0:00:04 > 0:00:08This astonishingly lifelike portrait of King George III
0:00:08 > 0:00:12was moulded in wax by the famous Madame Tussaud two centuries ago.
0:00:12 > 0:00:18The year was 1809 and the King was about to mark his golden jubilee.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24Soon afterwards, he would vanish from public life -
0:00:24 > 0:00:25the king who went mad.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31Yet George III reigned longer than any king in British history,
0:00:31 > 0:00:33through tumultuous change.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39He was the last king of America and the first in Australia.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44On his watch, the United Kingdom and its flag were created
0:00:44 > 0:00:45and Napoleon defeated.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50He was a great collector, a champion of science, art and music,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52especially his beloved Handel.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55His reign ushered in the Industrial Revolution,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58his political battles helped shape the monarchy today.
0:00:58 > 0:01:00We have Buckingham Palace thanks to him.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03And all the while he was writing, writing.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09Now, for the first time,
0:01:09 > 0:01:13George III's private papers are being opened up for anyone to see.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16We can all discover a man whose devotion to his family
0:01:16 > 0:01:19and his coronation oath not only drove him
0:01:19 > 0:01:22but at times overwhelmed him.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33That manic monarch,
0:01:33 > 0:01:36so hauntingly captured by Madame Tussaud,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38can finally be revealed.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01George III was halfway through his reign
0:02:01 > 0:02:04when his first bout of mental illness began.
0:02:07 > 0:02:08It lasted four months,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12and then he wrote fondly to his wife, Queen Charlotte.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14"My dearest Charlotte,
0:02:14 > 0:02:18"I cannot but be deeply impressed by the consideration of how much you
0:02:18 > 0:02:22"must have been affected by the long continuance of my illness."
0:02:22 > 0:02:28His remarkably lucid words show how aware he was of his own predicament,
0:02:28 > 0:02:30a king desperate to avoid the family arguments
0:02:30 > 0:02:33that could trigger a repeat.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37"Though I do not mean to decline giving that attention to public
0:02:37 > 0:02:39"business which may be necessary,
0:02:39 > 0:02:41"yet I propose avoiding all discussions that may,
0:02:41 > 0:02:46"in their nature, agitate me, and consequently must, for the present,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50"decline entering on subjects which are not necessarily before me."
0:02:50 > 0:02:53"I shall ever remain, my dearest Charlotte,
0:02:53 > 0:02:56"your most affectionate husband, George R."
0:02:58 > 0:03:03This poignant and surprising letter has remained buried for 200 years.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07Now it is just one piece of a fascinating new historical jigsaw.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Windsor Castle is the treasure chest of royal secrets.
0:03:19 > 0:03:20Here, in the Round Tower,
0:03:20 > 0:03:22are the personal papers of all British monarchs
0:03:22 > 0:03:27and their families, from George III right down to Elizabeth II.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31They've always been out of bounds except to a few select historians.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36Documents that you're wanting to keep forever, you think about
0:03:36 > 0:03:39a strong place to put them, and in the case of Windsor Castle,
0:03:39 > 0:03:42the very strongest place to put them is inside the Round Tower.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46And the Round Tower is built on the site where William the Conqueror
0:03:46 > 0:03:47founded the castle in 1070.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49The outside walls of the Round Tower
0:03:49 > 0:03:51were built in the mid-12th century, so a very sensible,
0:03:51 > 0:03:53very secure place to keep papers.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56- Nowhere safer.- Nowhere safer.
0:03:57 > 0:04:02What's happening here at the top of these 104 stone steps
0:04:02 > 0:04:05is history of sorts, too.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07Nearly two centuries after George III's death,
0:04:07 > 0:04:09all his private papers,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12hundreds of thousands of them, are being released to the world.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16Now, some may ask, why has it taken so long?
0:04:16 > 0:04:19But here, in this fortified royal vault,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21it's ground-breaking.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Never before has a group of academics been allowed
0:04:26 > 0:04:28inside the inner sanctum
0:04:28 > 0:04:31to rifle through these invaluable documents.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35So the first visit of scholars from Kings College London,
0:04:35 > 0:04:39partners in this project, was a kind of royal revolution.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43If you could break yourselves into groups,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46three or four for each table.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50THEY CHATTER
0:04:50 > 0:04:51Can we sit down?
0:04:51 > 0:04:53Yes, please do.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55I'll go for 1780 and 26 too.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58Are we allowed to actually...
0:04:58 > 0:04:59- Oh, absolutely.- ..fondle them.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01- I think that's the idea.- Ah.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06Turbot, lobsters and shrimp.
0:05:06 > 0:05:08Exactly and a John Dory.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11The second course, we've got some impressive roasted poultry,
0:05:11 > 0:05:14starting with a pea fowl.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16He seems quite fond of the peacock, too.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20You know when you look at an archive,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23that was a piece of paper held by the person who wrote it.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27And it was their passions, their views on the world, their troubles,
0:05:27 > 0:05:29their difficulties and their successes as well.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32And that's what makes seeing original documents
0:05:32 > 0:05:34so exciting and so compelling.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39George's great collection covers not just the King,
0:05:39 > 0:05:41but the Queen and all their children.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44I understand you've made an interesting discovery already.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46- Yeah.- I wonder if I could just ask you about that?
0:05:46 > 0:05:47It's rather a heart-rending one.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50It's a short note from Queen Charlotte to
0:05:50 > 0:05:54Lady Charlotte Finch, the governess,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57with a little paper included.
0:05:59 > 0:06:04Just labelled, "Prince Alfred's hair, cut during his..."
0:06:04 > 0:06:06Illness?
0:06:06 > 0:06:121782, at the lower lodge, I think, Windsor.
0:06:14 > 0:06:20And then a lock of Prince Alfred... Little Prince Alfred, who died,
0:06:20 > 0:06:25a golden lock of his hair sewn into it
0:06:25 > 0:06:30for her to remember him by, and thanking her for looking after him.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32What does it feel like to come across something like this
0:06:32 > 0:06:35when you've just arrived here in the archives?
0:06:35 > 0:06:37It's very...
0:06:37 > 0:06:39I mean, it's incredibly touching,
0:06:39 > 0:06:41but actually it's rather shocking
0:06:41 > 0:06:44how bright and shiny
0:06:44 > 0:06:47and now this lock of hair looks.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51You know, it could just have been cut off somebody's head.
