 1: it was diagnosed as melancholy, but modern psychotherapists have interpreted

47
00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 1: the glass delusion as a manifestation of feeling vulnerable and fragile,

48
00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:34,040
Speaker 1: fully exposed by a position in the public eye, being

49
00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:39,760
Speaker 1: completely transparent and unable to protect oneself. The myth of

50
00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:44,560
Speaker 1: the mad monarch is an appealing one, the maccabre tragedy

51
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:49,160
Speaker 1: of someone with wealth, power and privilege losing that one

52
00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:52,760
Speaker 1: thing that all of the above can't protect, their mind.

53
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:57,800
Speaker 1: The mad monarch trope also emerges barely often in pop culture,

54
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:02,200
Speaker 1: but usually with less tragedy. The pop culture version is

55
00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 1: usually a despot, a mad king or queen who uses

56
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:10,760
Speaker 1: their powers tyrannically and needs to be taken down. Perhaps

57
00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:15,160
Speaker 1: there's no historical figure that straddles that dichotomy more than

58
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 1: King George the Third, the Hanoverian King of England who

59
00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:23,520
Speaker 1: lost the American colonies, at least in the United States.

60
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:26,680
Speaker 1: When we learned about him, it's as a despot, the

61
00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:30,800
Speaker 1: tyrant king who greedily imposed taxes on his humble servants

62
00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:34,960
Speaker 1: while denying them representation. How easy it is then to

63
00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:38,840
Speaker 1: fold the historical truth of his insanity into that narrative.

64
00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:44,320
Speaker 1: The American colonists had to declare independence from the mad

65
00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:48,640
Speaker 1: King George the Third. The truth, if you can guess,

66
00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,040
Speaker 1: is a little more complicated, and unfortunately a lot sadder.

67
00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:57,320
Speaker 1: George the Third did lose the American colonies, although England,

68
00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:00,520
Speaker 1: being a parliamentary monarchy at the time, his role in

69
00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:03,000
Speaker 1: the affair was a little less active than I think

70
00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:07,720
Speaker 1: most American school children believe. And then, more than three

71
00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:12,240
Speaker 1: decades after that, George lost his mind. He became a

72
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,880
Speaker 1: shell of his former self, wandering through a palace with

73
00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:21,120
Speaker 1: a long white beard, rambling incoherently forgetting the identities of

74
00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:25,760
Speaker 1: his loved ones and then forgetting himself. Treatments for his

75
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:30,520
Speaker 1: mental illness ranged from leeches to straight jackets, and the

76
00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,680
Speaker 1: King of England's life ended bleakally a prisoner in his

77
00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:38,760
Speaker 1: own palace, the most powerful man in the country, with

78
00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:44,479
Speaker 1: absolutely no power anymore. I'm Danish Wortz, and this is

79
00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:53,599
Speaker 1: noble blood. Contrary to what you might expect, George the

80
00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:57,320
Speaker 1: Third was not the son of George the second. George

81
00:05:57,360 --> 00:06:00,880
Speaker 1: the Third was actually the king's grandson, the eldest boy

82
00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:04,960
Speaker 1: born to Frederick, the Prince of Wales. George the Third

83
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:09,240
Speaker 1: had a dangerous and inauspicious early start in life. He

84
00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:13,520
Speaker 1: was born two full months early, dangerous enough in this

85
00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:17,680
Speaker 1: day and age of modern medical technological advancement. But in

86
00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:21,280
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty eight the palace was so ready for young

87
00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:25,120
Speaker 1: George to die that he was given an emergency baptism

88
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:29,080
Speaker 1: the very day that he was born. But then, despite

89
00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:32,880
Speaker 1: it all, George survived. A few weeks later he was

90
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:36,679
Speaker 1: given the public baptism befitting a member of the royal family.

