Speaker 1: Hey, this is Dana. One quick reminder, Noble Blood is
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Speaker 1: grateful that you do. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In the forties, there was a
Speaker 1: young princess of Bavaria named Alexandra. By all accounts, Alexandra
Speaker 1: was brilliant. She would go on to write a number
Speaker 1: of books and published translations, and she was beautiful. But
Speaker 1: in her early twenties some peculiarities began to reveal themselves.
Speaker 1: Alexandra always obsessed with ideas of purity and cleanliness. Dressed
Speaker 1: only in white, she walked gingerly in her slippers, turning
Speaker 1: sideways to go through doorways, and she avoided touching most things.
Speaker 1: Why was she being so careful, her family asked when
Speaker 1: they noticed the fear behind her eyes. When she narrowed
Speaker 1: her elbows to make her way down a hallway. The
Speaker 1: explanation for her behavior, Alexandra said, was quite simple. She
Speaker 1: had swallowed a grand piano as a child, a full
Speaker 1: sized grand piano made of glass, and now years later,
Speaker 1: the glass piano was still inside her unbroken. That was
Speaker 1: why she needed to move so carefully to protect her body,
Speaker 1: because the glass grand piano was always at risk of
Speaker 1: shattering inside of her. Though the quote unquote glass delusion
Speaker 1: all but disappeared after the nineteenth century, for hundreds of
Speaker 1: years up until then, it was a well documented phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Descartes mentioned it, and it's included in the sixteen twenty
Speaker 1: one medical book Anatomy of Melancholy. Princess Alexandra's case is
Speaker 1: one of the most famous, no doubt, because of her
Speaker 1: royal rank and also the poetic specificity of the grand
Speaker 1: piano made of glass. But another famous royal was also
Speaker 1: struck by the glass delusion, Charles the Six, who would
Speaker 1: become King of France in the thirteen hundreds and whom
Speaker 1: I covered in the podcast episode Charles the Beloved, the Mad,
Speaker 1: the Fool, convinced that his body had transformed into glass
Speaker 1: Charles would spend hours motionless in his bed, protected by
Speaker 1: layers of blankets. When he had to go out into
Speaker 1: the world, he did so with specially made iron ribs
Speaker 1: built into his clothing to protect his organs that he
Speaker 1: so believed might shatter with the most delicate of touches.
Speaker 1: It's not a coincidence that the glass delusion seemed to
Speaker 1: mostly attach itself to high ranking royals. At the time,
Speaker 1: it was diagnosed as melancholy, but modern psychotherapists have interpreted
Speaker 1: the glass delusion as a manifestation of feeling vulnerable and fragile,
Speaker 1: fully exposed by a position in the public eye, being
Speaker 1: completely transparent and unable to protect oneself. The myth of
Speaker 1: the mad monarch is an appealing one, the maccabre tragedy
Speaker 1: of someone with wealth, power and privilege losing that one
Speaker 1: thing that all of the above can't protect, their mind.
Speaker 1: The mad monarch trope also emerges barely often in pop culture,
Speaker 1: but usually with less tragedy. The pop culture version is
Speaker 1: usually a despot, a mad king or queen who uses
Speaker 1: their powers tyrannically and needs to be taken down. Perhaps
Speaker 1: there's no historical figure that straddles that dichotomy more than
Speaker 1: King George the Third, the Hanoverian King of England who
Speaker 1: lost the American colonies, at least in the United States.
Speaker 1: When we learned about him, it's as a despot, the
Speaker 1: tyrant king who greedily imposed taxes on his humble servants
Speaker 1: while denying them representation. How easy it is then to
Speaker 1: fold the historical truth of his insanity into that narrative.
Speaker 1: The American colonists had to declare independence from the mad
Speaker 1: King George the Third. The truth, if you can guess,
Speaker 1: is a little more complicated, and unfortunately a lot sadder.