0:06:51 > 0:06:57So it brings things alive while really being very moving,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01thinking about the death of a small child with golden curls.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09George III's papers won't be restricted to scholars
0:07:09 > 0:07:12who can make the journey to Windsor Castle,
0:07:12 > 0:07:13they're going public.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19Every single document has been digitally photographed,
0:07:19 > 0:07:22and there are some 350,000 pages,
0:07:22 > 0:07:25so that we can all see them online anywhere in the world.
0:07:30 > 0:07:31Household ledgers,
0:07:31 > 0:07:36exchanges with prime ministers like Lord North and William Pitt,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39all the correspondence within the King's family,
0:07:39 > 0:07:42every private paper is coming out of the shadows.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47Wherever you are, you can work on George III,
0:07:47 > 0:07:49you can get into the heart of the Hanoverian Monarchy.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51Whether you want to know who his under footman was
0:07:51 > 0:07:53and how much he was paid,
0:07:53 > 0:07:55or his relationship with a prime minister,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58they will both be there and, curiously enough,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01you may find there is a connection between those things.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04This was done absolutely with the permission and
0:08:04 > 0:08:08authority of the Queen, who herself has approved this exercise
0:08:08 > 0:08:11and is keen to make these collections available.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13If I may introduce you to Professor Ed Byrne,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Kings College, London.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19The Queen decided to open the whole Georgian papers project herself,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23with the British and American academics involved.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26Doctor Karen Wolf, William and Mary College.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29And Mr Peter Barber, head of the map collections at the British library.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34Your Majesty, we've laid out some items here in the library.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39Exploring the entire collection will take several years,
0:08:39 > 0:08:42but some of the early finds were presented for the launch,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45including this schoolboy essay on kingship.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49This is a essay by George III discussing his role in relation to
0:08:49 > 0:08:50Parliament.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54"The supreme power in England is divided into two branches -
0:08:54 > 0:08:57"the legislative, vested in the King,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00"the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, the executive,
0:09:00 > 0:09:02"belonging to the King alone."
0:09:02 > 0:09:05The King was grappling with the issue of being a monarch
0:09:05 > 0:09:08of a country in transition from an older form of monarchy
0:09:08 > 0:09:12to the form that we begin to see emerging during his reign, and his
0:09:12 > 0:09:17ability to think these problems through on paper is a critical part
0:09:17 > 0:09:20of the development of the modern monarchy.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23But he's very much one of the founding fathers of the engaged
0:09:23 > 0:09:27constitutional monarchy we have today.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30These documents have not been seen and will really help transform our
0:09:30 > 0:09:32understanding of this period.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39All through his life, George was obsessive about recording it.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42Here is his memoir of the moment he was elevated from Prince of Wales
0:09:42 > 0:09:44to King, aged just 22.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49Curiously, he refers to himself in the third person,
0:09:49 > 0:09:52as if observing the making of the monarch.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56"The Prince of Wales was riding at a little after eight
0:09:56 > 0:10:00between Kew Bridge and the six-mile stone when a messenger told him
0:10:00 > 0:10:04"an accident had happened to the King.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07"The Prince returned to Kew and ordered his attendants to be silent
0:10:07 > 0:10:09"and pretended his horse was lame."
0:10:11 > 0:10:13It was October 1760.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15George's father was already dead,
0:10:15 > 0:10:17so he succeeded his grandfather
0:10:17 > 0:10:20to the thrones of both Britain and Hanover.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22But, unlike the earlier Georges,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25George III had been born in Britain and was proud of it.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32The Royal archives disclose how the making of this monarch had begun
0:10:32 > 0:10:33back in his childhood.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Here we have George's very own instruction manual,
0:10:39 > 0:10:43written for him when he was just a boy of ten by his father.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46"Instructions for my son George."
0:10:46 > 0:10:51It contains advice he would try to follow for most of his life.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55"If you can be without war, let not your ambition draw you into it.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57"At the same time,
0:10:57 > 0:11:00"never give up your honour, nor that of the nation."
0:11:00 > 0:11:03And there are some useful tips for a young Hanoverian king.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05"Convince this nation
0:11:05 > 0:11:08"that you are not only an Englishman born and bred,
0:11:08 > 0:11:11"but that you are also this by inclination."
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Wise words that, as king, he took to heart.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20"Born and educated in this country," he proudly told Parliament,
0:11:20 > 0:11:23"I glory in the name of Britain."
0:11:23 > 0:11:24That's conscious, that's deliberate.
0:11:25 > 0:11:28He's made himself into a British monarch,
0:11:28 > 0:11:30and English is his first language,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33unlike his grandfather and his great-grandfather.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37And his interests are English, his culture is English.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42The United Kingdom, the technical phrase we use, and the Union Jack,
0:11:42 > 0:11:44they both come on his watch.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47There's financial advice from his father, too.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50"Employ all your hands and all your power to live with economy."
0:11:50 > 0:11:53Then he warns about the national debt.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56Which, "If not reduced, will surely one time or other
0:11:56 > 0:11:58"create such a disaffection and despair that
0:11:58 > 0:12:01"I dread the consequences for you, my dear son."
0:12:02 > 0:12:06He goes on, "The sooner you have an opportunity to lower the interest,
0:12:06 > 0:12:08"for God's sake, do it."
0:12:10 > 0:12:12In the event, interest rates stayed constant
0:12:12 > 0:12:14all through George III's reign,
0:12:14 > 0:12:16and Britain was at war for most of it.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21But from the start, he wanted to do things differently -
0:12:21 > 0:12:24from the way he ran the country to the way he travelled.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27After 33 years of George II,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30a new reign demanded fresh symbolism for the young monarch.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34The result was this, the grandest,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37the most over-the-top vehicle in royal history.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41Weighing four tonnes and costing £7,500,
0:12:41 > 0:12:45the golden state carriage took George III to Parliament in 1762
0:12:45 > 0:12:47and has been used in every coronation since.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51As successive monarchs have remarked,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54it's both very uncomfortable and very slow,
0:12:54 > 0:12:57but then it was never designed for a smooth, speedy ride.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00It was to be a work of art all by itself,
0:13:00 > 0:13:03a statement of resurgent British prosperity and power.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08George III was personally frugal,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12but he understood the power of his public image.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17He's painted in ceremonial garb for the great state portraits that are
0:13:17 > 0:13:21sent round the country to hang in town halls and other places.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24But when he attends public functions,
0:13:24 > 0:13:29he's wearing conventional, comfortable clothes.
0:13:29 > 0:13:35He's got this funny man of the people aspect to him
0:13:35 > 0:13:37that he likes going out,
0:13:37 > 0:13:41riding with his children round Windsor and asking farmers,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44"How do you do?"