91
00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:41,120
Speaker 1: George the First and George the Second were both Kings

92
00:06:41,160 --> 00:06:44,120
Speaker 1: of England who were born in Hanover with German as

93
00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:48,040
Speaker 1: their first language. George the Third would be the first

94
00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 1: English monarch in living memory. Actually born in England as

95
00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:55,680
Speaker 1: a young man in direct line to the throne, George

96
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:59,000
Speaker 1: was given a first rate education. He was the first

97
00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:03,920
Speaker 1: royal to study science formally, and his lessons touched on chemistry, astronomy,

98
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:08,520
Speaker 1: and physics. There's actually some debate as to how intelligent

99
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,480
Speaker 1: George the Third actually was growing up. One source I'll

100
00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:14,600
Speaker 1: be a buy it source with a grudge against the

101
00:07:14,600 --> 00:07:17,640
Speaker 1: Prince of Wales at the time, claimed that George the

102
00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:21,280
Speaker 1: Third couldn't read until he was eleven years old, but

103
00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:24,440
Speaker 1: more accurate reports are that by age eight he could

104
00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:28,600
Speaker 1: read and write in both English and German. In fact,

105
00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:32,080
Speaker 1: by most accounts, he was a healthy, smart enough child

106
00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:35,840
Speaker 1: who would grow into a relatively healthy, smart, if a

107
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:40,040
Speaker 1: little prudish, and old fashioned young man. He was tall

108
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:44,760
Speaker 1: and fair, with slightly bulging and prominent eyes. When he

109
00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:47,440
Speaker 1: was nervous, he spoke too fast, and he had a

110
00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:51,560
Speaker 1: keen interest in the mundane details of farming. He also

111
00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:54,040
Speaker 1: had the habit of saying hey, hey, at the end

112
00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:59,480
Speaker 1: of sentences. Most people liked him well enough, except his grandfather,

113
00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:05,400
Speaker 1: the Ing. The King viewed his grandson with suspicion and disappointment.

114
00:08:06,240 --> 00:08:08,920
Speaker 1: The only person that the King disliked more than his

115
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,160
Speaker 1: grandson was his own son, Frederick. George the Second dreaded

116
00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:16,760
Speaker 1: the day that he would die and leave Frederick to

117
00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:21,440
Speaker 1: inherit the kingdom. Fortunately for him, that day never came.

118
00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:31,440
Speaker 1: In seventeen fifty one, Prince Frederick died suddenly from a

119
00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:36,199
Speaker 1: lung injury. George the Third, just thirteen years old, became

120
00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:40,440
Speaker 1: the heir apparent. Within three weeks, his grandfather made it

121
00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:43,840
Speaker 1: all formal. George the third was the new Prince of Wales.

122
00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:47,520
Speaker 1: The King still didn't really like his grandson, but well,

123
00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:49,760
Speaker 1: now he didn't have a choice. He would have to

124
00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:53,960
Speaker 1: make do with him. Their relationship was, to say the

125
00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:57,960
Speaker 1: least tense as the fatherless George the Third grew older.

126
00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:01,360
Speaker 1: When George the third was a young man, he offered

127
00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:04,520
Speaker 1: his service to the military. I'll be a terror to

128
00:09:04,559 --> 00:09:08,679
Speaker 1: the enemy, He's quoted as saying, presumably not remembering that

129
00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:13,520
Speaker 1: he had absolutely no military experience. As the heir apparent

130
00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:17,800
Speaker 1: of the entire kingdom, and considering again the complete lack

131
00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:22,640
Speaker 1: of experience, his grandfather, the King politely declined the offer.

132
00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:27,160
Speaker 1: George the third was outraged. He started calling the King

133
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:30,240
Speaker 1: the old man and said that he was ashamed to

134
00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:34,760
Speaker 1: be his grandson. It was perhaps the sort of youthful

135
00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:38,040
Speaker 1: rebellion that you can imagine from a fatherless boy of

136
00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:44,800
Speaker 1: ordinary ability but immense privilege. Another manifestation of youthful rebellion

137
00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:48,719
Speaker 1: for a prince falling in love with a commoner. When

138
00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 1: he was twenty one, George the Third was besotted with

139
00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:57,679
Speaker 1: Lady Sarah Lennox, one of the notorious Lennox sisters. George's mentor,

140
00:09:57,880 --> 00:10:01,160
Speaker 1: Lord Bute, was the most prominent voy against the match,

141
00:10:01,800 --> 00:10:05,200
Speaker 1: and George the Third begrudgingly agreed that he wouldn't be

142
00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:08,080
Speaker 1: able to marry her, but that didn't stop him from

143
00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:11,120
Speaker 1: waxing poetic about how much he loved her and how

144
00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:13,559
Speaker 1: miserable he was that he had been torn away from

145
00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:17,200
Speaker 1: a future with her. The King decided that he would

146
00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:20,840
Speaker 1: help his grandson find a nice German princess to marry.