Speaker 1: George the Third did lose the American colonies, although England,
Speaker 1: being a parliamentary monarchy at the time, his role in
Speaker 1: the affair was a little less active than I think
Speaker 1: most American school children believe. And then, more than three
Speaker 1: decades after that, George lost his mind. He became a
Speaker 1: shell of his former self, wandering through a palace with
Speaker 1: a long white beard, rambling incoherently forgetting the identities of
Speaker 1: his loved ones and then forgetting himself. Treatments for his
Speaker 1: mental illness ranged from leeches to straight jackets, and the
Speaker 1: King of England's life ended bleakally a prisoner in his
Speaker 1: own palace, the most powerful man in the country, with
Speaker 1: absolutely no power anymore. I'm Danish Wortz, and this is
Speaker 1: noble blood. Contrary to what you might expect, George the
Speaker 1: Third was not the son of George the second. George
Speaker 1: the Third was actually the king's grandson, the eldest boy
Speaker 1: born to Frederick, the Prince of Wales. George the Third
Speaker 1: had a dangerous and inauspicious early start in life. He
Speaker 1: was born two full months early, dangerous enough in this
Speaker 1: day and age of modern medical technological advancement. But in
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty eight the palace was so ready for young
Speaker 1: George to die that he was given an emergency baptism
Speaker 1: the very day that he was born. But then, despite
Speaker 1: it all, George survived. A few weeks later he was
Speaker 1: given the public baptism befitting a member of the royal family.
Speaker 1: George the First and George the Second were both Kings
Speaker 1: of England who were born in Hanover with German as
Speaker 1: their first language. George the Third would be the first
Speaker 1: English monarch in living memory. Actually born in England as
Speaker 1: a young man in direct line to the throne, George
Speaker 1: was given a first rate education. He was the first
Speaker 1: royal to study science formally, and his lessons touched on chemistry, astronomy,
Speaker 1: and physics. There's actually some debate as to how intelligent
Speaker 1: George the Third actually was growing up. One source I'll
Speaker 1: be a buy it source with a grudge against the
Speaker 1: Prince of Wales at the time, claimed that George the
Speaker 1: Third couldn't read until he was eleven years old, but
Speaker 1: more accurate reports are that by age eight he could
Speaker 1: read and write in both English and German. In fact,
Speaker 1: by most accounts, he was a healthy, smart enough child
Speaker 1: who would grow into a relatively healthy, smart, if a
Speaker 1: little prudish, and old fashioned young man. He was tall
Speaker 1: and fair, with slightly bulging and prominent eyes. When he
Speaker 1: was nervous, he spoke too fast, and he had a
Speaker 1: keen interest in the mundane details of farming. He also
Speaker 1: had the habit of saying hey, hey, at the end
Speaker 1: of sentences. Most people liked him well enough, except his grandfather,
Speaker 1: the Ing. The King viewed his grandson with suspicion and disappointment.
Speaker 1: The only person that the King disliked more than his
Speaker 1: grandson was his own son, Frederick. George the Second dreaded
Speaker 1: the day that he would die and leave Frederick to
Speaker 1: inherit the kingdom. Fortunately for him, that day never came.
Speaker 1: In seventeen fifty one, Prince Frederick died suddenly from a
Speaker 1: lung injury. George the Third, just thirteen years old, became
Speaker 1: the heir apparent. Within three weeks, his grandfather made it
Speaker 1: all formal. George the third was the new Prince of Wales.
Speaker 1: The King still didn't really like his grandson, but well,
Speaker 1: now he didn't have a choice. He would have to
Speaker 1: make do with him. Their relationship was, to say the
Speaker 1: least tense as the fatherless George the Third grew older.
Speaker 1: When George the third was a young man, he offered
Speaker 1: his service to the military. I'll be a terror to
Speaker 1: the enemy, He's quoted as saying, presumably not remembering that
Speaker 1: he had absolutely no military experience. As the heir apparent
Speaker 1: of the entire kingdom, and considering again the complete lack
Speaker 1: of experience, his grandfather, the King politely declined the offer.
Speaker 1: George the third was outraged. He started calling the King
Speaker 1: the old man and said that he was ashamed to
Speaker 1: be his grandson. It was perhaps the sort of youthful
Speaker 1: rebellion that you can imagine from a fatherless boy of
Speaker 1: ordinary ability but immense privilege. Another manifestation of youthful rebellion
Speaker 1: for a prince falling in love with a commoner. When
Speaker 1: he was twenty one, George the Third was besotted with
Speaker 1: Lady Sarah Lennox, one of the notorious Lennox sisters. George's mentor,
Speaker 1: Lord Bute, was the most prominent voy against the match,
Speaker 1: and George the Third begrudgingly agreed that he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to marry her, but that didn't stop him from
Speaker 1: waxing poetic about how much he loved her and how
Speaker 1: miserable he was that he had been torn away from
Speaker 1: a future with her. The King decided that he would
Speaker 1: help his grandson find a nice German princess to marry.