0:13:44 > 0:13:47"Well, friend, where are you going? Hey? What's your name?
0:13:47 > 0:13:51"Hey? Where do you live? Hey, hey?"
0:13:51 > 0:13:56And in Windsor, he'll walk round the town or pop in on people.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58He understood it was best to appear
0:13:58 > 0:14:00to be a perfectly ordinary human being
0:14:00 > 0:14:03who happened to be filling the office of King.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08But in reality, there was nothing ordinary about George III.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10He arranged his own marriage to Charlotte,
0:14:10 > 0:14:15a German princess he'd never met, who bore him 15 children.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19He was driven by his sense of duty to his family and his country.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23He was methodical, pernickety, a man with never an idle moment.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29The digitisation of his personal archive allows us intimate access
0:14:29 > 0:14:31to a deep thinker with a good brain,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34an enquiring mind, a very complex monarch.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39It's quite an exciting moment because this is the first chance
0:14:39 > 0:14:41we've had to see the documents
0:14:41 > 0:14:44from the Georgian papers appearing online.
0:14:44 > 0:14:49And we can see here there's a range of essays George was writing,
0:14:49 > 0:14:51including this very striking selection
0:14:51 > 0:14:53of draft essays on despotism.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57But when we actually get to the document itself,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00George's writing about despotism as a problem,
0:15:00 > 0:15:03and it's this wonderful, clear handwriting,
0:15:03 > 0:15:05and even those people who are not specialists, I think,
0:15:05 > 0:15:09will be able to read pretty straightforwardly this sort of stuff.
0:15:09 > 0:15:10It is very clear, isn't it?
0:15:10 > 0:15:12"When we examine the annals of the world
0:15:12 > 0:15:15"from the beginning of government unto this day,
0:15:15 > 0:15:19"we shall find the generality of nations groaning under the
0:15:19 > 0:15:20"yoke of despotism."
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Groaning under the yoke of despotism.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26He's very clearly putting himself on the side of the angels, isn't he?
0:15:26 > 0:15:28Yes, he's considering himself as someone
0:15:28 > 0:15:31who's not going to be that kind of monarch.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34This is understanding how to avoid being a despot and how to
0:15:34 > 0:15:36be a good and patriotic king.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42But there was one place where George III was seen
0:15:42 > 0:15:44as a despot - America.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46With the six-pounder right here, I could use it to scare the enemy.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49- Is that true, yes or no?- CROWD:- Yes.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52- And I could use it to take the enemy out, is that true?- CROWD:- Yes.
0:15:52 > 0:15:53I love artillery, don't you?
0:15:55 > 0:15:57The struggle over American independence
0:15:57 > 0:16:00shattered some of the young king's aspirations.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03It was actually Parliament in Westminster that
0:16:03 > 0:16:05imposed taxes on the colonies.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08I need a fairly tall guy to work the other side
0:16:08 > 0:16:09of the gun, to be my loader.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12What began with protests like the Boston Tea Party
0:16:12 > 0:16:13escalated into revolution.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16The Americans chose to take things personally.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18Look at all these volunteers.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20The bad guy was the king.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22Step up to the gun.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26Even today, they relish their victory at the Battle of Yorktown.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28Here, at Yorktown, the artillery is behind earthworks.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31What's a good target for my artillery?
0:16:31 > 0:16:33Those two British frigates in the river.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35Everybody step into the gun.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39Good thing the British are not really coming today, huh?
0:16:39 > 0:16:42You know, George III was a mean, nasty monarch.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45And he was imposing taxes out of his own selfishness,
0:16:45 > 0:16:47and then he went crazy.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49He's a handy villain for people to have.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54Guys, if you want to cover your ears, now is the time.
0:16:54 > 0:16:55Fire!
0:17:01 > 0:17:04This portrait of the King wearing a red coat was
0:17:04 > 0:17:05one of George's favourites.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09Ironically, it was by an American artist, Benjamin West,
0:17:09 > 0:17:11and it portrays the King as a man of action.
0:17:12 > 0:17:14He famously said at the time,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16"If others will not be active,"
0:17:16 > 0:17:19a dig at his prime minister, Lord North, "I shall drive."
0:17:20 > 0:17:24And the Royal archives reveal his compulsive interest in every aspect
0:17:24 > 0:17:25of the war effort.
0:17:27 > 0:17:32You really see it with these lists that he compiles.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36This is a memorandum he wrote to himself
0:17:36 > 0:17:41about how many troops would be needed in America.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44This is written early in the war.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46He is saying,
0:17:46 > 0:17:51we're going to need at least 38,000 troops over there and he lists
0:17:51 > 0:17:55where they'll be stationed and distributed.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58And it has such details like the need for...
0:17:58 > 0:18:02"52,000 blankets and 4,200 watch coats.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06"Wagons and harness for 68th Battalion,
0:18:06 > 0:18:12"277 wagons and 1,117 sets of harness."
0:18:12 > 0:18:16We tended to think about George as this kind of aloof figure
0:18:16 > 0:18:20who was above the frays, above politics,
0:18:20 > 0:18:23but when you look at his papers, when you look at
0:18:23 > 0:18:25his interactions with his ministers,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28he's very much engaged in the operations of government.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32The King kept a close eye on what the American rebels and their French
0:18:32 > 0:18:34allies were up to.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36This is a remarkable one,
0:18:36 > 0:18:42a list of the French fleet copied from government documents
0:18:42 > 0:18:47written in French showing the number of cannons on each ship.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52I was very surprised to find it in the King's handwriting.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56- What does that tell us?- It tells us he didn't have a secretary
0:18:56 > 0:18:59and it also shows his voracious interest
0:18:59 > 0:19:01in every detail of this war.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17It's perhaps surprising today's Americans
0:19:17 > 0:19:19are giving their last king a place of honour.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22They're making a new image of him two and a half centuries after
0:19:22 > 0:19:24destroying their last one.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26In this Brooklyn studio in New York,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29they specialise in recreating the past.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31They're building a George III
0:19:31 > 0:19:34for the new Museum of the American Revolution,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37and they're modelling it on the gilded statue
0:19:37 > 0:19:40of George as a Roman emperor that once stood in Bowling Green,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42on the southern tip of Manhattan.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49The Royal archives show that one of the King's own sons
0:19:49 > 0:19:53visited Bowling Green in the middle of the American war.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55Prince William, the future King William IV,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58was on active service with the Royal Navy at the age of 16.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02Writing home from New York, then still under British control,
0:20:02 > 0:20:06he tried to cheer his father with news of a great crowd crying
0:20:06 > 0:20:08"God bless King George,"
0:20:08 > 0:20:11but he added that he walked past the pedestal of the statue
0:20:11 > 0:20:16of Your Majesty. The King must have known that five years earlier his
0:20:16 > 0:20:20statue had been torn from its plinth by revolutionaries shortly after
0:20:20 > 0:20:22the American Declaration of Independence.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28It was gold and blinded people when they looked at it.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32It was a mark of, we've made it as a civilisation and a culture.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35And you see in that moment the sort of the desecration
0:20:35 > 0:20:36of royal authority.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39You see that the Americans sort of shift their anger from Parliament
0:20:39 > 0:20:41to the person of the King.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44They put ropes around the statue
0:20:44 > 0:20:48and then the Sons of Liberty on the ground began to pull.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Alas, it probably wasn't as exciting as they might have hoped
0:20:52 > 0:20:55since it was made of lead and very weak,
0:20:55 > 0:21:00it might have just bent at the ankles and fallen straight down.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03A little bit like the image of Saddam Hussein
0:21:03 > 0:21:07when he was pulled down in 2003 in Iraq.