147
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:25,719
Speaker 1: The first two choices, from Dumstadt and Schwett, were eliminated

148
00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:30,480
Speaker 1: because both girls were reportedly stubborn and ill tempered. The

149
00:10:30,520 --> 00:10:33,920
Speaker 1: princess from Saxe Gotha was out of the question because

150
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:38,240
Speaker 1: George had heard that she had an interest in philosophy gasp.

151
00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:42,920
Speaker 1: But before an appropriate match could be found, a seismic

152
00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:47,720
Speaker 1: shift occurred in young George's life. His grandfather, the King, died,

153
00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:51,440
Speaker 1: and at twenty two years old, George the Third was

154
00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:59,800
Speaker 1: the new king. First things first, he still needed a wife.

155
00:11:00,559 --> 00:11:03,720
Speaker 1: He casually tossed around the idea of marrying Sarah Lennox

156
00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:07,840
Speaker 1: now that he was the boss, but only half heartedly. Instead,

157
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:12,319
Speaker 1: he made the respectable choice of Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz.

158
00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:15,760
Speaker 1: She was seventeen at the time, and no one claimed

159
00:11:15,800 --> 00:11:18,480
Speaker 1: that she was a great beauty, but the reports were

160
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,559
Speaker 1: that she was sensible and amenable to the Anglican Church.

161
00:11:22,400 --> 00:11:25,000
Speaker 1: She and George met at three p m. One afternoon,

162
00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:29,040
Speaker 1: and that very day they were married at nine p m.

163
00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:31,880
Speaker 1: Two weeks after the wedding, the pair had a joint

164
00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 1: coronation in Westminster Abbey, and the king purchased Buckingham House,

165
00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:39,840
Speaker 1: the palace out from which the modern day Buckingham Palace

166
00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:45,280
Speaker 1: would grow. By royal marriage standards, theirs was a rousing success.

167
00:11:46,040 --> 00:11:49,200
Speaker 1: George never took a mistress, and he and Charlotte had

168
00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:53,680
Speaker 1: fifteen children, twelve of whom which arrived through adulthood. It

169
00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:56,280
Speaker 1: turns out both he and Charlotte shared the love of

170
00:11:56,320 --> 00:12:00,600
Speaker 1: the domestic. They both adored music, and romanticized as rural

171
00:12:00,679 --> 00:12:04,560
Speaker 1: farm life. As King George the Third had the nickname

172
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:07,679
Speaker 1: Farmer George, a persona which I have to assume was

173
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:10,080
Speaker 1: at least in part helped by that way that he

174
00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:12,600
Speaker 1: liked to shout, hey, hey, at the end of sentences.

175
00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:16,640
Speaker 1: That seems sort of farm really, doesn't it. But even

176
00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:20,400
Speaker 1: more than farm life, George loved his children and his family.

177
00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:24,640
Speaker 1: When his son Octavius died at age four, George the

178
00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:27,920
Speaker 1: Third wept, and when he recovered, he said, there will

179
00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,760
Speaker 1: be no heaven for me if Octavius is not there.

180
00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:41,400
Speaker 1: It would actually be George's siblings that disrupted his perfect

181
00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:45,880
Speaker 1: domestic fantasy. Early in his reign. He had nine of them,

182
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:50,480
Speaker 1: and each seemed beset by unique tragedy or scandal. Within

183
00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:53,640
Speaker 1: the first few years of being king, two of George's

184
00:12:53,679 --> 00:12:59,319
Speaker 1: siblings died, one of appendicitis and one of tuberculosis. George's

185
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:02,880
Speaker 1: favorite younger brother, his one time confidante and best friend,

186
00:13:03,280 --> 00:13:07,280
Speaker 1: had become a rake. As an adult. He was a troublemaker,

187
00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:12,880
Speaker 1: dabbling in opposition politics, drinking, and womanizing, a disgrace to

188
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:17,480
Speaker 1: King George at court. This brother died suddenly in Monaco

189
00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:23,600
Speaker 1: and then another sister died, also of tuberculosis. His youngest sister,

190
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:27,120
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda, who had married the King of Denmark, was

191
00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:32,160
Speaker 1: arrested for adultery. Her lover, the doctor Struncy, was executed.