Speaker 1: The first two choices, from Dumstadt and Schwett, were eliminated
Speaker 1: because both girls were reportedly stubborn and ill tempered. The
Speaker 1: princess from Saxe Gotha was out of the question because
Speaker 1: George had heard that she had an interest in philosophy gasp.
Speaker 1: But before an appropriate match could be found, a seismic
Speaker 1: shift occurred in young George's life. His grandfather, the King, died,
Speaker 1: and at twenty two years old, George the Third was
Speaker 1: the new king. First things first, he still needed a wife.
Speaker 1: He casually tossed around the idea of marrying Sarah Lennox
Speaker 1: now that he was the boss, but only half heartedly. Instead,
Speaker 1: he made the respectable choice of Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz.
Speaker 1: She was seventeen at the time, and no one claimed
Speaker 1: that she was a great beauty, but the reports were
Speaker 1: that she was sensible and amenable to the Anglican Church.
Speaker 1: She and George met at three p m. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: and that very day they were married at nine p m.
Speaker 1: Two weeks after the wedding, the pair had a joint
Speaker 1: coronation in Westminster Abbey, and the king purchased Buckingham House,
Speaker 1: the palace out from which the modern day Buckingham Palace
Speaker 1: would grow. By royal marriage standards, theirs was a rousing success.
Speaker 1: George never took a mistress, and he and Charlotte had
Speaker 1: fifteen children, twelve of whom which arrived through adulthood. It
Speaker 1: turns out both he and Charlotte shared the love of
Speaker 1: the domestic. They both adored music, and romanticized as rural
Speaker 1: farm life. As King George the Third had the nickname
Speaker 1: Farmer George, a persona which I have to assume was
Speaker 1: at least in part helped by that way that he
Speaker 1: liked to shout, hey, hey, at the end of sentences.
Speaker 1: That seems sort of farm really, doesn't it. But even
Speaker 1: more than farm life, George loved his children and his family.
Speaker 1: When his son Octavius died at age four, George the
Speaker 1: Third wept, and when he recovered, he said, there will
Speaker 1: be no heaven for me if Octavius is not there.
Speaker 1: It would actually be George's siblings that disrupted his perfect
Speaker 1: domestic fantasy. Early in his reign. He had nine of them,
Speaker 1: and each seemed beset by unique tragedy or scandal. Within
Speaker 1: the first few years of being king, two of George's
Speaker 1: siblings died, one of appendicitis and one of tuberculosis. George's
Speaker 1: favorite younger brother, his one time confidante and best friend,
Speaker 1: had become a rake. As an adult. He was a troublemaker,
Speaker 1: dabbling in opposition politics, drinking, and womanizing, a disgrace to
Speaker 1: King George at court. This brother died suddenly in Monaco
Speaker 1: and then another sister died, also of tuberculosis. His youngest sister,
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda, who had married the King of Denmark, was
Speaker 1: arrested for adultery. Her lover, the doctor Struncy, was executed.
Speaker 1: She wrote to her brother for help, and through political machinations,
Speaker 1: George the Third was able to arrange for Caroline Matilda
Speaker 1: to have a semi respectable retirement in Cell. But that
Speaker 1: wasn't all. All of Georgia's siblings seemed insistent on causing
Speaker 1: scandal without telling the king. George's younger brother, Henry, secretly
Speaker 1: married a commoner, a widow. You have irretrievably ruined yoursel
Speaker 1: of the King told his brother. After that embarrassment, in
Speaker 1: seventy two, the King who passed the Royal Marriages Act,
Speaker 1: which forbade any member of the royal family under twenty
Speaker 1: five to get married without the monarch's explicit approval. If
Speaker 1: you watched Season one of The Crown, this is the
Speaker 1: origin of the conflict of Queen Elizabeth the Second not
Speaker 1: allowing her younger sister Margaret to marry an older divorcee.
Speaker 1: Of course, as soon as King George passed the Act,
Speaker 1: another one of his younger brothers. William Henry came forward
Speaker 1: and shyly admitted that for the past six years he
Speaker 1: had actually been married secretly to a cordier's illegitimate daughter.