0:21:07 > 0:21:13And that lead was melted down into 42,088 musket balls.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17And, even to this day, they are finding musket balls
0:21:17 > 0:21:22that came from King George's statue on revolutionary war battlefields.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25So the king ended up being fired back at the king's men?
0:21:25 > 0:21:27That's exactly right. The ultimate insult.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32The Royal archives reveal fresh evidence of the stress
0:21:32 > 0:21:33of war upon the King.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37He felt he had to bolster the government and make sure his
0:21:37 > 0:21:40long-serving prime minister, Lord North,
0:21:40 > 0:21:42had stomach for the fight.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44What is amazing about this letter,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and again one of the benefits of actually being here
0:21:47 > 0:21:49and seeing letters first-hand,
0:21:49 > 0:21:53is that there have been constant drafts.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57He's clearly finding this a difficult letter to write.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00Yeah, he's agonising over this part here, isn't he?
0:22:00 > 0:22:05Yes, and you never normally see letters that are this messy.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07And obviously the one that he sent out
0:22:07 > 0:22:09would have been a fair copy of this.
0:22:09 > 0:22:15But you can also see his thoughts at the time of writing this letter.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26George had absorbed all the official information coming into the
0:22:26 > 0:22:29government, but in the Royal archives, there are some tantalising
0:22:29 > 0:22:31unofficial sources too -
0:22:31 > 0:22:35a private network of secret agents reporting directly to the King.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40Secret Service is getting 40,000.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43That's... That's quite a big increase.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46It was only 32 before.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50And this is actually, it was quite a revelation to me,
0:22:50 > 0:22:55he had a spy who wrote to him regularly called Aristarchus.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59In this particular letter, he says you've been seen walking around the
0:22:59 > 0:23:05Queen's garden in disguise at night-time...
0:23:08 > 0:23:11..and the French are planning to assassinate you
0:23:11 > 0:23:13while you're doing that.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16And these letters are entirely unpublished,
0:23:16 > 0:23:20they're not mentioned in the major biographies of George III.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25So we've come across a sort of Georgian James Bond.
0:23:25 > 0:23:31Yes. With the difference that Aristarchus was in his late 60s,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35and he was clearly a lot less agile than Bond.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39Also, unlike Bond, he keeps having to ask to be paid.
0:23:39 > 0:23:46Britain's defeat in the American war was a bitter reverse for the King.
0:23:46 > 0:23:48"America is lost.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52"Must we fall beneath the blow?"
0:23:52 > 0:23:54But George swallowed his pride,
0:23:54 > 0:23:57and three years later, he graciously welcomed
0:23:57 > 0:23:59the first American ambassador to Britain.
0:24:03 > 0:24:04Away from the national stage,
0:24:04 > 0:24:08the King's attention to detail was just as intense at home.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12No previous monarch had devoted as much care to the raising
0:24:12 > 0:24:15of royal children as George III and his queen.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20Can I ask what it is you've got there?
0:24:20 > 0:24:23These are letters from Queen Charlotte to her governess,
0:24:23 > 0:24:24Lady Charlotte Finch,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27and they're talking about the setting up of the Royal nursery.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30She is saying that she's allowed to have two days off,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34which is to be at liberty, but when she's in the nursery,
0:24:34 > 0:24:37she is to think of the children almost as her own,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40which is quite a modern thought, I think.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43In his first year as king,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47George had drawn up his own shortlist of potential brides.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50Charlotte came top and the proposal was dispatched.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53He was 23, she was 17.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57A princess of the German duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
0:25:00 > 0:25:05He sent an envoy to fetch her across a ferociously rough North Sea.
0:25:05 > 0:25:06The voyage took two weeks.
0:25:09 > 0:25:15You are expected to step up to the plate and become a British queen
0:25:15 > 0:25:17just like that.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25It's a terrible journey and the rough seas, the crossing.
0:25:29 > 0:25:34She didn't speak English, she didn't write English,
0:25:34 > 0:25:39but the King and she got on like a house on fire.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45Only a few hours after first setting eyes on each other,
0:25:45 > 0:25:49Charlotte and George were married and crowned King and Queen
0:25:49 > 0:25:51a fortnight later.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55A year on, Queen Charlotte was adapting to her new life.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59This is her first letter in English written to Lady Charlotte Finch,
0:25:59 > 0:26:03who was looking after her first-born prince, just six weeks old.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06"I hope, when I come to town, that your little jou jou
0:26:06 > 0:26:08"will be dressed in his frock.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12"The King and I embrace the pretty dear little man.
0:26:12 > 0:26:13"Your affectionate Charlotte."
0:26:16 > 0:26:20Lady Charlotte Finch would be with this fast expanding family
0:26:20 > 0:26:22for more than three decades.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25The King kept height charts of all his children
0:26:25 > 0:26:27in his typically exact way,
0:26:27 > 0:26:29measuring them to the nearest 16th of an inch.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35His ambition was to create a model royal family and to make sure people
0:26:35 > 0:26:36saw them, too.
0:26:39 > 0:26:41They were a very fertile couple.
0:26:41 > 0:26:4715 children born from 1762 to 1783.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52So that's quite a tough schedule for Queen Charlotte.