192
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:36,000
Speaker 1: She wrote to her brother for help, and through political machinations,

193
00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:39,640
Speaker 1: George the Third was able to arrange for Caroline Matilda

194
00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:44,000
Speaker 1: to have a semi respectable retirement in Cell. But that

195
00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:48,959
Speaker 1: wasn't all. All of Georgia's siblings seemed insistent on causing

196
00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:54,599
Speaker 1: scandal without telling the king. George's younger brother, Henry, secretly

197
00:13:54,640 --> 00:13:59,920
Speaker 1: married a commoner, a widow. You have irretrievably ruined yoursel

198
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:04,000
Speaker 1: of the King told his brother. After that embarrassment, in

199
00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:08,559
Speaker 1: seventy two, the King who passed the Royal Marriages Act,

200
00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:12,160
Speaker 1: which forbade any member of the royal family under twenty

201
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:16,920
Speaker 1: five to get married without the monarch's explicit approval. If

202
00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,880
Speaker 1: you watched Season one of The Crown, this is the

203
00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:22,800
Speaker 1: origin of the conflict of Queen Elizabeth the Second not

204
00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 1: allowing her younger sister Margaret to marry an older divorcee.

205
00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:30,680
Speaker 1: Of course, as soon as King George passed the Act,

206
00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:34,920
Speaker 1: another one of his younger brothers. William Henry came forward

207
00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:39,480
Speaker 1: and shyly admitted that for the past six years he

208
00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:44,000
Speaker 1: had actually been married secretly to a cordier's illegitimate daughter.

209
00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:55,040
Speaker 1: It was enough to drive anybody crazy. George's health struggles

210
00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:58,000
Speaker 1: began when he was twenty four, just two years after

211
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:02,600
Speaker 1: he became king. One ofternoon in seventeen sixty two, he

212
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:07,000
Speaker 1: started coughing. Breathing became difficult, and he complained of a

213
00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:11,840
Speaker 1: constant stitch in his side. The court doctors murmured worriedly

214
00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:15,680
Speaker 1: to themselves. The symptoms seemed to be similar to what

215
00:15:15,760 --> 00:15:19,480
Speaker 1: George's own father had died up without warning a decade ago.

216
00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:24,160
Speaker 1: Treatment would need to be aggressive. The King was blooded

217
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:28,760
Speaker 1: seven times, prescribed asses milk and a laxative. The King

218
00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:31,520
Speaker 1: was also put on a regiment of cupping over the

219
00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:34,480
Speaker 1: next few months, during which a doctor would make a

220
00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:38,440
Speaker 1: small laceration and then use a warm cup to create

221
00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 1: a vacuum over the wound to suck the blood out.

222
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:47,600
Speaker 1: In case you weren't sure, it is extremely painful. George recovered,

223
00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 1: but he suffered from insomnia and quickened pulse for the

224
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:55,640
Speaker 1: next few years. Some people erroneously described this period as

225
00:15:55,680 --> 00:15:59,520
Speaker 1: his first bout of madness, but that's not correct. There

226
00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:04,280
Speaker 1: were no documented mental symptoms, just physical discomfort and even

227
00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:16,400
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable treatments. Documented mental illness would emerge for the

228
00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:20,560
Speaker 1: first time decades later, when George was fifty years old.

229
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:24,720
Speaker 1: In the Intervening Period, George the Third defeated France in

230
00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 1: the Seven Years War, which meant that Britain achieved global

231
00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:31,280
Speaker 1: primacy as a world power, but it came at a

232
00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:35,240
Speaker 1: heavy cost. The war had been expensive, and the cost

233
00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:39,280
Speaker 1: of it led Parliament to raise taxes on the American colonists.

234
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure you remember where all this goes. I hope

235
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:46,400
Speaker 1: I'm not stating the obvious when I say, of course,

236
00:16:46,760 --> 00:16:51,080
Speaker 1: King George the Third was anti revolutionary, but his position

237
00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:55,640
Speaker 1: wasn't despotic or egocentric, or even uncommon in Britain at

238
00:16:55,640 --> 00:16:59,440
Speaker 1: the time. George wasn't a mad king trying to rule

239
00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:02,600
Speaker 1: the colony so he could rename them all George Land.