Speaker 1: It was enough to drive anybody crazy. George's health struggles
Speaker 1: began when he was twenty four, just two years after
Speaker 1: he became king. One ofternoon in seventeen sixty two, he
Speaker 1: started coughing. Breathing became difficult, and he complained of a
Speaker 1: constant stitch in his side. The court doctors murmured worriedly
Speaker 1: to themselves. The symptoms seemed to be similar to what
Speaker 1: George's own father had died up without warning a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Treatment would need to be aggressive. The King was blooded
Speaker 1: seven times, prescribed asses milk and a laxative. The King
Speaker 1: was also put on a regiment of cupping over the
Speaker 1: next few months, during which a doctor would make a
Speaker 1: small laceration and then use a warm cup to create
Speaker 1: a vacuum over the wound to suck the blood out.
Speaker 1: In case you weren't sure, it is extremely painful. George recovered,
Speaker 1: but he suffered from insomnia and quickened pulse for the
Speaker 1: next few years. Some people erroneously described this period as
Speaker 1: his first bout of madness, but that's not correct. There
Speaker 1: were no documented mental symptoms, just physical discomfort and even
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable treatments. Documented mental illness would emerge for the
Speaker 1: first time decades later, when George was fifty years old.
Speaker 1: In the Intervening Period, George the Third defeated France in
Speaker 1: the Seven Years War, which meant that Britain achieved global
Speaker 1: primacy as a world power, but it came at a
Speaker 1: heavy cost. The war had been expensive, and the cost
Speaker 1: of it led Parliament to raise taxes on the American colonists.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you remember where all this goes. I hope
Speaker 1: I'm not stating the obvious when I say, of course,
Speaker 1: King George the Third was anti revolutionary, but his position
Speaker 1: wasn't despotic or egocentric, or even uncommon in Britain at
Speaker 1: the time. George wasn't a mad king trying to rule
Speaker 1: the colony so he could rename them all George Land.
Speaker 1: King George the Third was a rigid traditional man who
Speaker 1: took the oath that he made during his coronation very seriously.
Speaker 1: At the very least, he saw it as his duty
Speaker 1: to defend Parliament's legal right to raise taxes whenever they
Speaker 1: so chose. It was less about absolutism actually than protecting
Speaker 1: the power of the parliamentary system. In Britain, anti revolutionary
Speaker 1: sentiment was the middle of the road position, especially after
Speaker 1: the story of the Boston Tea Party made its way
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean. The rebellious colonists had destroyed a
Speaker 1: ship's worth of property and violently tarred and feathered the
Speaker 1: customs official. What had the customs official done wrong? He
Speaker 1: was just trying to do his job. Most of the
Speaker 1: British population saw the American rebels as incorrigible, and King
Speaker 1: George the Third was fully committed to backing Parliament's decision
Speaker 1: that Britain would take whatever action necessary to protect its
Speaker 1: officials and its property. Long story short, they lost the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War, mostly for George the Third. It was just
Speaker 1: a humiliation. Catherine the Great wrote at the time quote,
Speaker 1: rather than have granted America her independence, as my brother monarch,
Speaker 1: King George has done, I would have fired a pistol
Speaker 1: at my own head. The guilt and anxiety after yielding
Speaker 1: the colonies caused George the Third enormous angst. He drafted
Speaker 1: an abdication speech, planning on resigning and then moving to
Speaker 1: his family seat in Hanover, but he decided against giving it. Luckily,
Speaker 1: the economic sting of the American Revolution healed quicker than
Speaker 1: the emotional one for George. Under the Prime Minister William
Speaker 1: Pitt the Younger, the country's finances bounced back, and so
Speaker 1: George the Third tried to move on and put the
Speaker 1: past behind him. In seven George meant face to face
Speaker 1: with the ambassador of that new country, the United States.
Speaker 1: The ambassador was a man named John Adams. I will
Speaker 1: be free with you, King George, said to him. I
Speaker 1: was the last to consent to the separation, But the
Speaker 1: separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have
Speaker 1: always said, as I say now, that I would be
Speaker 1: the first to meet the friendship of the United States
Speaker 1: as an independent power. Life returned to relative normalcy for
Speaker 1: King George the Third, A normal life meant for him.
Speaker 1: He ate a spartan diet, exercised regularly, and even wrote
Speaker 1: about botany under a pen name Ralph Robinson. And as
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, he was incredibly domestic. To quote John
Speaker 1: Cannon in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. One of
Speaker 1: the remarkable features of George's way of life his comparative
Speaker 1: lack of interest in travel. He never visited his Hanoverian dominions,
Speaker 1: although they were, at least in theory, very dear to him.