0:26:54 > 0:26:56Soon after their marriage,
0:26:56 > 0:26:58George had bought the house that would later
0:26:58 > 0:27:02become Buckingham Palace and renamed it the Queen's House.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04While the King was carrying out
0:27:04 > 0:27:07official duties nearby at St James's Palace,
0:27:07 > 0:27:09the Queen's House was home.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12And with his belief in the central importance,
0:27:12 > 0:27:13not just of the sovereign
0:27:13 > 0:27:17but of the Royal family, he provided the template for his granddaughter,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21Queen Victoria, and in so many ways for the modern monarchy.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35Here we have material in relation to the history of science.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38King George III's scientific instruments were presented
0:27:38 > 0:27:40to King's College London,
0:27:40 > 0:27:42and they are now on display in the Science Museum,
0:27:42 > 0:27:46including here, Eardley Norton's famous clock,
0:27:46 > 0:27:49which was in Buckingham House library and was given to him
0:27:49 > 0:27:53for his 27th birthday and is regarded, really,
0:27:53 > 0:27:55one of the finest clocks in the collection.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57- Does it work?- It does work.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00It will chime in just a few minutes, I should think.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08This astronomical clock had pride of place on the desk in George III's
0:28:08 > 0:28:12library and embodies the King's devotion to both arts and science.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18It not only tells the time in a 24-hour format
0:28:18 > 0:28:22but keeps track of the tides all round the British Isles,
0:28:22 > 0:28:26the movement of the planets and the phases of the moon.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29Do you have things, too, from George III?
0:28:29 > 0:28:32Well, we hold the George III science collection.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34- Oh, right.- Yes. Which is going to be redisplayed
0:28:34 > 0:28:37in a more central part of the museum very soon.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41We passed it on Monday. It looked terribly full.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46It is, absolutely. We get something like 24,000 people a day.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Oh! It looked like it.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53And here we have what is rightly considered a landmark
0:28:53 > 0:28:55in astronomy and navigation, this is George III's account
0:28:55 > 0:28:59of watching the transit of Venus in Richmond Park,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02demonstrating his interest in astronomy and science.
0:29:02 > 0:29:04Really contemporary developments of the day.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09The King's document described what was going to happen when
0:29:09 > 0:29:11the planet Venus was seen to pass between the Earth and the Sun,
0:29:11 > 0:29:14timed to the nearest 30 seconds.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17And it's uncanny to realise George III
0:29:17 > 0:29:20was directly contemplating the 21st-century.
0:29:20 > 0:29:25Morally speaking, none now living will see the same phenomenon again,
0:29:25 > 0:29:31which will only happen again in 1874 and again in 2004.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40George was so excited that he had the King's Observatory
0:29:40 > 0:29:42built in time for the occasion in Richmond Park.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48On the day itself, he and the Queen went to the top.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53Though today it's in the midst of restoration,
0:29:53 > 0:29:57we can retrace their steps to the cupula,
0:29:57 > 0:29:59where the roof could be opened to the sky.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05Up here in the cupula is where the King and Queen actually watched
0:30:05 > 0:30:11the 1769 transit of Venus, though not on this particular telescope.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15But 250 years later, it's all in full working order.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20Just wind this handle and suddenly, with a bit of help from some WD-40,
0:30:20 > 0:30:25the aperture opens to reveal the heavens to the royal gaze.
0:30:25 > 0:30:28And then all the King had to do was walk over here,
0:30:28 > 0:30:30start winding this handle,
0:30:30 > 0:30:35and the whole cupula moves around to find the sun.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38And after all that it was probably just as well the clouds parted
0:30:38 > 0:30:41and it stopped raining just in time
0:30:41 > 0:30:45for the transit of Venus on June 3rd, 1769.
0:30:48 > 0:30:49Using a reflecting telescope,
0:30:49 > 0:30:53the king was the first to spot the outline of Venus,
0:30:53 > 0:30:56just as people did on June the 8th 2004.
0:30:56 > 0:30:59The forecasts were right!
0:30:59 > 0:31:02If Georgian astronomers could measure the transit precisely
0:31:02 > 0:31:03from different places on Earth,
0:31:03 > 0:31:06then they could work out the distance from Earth to Venus
0:31:06 > 0:31:09and, in turn, the size of the whole solar system.
0:31:09 > 0:31:11And they did.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13He takes his job very seriously.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17He's studious, he collects sheaths of paper, diagrams,
0:31:17 > 0:31:19scientific materials.
0:31:19 > 0:31:21He is processing knowledge
0:31:21 > 0:31:25on a proto-industrial scale as part of his role.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29So he's the best informed chief executive this country has ever had.
0:31:29 > 0:31:34It's an area of great polymaths, and I think people have argued that
0:31:34 > 0:31:38by the end of the 19th century, you just can't know about it.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41But in those days, you could know about geology, farming, astronomy,
0:31:41 > 0:31:46an interest in science, an interest in all sorts of other things,
0:31:46 > 0:31:48and I imagine he would have been quite fun to have dinner with.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51I don't know. On his good days, obviously.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02George III was always on the move.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06His constant journeying between his palaces in London, Kew And Windsor
0:32:06 > 0:32:10exasperated his family and court.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12Queen Charlotte wrote to her brother...
0:32:12 > 0:32:15"Our life, if you can call it life, is nothing but hurry.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18"We are often in three places in a week."
0:32:18 > 0:32:21Yet, paradoxically, George never went very far,
0:32:21 > 0:32:25never beyond the south coast, no further north than Worcester.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31But he travelled far and wide in his mind.
0:32:31 > 0:32:36George championed the long-running quest to calculate longitude at sea.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39He was a driving force behind the voyages of Captain Cook,
0:32:39 > 0:32:42who was originally sent to the South Seas
0:32:42 > 0:32:44to observe the transit of Venus.
0:32:45 > 0:32:49This exquisite map plots all three intercontinental voyages by Cook,
0:32:49 > 0:32:52who went on to plant the British flag in Australia and New Zealand
0:32:52 > 0:32:55and went in search of the Northwest Passage.
0:32:56 > 0:33:01It was drawn by the King's daughter, Sophia, at the tender age of 14.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06George's papers include secret instructions for Cook,
0:33:06 > 0:33:08with crucial advice.
0:33:08 > 0:33:11"Treat any locals you find with respect."
0:33:11 > 0:33:17"Endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship with them,
0:33:17 > 0:33:20"making them presents of such trinkets that you may have on board
0:33:20 > 0:33:22"and they may like best.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25"Inviting them to traffic and showing them every kind of
0:33:25 > 0:33:27"civility and regard."