240
00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:06,520
Speaker 1: King George the Third was a rigid traditional man who

241
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,280
Speaker 1: took the oath that he made during his coronation very seriously.

242
00:17:11,080 --> 00:17:13,359
Speaker 1: At the very least, he saw it as his duty

243
00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:17,040
Speaker 1: to defend Parliament's legal right to raise taxes whenever they

244
00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:21,919
Speaker 1: so chose. It was less about absolutism actually than protecting

245
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:27,080
Speaker 1: the power of the parliamentary system. In Britain, anti revolutionary

246
00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:31,280
Speaker 1: sentiment was the middle of the road position, especially after

247
00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:34,320
Speaker 1: the story of the Boston Tea Party made its way

248
00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:39,520
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean. The rebellious colonists had destroyed a

249
00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:43,720
Speaker 1: ship's worth of property and violently tarred and feathered the

250
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:47,240
Speaker 1: customs official. What had the customs official done wrong? He

251
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:50,639
Speaker 1: was just trying to do his job. Most of the

252
00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:55,840
Speaker 1: British population saw the American rebels as incorrigible, and King

253
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:59,840
Speaker 1: George the Third was fully committed to backing Parliament's decision

254
00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:03,880
Speaker 1: that Britain would take whatever action necessary to protect its

255
00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:08,480
Speaker 1: officials and its property. Long story short, they lost the

256
00:18:08,520 --> 00:18:12,800
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War, mostly for George the Third. It was just

257
00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:17,359
Speaker 1: a humiliation. Catherine the Great wrote at the time quote,

258
00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:21,480
Speaker 1: rather than have granted America her independence, as my brother monarch,

259
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:24,600
Speaker 1: King George has done, I would have fired a pistol

260
00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:28,800
Speaker 1: at my own head. The guilt and anxiety after yielding

261
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:33,440
Speaker 1: the colonies caused George the Third enormous angst. He drafted

262
00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:37,399
Speaker 1: an abdication speech, planning on resigning and then moving to

263
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:42,960
Speaker 1: his family seat in Hanover, but he decided against giving it. Luckily,

264
00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:47,159
Speaker 1: the economic sting of the American Revolution healed quicker than

265
00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:50,919
Speaker 1: the emotional one for George. Under the Prime Minister William

266
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:54,600
Speaker 1: Pitt the Younger, the country's finances bounced back, and so

267
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:57,359
Speaker 1: George the Third tried to move on and put the

268
00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:02,600
Speaker 1: past behind him. In seven George meant face to face

269
00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:05,880
Speaker 1: with the ambassador of that new country, the United States.

270
00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:10,800
Speaker 1: The ambassador was a man named John Adams. I will

271
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,919
Speaker 1: be free with you, King George, said to him. I

272
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,320
Speaker 1: was the last to consent to the separation, But the

273
00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:21,159
Speaker 1: separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have

274
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:23,879
Speaker 1: always said, as I say now, that I would be

275
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:26,880
Speaker 1: the first to meet the friendship of the United States

276
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:36,320
Speaker 1: as an independent power. Life returned to relative normalcy for

277
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:39,320
Speaker 1: King George the Third, A normal life meant for him.

278
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:43,960
Speaker 1: He ate a spartan diet, exercised regularly, and even wrote

279
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:48,520
Speaker 1: about botany under a pen name Ralph Robinson. And as

280
00:19:48,600 --> 00:19:53,000
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, he was incredibly domestic. To quote John

281
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:57,159
Speaker 1: Cannon in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. One of

282
00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:00,879
Speaker 1: the remarkable features of George's way of life his comparative

283
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 1: lack of interest in travel. He never visited his Hanoverian dominions,

284
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 1: although they were, at least in theory, very dear to him.