Speaker 1: He gloried in the name of Britain, but knew very
Speaker 1: little about it. Scotland, Wales and Ireland were ignored, so
Speaker 1: was most of England. The royal family visited Weymouth for
Speaker 1: sea bathing, and when at Cheltenham in seventy eight, the
Speaker 1: King and Queen saw Gloucester, Worcester, Tewkesbury, and a few
Speaker 1: nearby manor houses like Maltston and Croome. But the Midlands
Speaker 1: and North were a closed book, as was the southwest
Speaker 1: end Cornwall. He never visited the University of Cambridge, nor
Speaker 1: the great cathedrals at York, Lincoln, norch or Wells. The
Speaker 1: explanation seems to be a certain lack of intellectual vitality,
Speaker 1: the problem of conveying court and family, and the King's
Speaker 1: preference for a routine and familiar existence. He really really
Speaker 1: did seem to a door his children. When the time
Speaker 1: came to find his daughter's suitable German husbands. King George said,
Speaker 1: I cannot deny that I have never wished to see
Speaker 1: any of them Mary. I am happy in their company
Speaker 1: and do not in the least want a separation. But
Speaker 1: then in something happened that put all talk of marriage
Speaker 1: to rest. Just a week after he turned fifty, George
Speaker 1: the Third became incredibly ill, vomiting and unable to leave bed.
Speaker 1: This was in June. By October he still hadn't recovered.
Speaker 1: He wasn't sleeping, had difficulty walking, and he was clutching
Speaker 1: his stomach and pain. His legs cramped. Rheumatism plagued all
Speaker 1: of his limbs, and he was confused, occasionally lashing out
Speaker 1: with violence, but mostly he would just be a horse
Speaker 1: from constant talking. His words would make very little sense.
Speaker 1: They would just tumble from his lips without pause. His
Speaker 1: mood was constantly agitated, and though he could barely stand
Speaker 1: up on his own, he rose and sat up and
Speaker 1: down frequently. By November he was delirious, confused, and insomniac.
Speaker 1: There were rashes on his arms, bright red as if
Speaker 1: he had been beaten, and the whites of his eyes
Speaker 1: had turned yellow and gray. One of his more unusual
Speaker 1: compulsions was an obsession with a courtier named Lady Pembroke.
Speaker 1: King George, who had been loyal to his wife for
Speaker 1: their entire three decade marriage up until that point, started
Speaker 1: making explicit sexual comments to Lady Pembroke in public, who
Speaker 1: was a longtime family friend. He openly lusted after her
Speaker 1: and bad talked the Queen, but then periods of lucidity
Speaker 1: would return and the King would be embarrassed and profusely apologetic.
Speaker 1: He had seven royal physicians treating him. Their best explanation
Speaker 1: for the baffling array of symptoms was that George was
Speaker 1: suffering from a humor in his legs and that it
Speaker 1: was his own fault because he had left wet stockings
Speaker 1: on for too long. The physicians consulted and advised that
Speaker 1: the King moved from Windsor to the palace at Q
Speaker 1: so that he would have more privacy while he recovered.
Speaker 1: But the change of scenery did nothing to improve his condition,
Speaker 1: and so a specialist was brought in, Dr Francis Willis,
Speaker 1: an Oxford educated clergyman who ran an asylum. Dr Willis's
Speaker 1: strategy for managing mental illness was intimidation, coercion, and restraint.
Speaker 1: His practice was based on the fundamental principle that mentally
Speaker 1: ill patients had to be broken in like horses. When
Speaker 1: King George rambled or misbehaved, he was physically restrained, pulled
Speaker 1: into a strait jacket, or strapped onto a chair that
Speaker 1: George would miserably referred to as his coronation should chair.
Speaker 1: Word of the King's incapacity led to something of a
Speaker 1: political crisis. The king was an old fashioned conservative, supporter
Speaker 1: of the Tories and their leader, Pitt the Younger. On
Speaker 1: the opposition side was Charles James Fox, a Whig who
Speaker 1: would very much prefer the more liberal George the Fourth
Speaker 1: to be in charge. Fox proposed a regency bill. After all,
Speaker 1: the King was clearly unwell and all of the powers
Speaker 1: of the monarchy should be in the hands of his son,
Speaker 1: George the Fourth. Pitt the Younger, knowing that he would
Speaker 1: be removed from office if George the Fourth was given
Speaker 1: full royal powers, argued in favor of limiting the region's
Speaker 1: temporary powers. It was an ironic reversal of political positions.