0:33:29 > 0:33:31George isn't going to go round the world in a ship,
0:33:31 > 0:33:34that's not the job a king does, but he does know who's doing that,
0:33:34 > 0:33:36and he is reading what they are writing,
0:33:36 > 0:33:38and he is following everything they're doing.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40He brought the world to him.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42He would have loved television.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45The whole point of his library and much of his archive
0:33:45 > 0:33:48is to collect that information so he can process it.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53George's only seafaring was the odd day trip to review the fleet,
0:33:53 > 0:33:57as we see here, with the King in his blue garter sash
0:33:57 > 0:33:58standing at the stern.
0:33:58 > 0:34:03This Englishman by inclination never set foot on foreign soil,
0:34:03 > 0:34:06not even to visit his throne in Hanover.
0:34:06 > 0:34:08And there was much to keep him at home.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18For the first half of his reign, George III was intimately and often
0:34:18 > 0:34:21bitterly involved in domestic politics.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23This is the 1780 general election.
0:34:23 > 0:34:24Here in the archives,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27we even find his private intelligence
0:34:27 > 0:34:29on the likely voting habits of each MP.
0:34:29 > 0:34:31Celebrity candidate, John Wilkes,
0:34:31 > 0:34:34one of the most famous radicals of the 18th century...
0:34:34 > 0:34:36Like those early essays,
0:34:36 > 0:34:38these papers show a king pondering his own role
0:34:38 > 0:34:40and the national interest.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42Pro, for the King.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45He thought he was bringing in a new form of politics,
0:34:45 > 0:34:51he felt that the political system was indeed incredibly corrupt.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53The King said he'd always wanted
0:34:53 > 0:34:55"to extinguish all odious party distinctions"
0:34:55 > 0:34:57and to get the greatest talents of the day
0:34:57 > 0:35:00to unite for the common good.
0:35:00 > 0:35:02But politics didn't work like that.
0:35:04 > 0:35:07This is really exciting because what we are looking at here
0:35:07 > 0:35:10is a series of letters that we've called "the King's experience"
0:35:10 > 0:35:13of one of the most important political crises
0:35:13 > 0:35:16of the 18th century, and indeed of longer.
0:35:16 > 0:35:19So we're able to trace this correspondence
0:35:19 > 0:35:22on a virtually day-by-day, even hour-by-hour, basis.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26The King was involved in an increasingly tetchy horse trading
0:35:26 > 0:35:29to get the leading politicians of the day to form a new government.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33It reached a crisis on March the 23rd, 1783.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38"Lord North, not having heard from you since the directions
0:35:38 > 0:35:43"I gave you yesterday, I must desire you will come instantly."
0:35:43 > 0:35:47It's a summoning of one of the key negotiators in this process
0:35:47 > 0:35:49of trying to form a new ministry.
0:35:49 > 0:35:54And we can see here the label he's attached to this,
0:35:54 > 0:35:58noting not only the date and where it was sent from
0:35:58 > 0:36:00but the time of day.
0:36:00 > 0:36:0230 minutes past ten.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06With his time stamping, rather like today's e-mails,
0:36:06 > 0:36:08George was ahead of his time.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11But these are messages being hurried back and forth across London,
0:36:11 > 0:36:15rather like cycle couriers might now hurry them across the capital.
0:36:15 > 0:36:17So you could have several letters going back and forth
0:36:17 > 0:36:20in the course of a single day, late into the night,
0:36:20 > 0:36:22early in the morning,
0:36:22 > 0:36:24as people are actually called in to see the monarch.
0:36:24 > 0:36:25And this is a Sunday as well.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29I mean, we're on the weekend. Yes, 23rd of March, 1783.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32The politicians were bargaining with the King over who should be in the
0:36:32 > 0:36:36cabinet, and the Duke of Portland, in line to be prime minister,
0:36:36 > 0:36:39was no pushover.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43So this is the final offer coming from the Duke of Portland.
0:36:43 > 0:36:45If that's no go, the Duke says that's it.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49And then he's writing off to Mr Pitt, William Pitt,
0:36:49 > 0:36:50the future prime minister,
0:36:50 > 0:36:54who will be his next and last throw of the dice here.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56"Mr Pitt is desired to come here,
0:36:56 > 0:37:00"the Duke of Portland has wrote an answer that ends in a declining to
0:37:00 > 0:37:02"prepare a plan for my inspection.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07"Consequently, the negotiation is finally ended.
0:37:07 > 0:37:09"Queen's House, March the 23rd, 1783.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13"48 minutes past 8pm."
0:37:13 > 0:37:16That's sort of dinner time on a Sunday night in March.
0:37:16 > 0:37:18- That's right. - And that's gone off to Mr Pitt,
0:37:18 > 0:37:22there is some runner rushing through London with that and then...
0:37:22 > 0:37:25Here's the very brusque note that's going out at the end
0:37:25 > 0:37:28of what's been a long day, no doubt, for the King,
0:37:28 > 0:37:31where he just wants to make sure everybody knows where we stand.
0:37:31 > 0:37:35He's saying, right to the Duke of Portland and Lord North.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39"The Duke of Portland, I shall not give him any further trouble."
0:37:39 > 0:37:43And Lord North was yet again in the doghouse.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47"Lord North must therefore see that all negotiation is at an end.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50"35 minutes past 10pm."
0:37:50 > 0:37:53The King felt let down by scheming politicians.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56There was no point, he thought, in going on.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59Just how serious the situation we've now got to becomes apparent
0:37:59 > 0:38:02if you look at the next document in the sequence,
0:38:02 > 0:38:05which gives me a bit of a frisson when you read it.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10"A long experience has gradually occurred my mind to accept the time
0:38:10 > 0:38:13"when I shall be no longer of utility to this empire.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16"That hour is now come."
0:38:16 > 0:38:18This is a draft of abdication.
0:38:18 > 0:38:25- Gosh.- So George is at the end of the line trying to work out what to do
0:38:25 > 0:38:27with this inability to form a government
0:38:27 > 0:38:29which he can have confidence in.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32He wants to be the person who ends party,
0:38:32 > 0:38:36brings together the most able to work in the national interest.
0:38:36 > 0:38:40And what this speech is basically saying is, "I've failed."
0:38:40 > 0:38:43What we see here, he's really troubled here, isn't he?