285
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:11,680
Speaker 1: He gloried in the name of Britain, but knew very

286
00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:16,280
Speaker 1: little about it. Scotland, Wales and Ireland were ignored, so

287
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 1: was most of England. The royal family visited Weymouth for

288
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:24,480
Speaker 1: sea bathing, and when at Cheltenham in seventy eight, the

289
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:27,760
Speaker 1: King and Queen saw Gloucester, Worcester, Tewkesbury, and a few

290
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:32,080
Speaker 1: nearby manor houses like Maltston and Croome. But the Midlands

291
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:35,960
Speaker 1: and North were a closed book, as was the southwest

292
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:40,359
Speaker 1: end Cornwall. He never visited the University of Cambridge, nor

293
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:44,639
Speaker 1: the great cathedrals at York, Lincoln, norch or Wells. The

294
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: explanation seems to be a certain lack of intellectual vitality,

295
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:53,400
Speaker 1: the problem of conveying court and family, and the King's

296
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 1: preference for a routine and familiar existence. He really really

297
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:02,320
Speaker 1: did seem to a door his children. When the time

298
00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:06,879
Speaker 1: came to find his daughter's suitable German husbands. King George said,

299
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 1: I cannot deny that I have never wished to see

300
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 1: any of them Mary. I am happy in their company

301
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:17,199
Speaker 1: and do not in the least want a separation. But

302
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:22,080
Speaker 1: then in something happened that put all talk of marriage

303
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:26,520
Speaker 1: to rest. Just a week after he turned fifty, George

304
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 1: the Third became incredibly ill, vomiting and unable to leave bed.

305
00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 1: This was in June. By October he still hadn't recovered.

306
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 1: He wasn't sleeping, had difficulty walking, and he was clutching

307
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 1: his stomach and pain. His legs cramped. Rheumatism plagued all

308
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 1: of his limbs, and he was confused, occasionally lashing out

309
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:51,919
Speaker 1: with violence, but mostly he would just be a horse

310
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 1: from constant talking. His words would make very little sense.

311
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 1: They would just tumble from his lips without pause. His

312
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 1: mood was constantly agitated, and though he could barely stand

313
00:22:03,359 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 1: up on his own, he rose and sat up and

314
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:12,240
Speaker 1: down frequently. By November he was delirious, confused, and insomniac.

315
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:15,879
Speaker 1: There were rashes on his arms, bright red as if

316
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: he had been beaten, and the whites of his eyes

317
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 1: had turned yellow and gray. One of his more unusual

318
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: compulsions was an obsession with a courtier named Lady Pembroke.

319
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,480
Speaker 1: King George, who had been loyal to his wife for

320
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:33,360
Speaker 1: their entire three decade marriage up until that point, started

321
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:37,679
Speaker 1: making explicit sexual comments to Lady Pembroke in public, who

322
00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:41,720
Speaker 1: was a longtime family friend. He openly lusted after her

323
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 1: and bad talked the Queen, but then periods of lucidity

324
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 1: would return and the King would be embarrassed and profusely apologetic.

325
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 1: He had seven royal physicians treating him. Their best explanation

326
00:22:56,359 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 1: for the baffling array of symptoms was that George was

327
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,399
Speaker 1: suffering from a humor in his legs and that it

328
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:06,240
Speaker 1: was his own fault because he had left wet stockings

329
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:12,439
Speaker 1: on for too long. The physicians consulted and advised that

330
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: the King moved from Windsor to the palace at Q

331
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: so that he would have more privacy while he recovered.

332
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: But the change of scenery did nothing to improve his condition,

333
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: and so a specialist was brought in, Dr Francis Willis,

334
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:33,159
Speaker 1: an Oxford educated clergyman who ran an asylum. Dr Willis's

335
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: strategy for managing mental illness was intimidation, coercion, and restraint.

336
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 1: His practice was based on the fundamental principle that mentally

337
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 1: ill patients had to be broken in like horses. When

338
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 1: King George rambled or misbehaved, he was physically restrained, pulled

339
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: into a strait jacket, or strapped onto a chair that

340
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:00,680
Speaker 1: George would miserably referred to as his coronation should chair.

341
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 1: Word of the King's incapacity led to something of a

342
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: political crisis. The king was an old fashioned conservative, supporter

343
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:13,119
Speaker 1: of the Tories and their leader, Pitt the Younger. On

344
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 1: the opposition side was Charles James Fox, a Whig who

345
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,640
Speaker 1: would very much prefer the more liberal George the Fourth

346
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: to be in charge. Fox proposed a regency bill. After all,

347
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:28,680
Speaker 1: the King was clearly unwell and all of the powers

348
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 1: of the monarchy should be in the hands of his son,

349
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 1: George the Fourth. Pitt the Younger, knowing that he would

350
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: be removed from office if George the Fourth was given

351
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: full royal powers, argued in favor of limiting the region's

352
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: temporary powers. It was an ironic reversal of political positions.