Speaker 1: Usually the Tories were the ones in favor of more
Speaker 1: royal power, and the Whigs were the ones arguing for
Speaker 1: limiting the role of the king, but while this issue
Speaker 1: was still being debated in Parliament, it became moot. George
Speaker 1: the third recovered before a regency bill ever passed. The
Speaker 1: people rejoiced to have their king well again, and Dr
Speaker 1: Willis became something of a national hero, with coins minted
Speaker 1: and busts sculpted in his honor. The king Farmer George
Speaker 1: was more popular than ever. There were maybe a few
Speaker 1: combined factors that led to this increase in popularity, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit of pity after his illness, maybe because
Speaker 1: the people were so relieved not to have to suffer
Speaker 1: that young, awful George the fourth actually becoming king. Yes,
Speaker 1: maybe George the third was a little old fashioned, but
Speaker 1: he loved his wife and children. Domestically, he was above reproach.
Speaker 1: He had fought his hardest against those incorrigible colonies. It
Speaker 1: was an age of conservatism and domestic welfare, and their
Speaker 1: king became a living folk hero. When George the third
Speaker 1: was bathing in Weymouth, a local band, carrying their instruments,
Speaker 1: all waded into the sea alongside him to play God
Speaker 1: Save the King. A few years later there was an
Speaker 1: assassination attempt when King George the Third was sitting in
Speaker 1: the Royal Box of the Drury Lane Theater when a
Speaker 1: man in the pit stood on a box and fired
Speaker 1: two pistol shots at the king. The bullets missed by
Speaker 1: mirror inches, embedding themselves in the wooden paneling behind him.
Speaker 1: George was so un anxious at this period in his
Speaker 1: life that he insisted that the show continue, and then
Speaker 1: he fell asleep during intermission. It was this sort of
Speaker 1: anecdote that made the people love him. There were a
Speaker 1: few short bouts of the so named madness, but nothing unmanageable,
Speaker 1: and nothing that led to another regency crisis, at least
Speaker 1: not until eighteen ten. It was a tough year to
Speaker 1: begin with. Early in spring, one of the king's sons,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Cumberland, was involved in the scandal where
Speaker 1: one of his valets was found dead, presumably by suicide,
Speaker 1: although the circumstances were grisly and mysterious and led to
Speaker 1: widely circulating rumors that maybe the valet had been murdered
Speaker 1: by the Duke himself. And then that summer, another of
Speaker 1: the king's children became a cause of concern. His daughter,
Speaker 1: Princess Amelia's health was deteriorating and quickly. Her health issues
Speaker 1: had begun with pain and her knee joints, and she
Speaker 1: had been sent to the seaside to recover. But the
Speaker 1: summer of eighteen ten, it became obvious that recovery wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be an option. She was dying of tuberculosis.
Speaker 1: Saint Anthony's fire left her skin red and inflamed. Amelia
Speaker 1: was confined to her bed, but every single morning at
Speaker 1: seven am, the king summoned her doctors to report on
Speaker 1: her condition, and he required additional reports throughout the day,
Speaker 1: sometimes minute by minute, so he would be able to
Speaker 1: hear how his daughter was doing. The King's final public
Speaker 1: appearance was on October ten, the anniversary of his succession.
Speaker 1: He was distracted and anxious, and within days he was
Speaker 1: back to being treated by being restrained in a strait
Speaker 1: jacket again. Princess Amelia died a week later, on November two.
Speaker 1: Before she died, she reached out to the Royal family
Speaker 1: jewelers Rundell and Bridgers and gave them a jewel that
Speaker 1: they could make into a morning ring for her father.
Speaker 1: The ring included a lock of her hair beneath the
Speaker 1: crystal haloed with diamonds inscribed in the band where the
Speaker 1: words remember me. The king was inconsolable when he received it.
Speaker 1: The symptoms of his madness began again. The king would
Speaker 1: write long letters to his dead daughter Amelia, his handwriting
Speaker 1: a scrawl, words fully indecipherable. The kingdom was fairly optimistic that,
Speaker 1: like about a few decades before, the king would quickly
Speaker 1: recover and things would return to normal, But George continued
Speaker 1: to deteriorate. His condition worsened by his advanced age and
Speaker 1: his grief over his daughter. Recovery never came. For the
Speaker 1: final ten years of his life, King George the Third
Speaker 1: lived in a world of paranoia and isolation. His symptoms
Speaker 1: were physical too. His eyesight continued to worsen until the
Speaker 1: king was completely blind, and he was also going partially deaf.