0:38:43 > 0:38:47- Yes.- There's a lot of redrafting and crossing out going on.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50This is written at a state of high agitation, I think.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53And you do get a sense of the troubled mind,
0:38:53 > 0:38:57the blotches and the scrawlings and scratching out,
0:38:57 > 0:39:00and we begin to come to the end of the line,
0:39:00 > 0:39:03and this is the key passage.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07"I am therefore resolved to resign my crown and all the dominions
0:39:07 > 0:39:09"appertaining to it to the Prince of Wales,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12"my eldest son and lawful successor,
0:39:12 > 0:39:15"and to retire to the care of my electoral dominions."
0:39:16 > 0:39:20This is somewhere alongside that Edward VIII speech, I think,
0:39:20 > 0:39:24in terms of the emotions that are on display here.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26And again, some ironies in this document
0:39:26 > 0:39:30because these electoral dominions he's talking about, like Hanover,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33his roots he feels are in England. This is an exile.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39But on reflection, George didn't sail off to Hanover.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42After all, he had plenty of family matters to sort out.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51This whole left column is the Prince Regent's dinner.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55And more meat and things on the sideboard.
0:39:55 > 0:39:5713 loins of veal.
0:39:57 > 0:39:58There's something sausages.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01Yes. A large capon roasted.
0:40:01 > 0:40:03Yeah. Or two.
0:40:06 > 0:40:07The King's eldest son,
0:40:07 > 0:40:11who would one day be Prince Regent and then King George IV,
0:40:11 > 0:40:15was infamous for his problems with wine, women and money.
0:40:15 > 0:40:16It's not hard to chart a link
0:40:16 > 0:40:20between the King's eventual breakdowns and turmoil at home.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24It had been a model family when the children were young,
0:40:24 > 0:40:26now came trouble.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29His sense of his position as a monarch makes it difficult for him
0:40:29 > 0:40:32to be anything other than a control freak with his family.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35He's seen what happens to monarchies when they get out of control,
0:40:35 > 0:40:37when the family structure breaks down,
0:40:37 > 0:40:40when people cut loose and go off and do their own things.
0:40:40 > 0:40:41He's very frightened of that.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45The stability of the monarchy is an essential prerequisite for the
0:40:45 > 0:40:46stability of Britain.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52By the time he turned 19, the Prince was already going off the rails,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55as the King reported to his prime minister.
0:40:55 > 0:40:59"I am sorry to be obliged to open a subject to Lord North that has long
0:40:59 > 0:41:00"given me much pain,
0:41:00 > 0:41:04"but I can rather do it on paper than in conversation.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08"It is a subject to which I know he is not quite ignorant.
0:41:08 > 0:41:13"My eldest son got last year into a very improper connection with an
0:41:13 > 0:41:16"actress and woman of indifferent character."
0:41:17 > 0:41:21The King made clear a multitude of letters had passed between them,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24which the actress was using to blackmail the Prince.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27So the King had asked an intermediary to buy her off.
0:41:29 > 0:41:34"He has her consent to get these letters on her receiving £5,000,
0:41:34 > 0:41:36"undoubtedly an enormous sum,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39"but I wish to get my son out of this shameful scrape."
0:41:41 > 0:41:44Lord North didn't disappoint this time.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48He'd ordered up the cash, roughly £750,000 in today's money,
0:41:48 > 0:41:50for what he called "special service".
0:41:50 > 0:41:52A sort of slush fund for the King.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54While several of George's sons
0:41:54 > 0:41:58were packed off to Hanover to learn some German self-discipline,
0:41:58 > 0:42:00his eldest son became even more of a problem.
0:42:00 > 0:42:04The King was infuriated by his scheming with the opposition
0:42:04 > 0:42:06in Parliament and also by his debts.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10Some years later, under a new prime minister,
0:42:10 > 0:42:14the King had the correspondence with his son copied into a book and wrote
0:42:14 > 0:42:17a stern note to say he was passing it to the PM.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21"I choose to deposit this copy with Mr Pitt,
0:42:21 > 0:42:24"that should the subject be mentioned in Parliament,
0:42:24 > 0:42:27"he may be fully apprised of the uniform conduct I have held,
0:42:27 > 0:42:29"the wishing to save a son,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32"at the same time, not forgetting what, as a king,
0:42:32 > 0:42:34"I owe to my people."
0:42:37 > 0:42:39All this was perhaps a key trigger
0:42:39 > 0:42:41for the King's first major breakdown in 1788
0:42:41 > 0:42:45and his incarceration at Windsor and Kew,
0:42:45 > 0:42:48sometimes in a straitjacket.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51It has been suggested it was the genetic disease porphyria,
0:42:51 > 0:42:55but modern opinion regards it as a form of bipolar disorder.
0:42:56 > 0:43:00Reading the case records, which are very detailed of course,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04and the statements by lots of people who saw him,
0:43:04 > 0:43:06it wasn't just he was talking very fast,
0:43:06 > 0:43:08he was talking ridiculously fast,
0:43:08 > 0:43:11leaping around from subject to subject, not making much sense,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14clearly very excitable, very irritable,
0:43:14 > 0:43:17sexually inappropriate at times,
0:43:17 > 0:43:19all of those things would suggest a diagnosis now
0:43:19 > 0:43:21we would call mania or hypermania.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27The equerry, who remained with the King,
0:43:27 > 0:43:28kept a daily journal of what he called
0:43:28 > 0:43:31"His Majesty's most serious and afflicting illness"
0:43:31 > 0:43:35while the King's physicians bickered over the proper treatment.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38In despair, they asked for the help of an obscure doctor from
0:43:38 > 0:43:42Lincolnshire, a landmark moment for psychiatrists.
0:43:42 > 0:43:46December the 5th, 1788, is a kind of big day for us
0:43:46 > 0:43:49because they admit that they are defeated
0:43:49 > 0:43:51and they call upon Francis Willis,
0:43:51 > 0:43:54who is a clergyman but he's also a doctor,
0:43:54 > 0:43:56and he is a specialist in lunacy.
0:43:56 > 0:44:00So this is probably the first time what you might call a consultant
0:44:00 > 0:44:01opinion in mental disorder
0:44:01 > 0:44:04is summoned into the exalted world of medicine.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06So it is a bit of a turning point.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09They've turned to a specialist to get specialist advice,
0:44:09 > 0:44:11and amazingly enough,
0:44:11 > 0:44:15it would appear to them, his advice seems to work.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17"My dear Frederick..."
0:44:17 > 0:44:21We discovered an intriguing letter from the King to his second son
0:44:21 > 0:44:23expressing concern about an old soldier
0:44:23 > 0:44:25with health problems of his own.