353
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: Usually the Tories were the ones in favor of more

354
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: royal power, and the Whigs were the ones arguing for

355
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: limiting the role of the king, but while this issue

356
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: was still being debated in Parliament, it became moot. George

357
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: the third recovered before a regency bill ever passed. The

358
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: people rejoiced to have their king well again, and Dr

359
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: Willis became something of a national hero, with coins minted

360
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: and busts sculpted in his honor. The king Farmer George

361
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: was more popular than ever. There were maybe a few

362
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: combined factors that led to this increase in popularity, maybe

363
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: a little bit of pity after his illness, maybe because

364
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: the people were so relieved not to have to suffer

365
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: that young, awful George the fourth actually becoming king. Yes,

366
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: maybe George the third was a little old fashioned, but

367
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: he loved his wife and children. Domestically, he was above reproach.

368
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: He had fought his hardest against those incorrigible colonies. It

369
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: was an age of conservatism and domestic welfare, and their

370
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: king became a living folk hero. When George the third

371
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 1: was bathing in Weymouth, a local band, carrying their instruments,

372
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: all waded into the sea alongside him to play God

373
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: Save the King. A few years later there was an

374
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,439
Speaker 1: assassination attempt when King George the Third was sitting in

375
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: the Royal Box of the Drury Lane Theater when a

376
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 1: man in the pit stood on a box and fired

377
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: two pistol shots at the king. The bullets missed by

378
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: mirror inches, embedding themselves in the wooden paneling behind him.

379
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: George was so un anxious at this period in his

380
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: life that he insisted that the show continue, and then

381
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: he fell asleep during intermission. It was this sort of

382
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: anecdote that made the people love him. There were a

383
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: few short bouts of the so named madness, but nothing unmanageable,

384
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: and nothing that led to another regency crisis, at least

385
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: not until eighteen ten. It was a tough year to

386
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 1: begin with. Early in spring, one of the king's sons,

387
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: the Duke of Cumberland, was involved in the scandal where

388
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: one of his valets was found dead, presumably by suicide,

389
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: although the circumstances were grisly and mysterious and led to

390
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: widely circulating rumors that maybe the valet had been murdered

391
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: by the Duke himself. And then that summer, another of

392
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: the king's children became a cause of concern. His daughter,

393
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: Princess Amelia's health was deteriorating and quickly. Her health issues

394
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: had begun with pain and her knee joints, and she

395
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: had been sent to the seaside to recover. But the

396
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 1: summer of eighteen ten, it became obvious that recovery wasn't

397
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: going to be an option. She was dying of tuberculosis.

398
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: Saint Anthony's fire left her skin red and inflamed. Amelia

399
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: was confined to her bed, but every single morning at

400
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: seven am, the king summoned her doctors to report on

401
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: her condition, and he required additional reports throughout the day,

402
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: sometimes minute by minute, so he would be able to

403
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: hear how his daughter was doing. The King's final public

404
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: appearance was on October ten, the anniversary of his succession.

405
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: He was distracted and anxious, and within days he was

406
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: back to being treated by being restrained in a strait

407
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: jacket again. Princess Amelia died a week later, on November two.

408
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: Before she died, she reached out to the Royal family

409
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: jewelers Rundell and Bridgers and gave them a jewel that

410
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: they could make into a morning ring for her father.

411
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 1: The ring included a lock of her hair beneath the

412
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: crystal haloed with diamonds inscribed in the band where the

413
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: words remember me. The king was inconsolable when he received it.

414
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: The symptoms of his madness began again. The king would

415
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: write long letters to his dead daughter Amelia, his handwriting

416
00:28:55,200 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: a scrawl, words fully indecipherable. The kingdom was fairly optimistic that,

417
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: like about a few decades before, the king would quickly

418
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: recover and things would return to normal, But George continued

419
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: to deteriorate. His condition worsened by his advanced age and

420
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: his grief over his daughter. Recovery never came. For the

421
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: final ten years of his life, King George the Third

422
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: lived in a world of paranoia and isolation. His symptoms

423
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: were physical too. His eyesight continued to worsen until the

424
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: king was completely blind, and he was also going partially deaf.