Speaker 1: Believing that visitors would excite him, George's physicians kept anyone
Speaker 1: from coming to see him and prevented him from even
Speaker 1: the simple pleasures of conversation or even outings beyond the
Speaker 1: palace walls. George the Third spent his days speaking to
Speaker 1: imaginary and long dead figures walk through the gardens, pretending
Speaker 1: to inspect invisible parades. He became a tragic figure, like
Speaker 1: something out of Shakespeare, a man shambling through the lonely
Speaker 1: halls of Windsor Castle with a long white beard, wearing
Speaker 1: a purple dressing robe. He might have appeared to be
Speaker 1: a common madman had it not been for the Order
Speaker 1: of the Garter pinned to his chest, a reminder of
Speaker 1: the status and title he still technically held. In eighteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: George the Third was officially declared the King of Hanover.
Speaker 1: His old family lands were finally recovered after a decade
Speaker 1: in other hands, but he was completely unaware of his
Speaker 1: additional title. He didn't know when his own wife died
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighteen, and it seemed he didn't know himself either.
Speaker 1: George would spend long afternoons plucking absent mindedly at a
Speaker 1: harpsichord that once belonged to handle. This song used to
Speaker 1: be the late King's favor, peace, he said, referring to himself.
Speaker 1: The Regency Act that had been pushed aside twenty years
Speaker 1: ago finally passed in eighteen eleven, and George the Fourth
Speaker 1: became the official acting regent for the rest of his
Speaker 1: father's life, ushering in the era that's now synonymous with
Speaker 1: Jane Austen the regency. On Christmas in eighteen nineteen, the
Speaker 1: king rambled incoherently for fifty eight hours straight. King George
Speaker 1: the Third died at Windsor Castle the end of that January.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes easy to forget, especially in the context of
Speaker 1: the tragic end of his reign, but during his lifetime,
Speaker 1: George Third was the longest reigning and longest living monarch,
Speaker 1: and to this day he's only been outlived and out
Speaker 1: reigned by Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth the Second. Up
Speaker 1: until George the Third was over seventy there were fewer
Speaker 1: than six months of quote unquote madness in his reign.
Speaker 1: Still it fully colors his reputation. It became the most
Speaker 1: memorable thing about him, the tragedy of his vulnerability. The
Speaker 1: king whose throne became a chair with straps and whose
Speaker 1: velvet brocade became a straight jacket, abused, isolated, and dismissed,
Speaker 1: Still the king. But what difference did that make? That's
Speaker 1: the sad story of George the Third and his madness.
Speaker 1: But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear
Speaker 1: about modern interpretations of his diagnosis. It doesn't always serve
Speaker 1: us to retroactively diagnose historical figures, especially someone like George
Speaker 1: the Third, who clearly suffered from some sort of mental
Speaker 1: illness given his obsession with Lady Pembroke during his early
Speaker 1: bout of mania. It became trendy in the shadow of
Speaker 1: Freudian psychology in the nineteen twenties to cast George's illness
Speaker 1: as a manifestation of his sexual repression. But then in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine there was a breakthrough. Two doctors, Ida
Speaker 1: mackel pine and Richard Hunter cataloged all of Georgia's symptoms
Speaker 1: and found that many of them, including the symptom of
Speaker 1: dark indigo urine, were in line with a hereditary illness
Speaker 1: known as porphyria, a rare disease that leads to neurological damage.
Speaker 1: Porphyria has been the pop psychology diagnosis for George the
Speaker 1: Third for a long time, but most recent scholarship actually
Speaker 1: indicates that it's probably inaccurate. The primary symptom that pointed
Speaker 1: to porphyria, the bluish urine, is actually a side effect
Speaker 1: of one of the flowers that George the Third was
Speaker 1: given as medicine. Gentian medicine is still used today as
Speaker 1: a mild tonic. Most historians today believe that it's more
Speaker 1: likely that George suffered from bipolar disorder or an otherwise
Speaker 1: undefined mania, but a diagnosis at this point doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean anything. It's a parliam tric game. The far more
Speaker 1: interesting investigation, I believe is learning about what George's life
Speaker 1: was like, exploring the symptoms of his illness, what they were,
Speaker 1: and what the treatment for his illness was, regardless of
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. Noble Blood is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by Dani
Speaker 1: Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
Speaker 1: show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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