October 26th: Coronation of George III

On this date in 1760 George III was crowned. Yes, he was the mad one - but what else is there to know about him?

1. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover and the first of them to be born in England and speak English as his first language. He was the longest lived and longest reigning British monarch up to that point, although his record was subsequently beaten by his granddaughter Queen Victoria and then by Elizabeth II.
2. When he was born, the King and his father didn't get on. It was only when George's father died suddenly and George became the heir that the King showed any interest in him.
3. He was baptised twice. Once on the day he was born because he was premature and they didn't think he would survive, and a customary public baptism a month later.
4. He's known for being mad, but before that was intelligent and highly educated. He could read and write in both English and German by the age of eight and was the first British monarch to study science. He collected books (65,000 of them, subsequently given to the British nation by George IV as the King's Library). and scientific instruments. He was interested in astronomy - he he funded the construction and maintenance of William Herschel's 40-foot Telescope, the biggest ever built at that time. The planet Uranus was initially named Georgium Sidus (George's Star). George also gave large grants to the Academy of Arts.
5. He became King on 25 October 1760 at the age of 22. Less than a year later, he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The couple met for the first time on their wedding day, but they apparently had a happy marriage. They had fifteen children and George never took a mistress.
6. He didn't travel much. The furthest he ever travelled from London was Cheltenham Spa (to recuperate from one of his early bouts of madness), but he had several residences - St James's Palace was the official one but he also has Kew and Windsor Castle and he bought a family retreat called Buckingham House in 1762. That one is now Buckingham Palace. The family had a few holidays in Weymouth, which helped make seaside resort holidays popular.
7. The civil list dates from his reign. George surrendered the Crown Estate to Parliamentary control in return for an annuity for the support of his household and the expenses of civil government.
8. The law forbidding members of the Royal Family from marrying without the sovereign's permission dates from his reign, too. The Royal Marriages Act 1772 came about because the devoutly religious George was upset by the philandering behaviour of his brother and his marriage to a woman of a lower class.
9. In May 1800, there was an assassination attempt by James Hadfield in the Drury Lane Theatre. Hadfield had no political motive - he was acquitted for reasons of insanity.
10. As for the madness, King George had a few episodes of mental illness from which he recovered, but by 1811 had gone completely mad. He would talk to himself for hours and foam at the mouth. The cause of his illness is uncertain. Some say he had a hereditary Blood disease called porphyria, or it may have been arsenic poisoning. High levels of arsenic were found in a sample of the King's hair. It's possible he used cosmetics containing arsenic. The death of his youngest daughter could also have been a contributing factor. By the end of his life, he was blind and deaf and to compound it all, had dementia as well. The Prince of Wales acted as Regent while the King lived in seclusion in Windsor Castle until he died on 29 January 1820.