425
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: Believing that visitors would excite him, George's physicians kept anyone

426
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: from coming to see him and prevented him from even

427
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: the simple pleasures of conversation or even outings beyond the

428
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: palace walls. George the Third spent his days speaking to

429
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: imaginary and long dead figures walk through the gardens, pretending

430
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: to inspect invisible parades. He became a tragic figure, like

431
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: something out of Shakespeare, a man shambling through the lonely

432
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: halls of Windsor Castle with a long white beard, wearing

433
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 1: a purple dressing robe. He might have appeared to be

434
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: a common madman had it not been for the Order

435
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: of the Garter pinned to his chest, a reminder of

436
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: the status and title he still technically held. In eighteen fourteen,

437
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: George the Third was officially declared the King of Hanover.

438
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: His old family lands were finally recovered after a decade

439
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: in other hands, but he was completely unaware of his

440
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: additional title. He didn't know when his own wife died

441
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighteen, and it seemed he didn't know himself either.

442
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: George would spend long afternoons plucking absent mindedly at a

443
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: harpsichord that once belonged to handle. This song used to

444
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: be the late King's favor, peace, he said, referring to himself.

445
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: The Regency Act that had been pushed aside twenty years

446
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: ago finally passed in eighteen eleven, and George the Fourth

447
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: became the official acting regent for the rest of his

448
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: father's life, ushering in the era that's now synonymous with

449
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: Jane Austen the regency. On Christmas in eighteen nineteen, the

450
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: king rambled incoherently for fifty eight hours straight. King George

451
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: the Third died at Windsor Castle the end of that January.

452
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: It's sometimes easy to forget, especially in the context of

453
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: the tragic end of his reign, but during his lifetime,

454
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: George Third was the longest reigning and longest living monarch,

455
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: and to this day he's only been outlived and out

456
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: reigned by Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth the Second. Up

457
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: until George the Third was over seventy there were fewer

458
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: than six months of quote unquote madness in his reign.

459
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: Still it fully colors his reputation. It became the most

460
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: memorable thing about him, the tragedy of his vulnerability. The

461
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: king whose throne became a chair with straps and whose

462
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: velvet brocade became a straight jacket, abused, isolated, and dismissed,

463
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: Still the king. But what difference did that make? That's

464
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: the sad story of George the Third and his madness.

465
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear

466
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: about modern interpretations of his diagnosis. It doesn't always serve

467
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: us to retroactively diagnose historical figures, especially someone like George

468
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: the Third, who clearly suffered from some sort of mental

469
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: illness given his obsession with Lady Pembroke during his early

470
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: bout of mania. It became trendy in the shadow of

471
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,719
Speaker 1: Freudian psychology in the nineteen twenties to cast George's illness

472
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: as a manifestation of his sexual repression. But then in

473
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine there was a breakthrough. Two doctors, Ida

474
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: mackel pine and Richard Hunter cataloged all of Georgia's symptoms

475
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: and found that many of them, including the symptom of

476
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: dark indigo urine, were in line with a hereditary illness

477
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: known as porphyria, a rare disease that leads to neurological damage.

478
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: Porphyria has been the pop psychology diagnosis for George the

479
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: Third for a long time, but most recent scholarship actually

480
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: indicates that it's probably inaccurate. The primary symptom that pointed

481
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: to porphyria, the bluish urine, is actually a side effect

482
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: of one of the flowers that George the Third was

483
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: given as medicine. Gentian medicine is still used today as

484
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: a mild tonic. Most historians today believe that it's more

485
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: likely that George suffered from bipolar disorder or an otherwise

486
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: undefined mania, but a diagnosis at this point doesn't really

487
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: mean anything. It's a parliam tric game. The far more

488
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:29,760
Speaker 1: interesting investigation, I believe is learning about what George's life

489
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: was like, exploring the symptoms of his illness, what they were,

490
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: and what the treatment for his illness was, regardless of

491
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. Noble Blood is a

492
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from

493
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by Dani

494
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,

495
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at

496
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the

497
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:06,399
Speaker 1: show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more

498
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

499
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

500
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: M