0:44:27 > 0:44:28"My dear Frederick,
0:44:28 > 0:44:31"I desire you will send the enclosed by this night's post.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33"I am sorry to hear the Grand Marshall
0:44:33 > 0:44:35"has had two fresh strokes
0:44:35 > 0:44:39"of apoplexy, as I fear he will not last long."
0:44:39 > 0:44:41He sounds calm and collected,
0:44:41 > 0:44:45yet it was written in the darkest days of George's own illness.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47It's hardly the letter of a mad King.
0:44:49 > 0:44:53"Believe me ever, my dear Frederick, your most affectionate father,
0:44:53 > 0:44:57"George R. Windsor, December 28th, 1788."
0:44:59 > 0:45:02I think you would say that is unexpected.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05When you look at the descriptions of what he was like earlier that month,
0:45:05 > 0:45:08that does seem quite a fast recovery,
0:45:08 > 0:45:10but then that does happen in psychiatry,
0:45:10 > 0:45:13and you do have moments of calmness in the storm.
0:45:13 > 0:45:15That certainly happens as well.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18On his recovery, he went on a visit to, of all places,
0:45:18 > 0:45:19a madhouse in Richmond,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22where he discussed the merits of straitjackets,
0:45:22 > 0:45:24as his equerry recorded.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28"Fortunately, His Majesty heard this ill-timed conversation without
0:45:28 > 0:45:30"the least agitation."
0:45:30 > 0:45:32Any diagnosis that we make,
0:45:32 > 0:45:35you shouldn't take this as being an absolute certainty.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37And I don't think we'll ever know fully
0:45:37 > 0:45:40what was wrong with King George.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42It was the prime minister, William Pitt the Younger,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45who passed on advice to the King from his doctors.
0:45:45 > 0:45:47Advice the King took to heart.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52"Mr Pitt humbly begs leave to acquaint Your Majesty that he finds
0:45:52 > 0:45:55"the physicians think it of the greatest consequence
0:45:55 > 0:45:58"for Your Majesty's recovery to change the air.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01"Fatigue in the meantime ought to be avoided."
0:46:16 > 0:46:20So George set off with the family to Weymouth in Dorset.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23It was the Royal seal of approval for British seaside holidays.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30The public flocked just to watch the King have tea, go to the theatre,
0:46:30 > 0:46:32take a boat trip around the bay.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35But it was quite hard not to bump into the monarch,
0:46:35 > 0:46:40for 14 summers he had his holiday home right here on the front
0:46:40 > 0:46:42at Gloucester Lodge.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45It was very public, and to begin with,
0:46:45 > 0:46:48this was rather...exciting.
0:46:50 > 0:46:52They were there for the King's health.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57So when they went sea bathing, it was also incredibly public.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03Every morning, he'd climb into a bathing machine just like this one
0:47:03 > 0:47:06and it'd be wheeled out over the sands into the water,
0:47:06 > 0:47:08and once he was there,
0:47:08 > 0:47:11he'd be helped out by two assistants called dippers
0:47:11 > 0:47:14who'd dunk him beneath the waves.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17On his first morning,
0:47:17 > 0:47:21there was another bathing machine alongside, it was full of musicians.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23And as George sank beneath the waves,
0:47:23 > 0:47:26the band struck up God Save The King.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38There were long rides through the Dorset countryside, too.
0:47:38 > 0:47:40Farmer George, as he was known,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43relished swapping notes on crops and livestock.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47The King loved Weymouth, come rain or shine,
0:47:47 > 0:47:49and Weymouth loved the King.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51His family had other ideas.
0:47:51 > 0:47:54While his sons spent as little time as possible,
0:47:54 > 0:47:56preferring the raffish charms of Brighton,
0:47:56 > 0:47:59his daughters had little choice.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01As Princess Mary complained,
0:48:01 > 0:48:05"This place is more dull and stupid than I can find words to express."
0:48:09 > 0:48:11The more his sons went their own way,
0:48:11 > 0:48:14the closer the King clung to his unmarried daughters.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16Their one solace was the bolthole
0:48:16 > 0:48:19their mother had found back home at Windsor.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22The King's illness and his outbursts terrified the Queen.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24She was never quite the same again.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27She desperately wanted somewhere to escape court politics
0:48:27 > 0:48:31and her erratic husband, somewhere she could pursue a life of her own.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35So she bought this small estate just below Windsor Castle and would
0:48:35 > 0:48:36retreat here as often as possible
0:48:36 > 0:48:40with her daughters to what she called "her little paradise".
0:48:42 > 0:48:45They would drive down to Frogmore House for day trips.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48It wasn't much of a paradise for the daughters.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52While the Queen enjoyed tatting, a form of lace-making,
0:48:52 > 0:48:54the increasingly frustrated princesses,
0:48:54 > 0:48:56longing for households of their own,
0:48:56 > 0:48:58did their best to while away the time.
0:49:00 > 0:49:02It's a very female place.
0:49:03 > 0:49:07One of the daughters, the artistic daughter, Elisabeth,
0:49:07 > 0:49:09paints a whole gallery.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15And to begin with, it's very much a place everyone likes going,
0:49:15 > 0:49:19but as the Queen's temper worsens,
0:49:19 > 0:49:26in a sense, it becomes a penance for the daughters to go there,
0:49:26 > 0:49:31and they're remaining in this sort of Gothic nunnery.
0:49:32 > 0:49:35They turned to whoever was near,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38which was of course the equerries at court.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43The King's youngest daughter, and his favourite, was Princess Amelia.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48The Royal archives reveal that a teenage flirtation
0:49:48 > 0:49:52with a soldier twice her age became an ardent love affair,
0:49:52 > 0:49:54but one that was doomed in a way
0:49:54 > 0:49:57that would trigger the King's final illness.
0:49:57 > 0:50:02There are few Georgian documents in this great archive as human,
0:50:02 > 0:50:06as intensely personal, as the correspondence of Princess Amelia.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11There are these letters, hundreds of them, often undated,
0:50:11 > 0:50:12often hard to read,
0:50:12 > 0:50:16but all bursting with passion for the man she could never marry.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22Charles FitzRoy was the King's trusted equerry,
0:50:22 > 0:50:24and Amelia was smitten.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28"My ever dearest and most beloved darling," she wrote.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32And, "Oh, God, I am almost mad for you."
0:50:32 > 0:50:35She sometimes signed her letters AFR, Amelia FitzRoy,
0:50:35 > 0:50:37and wrote as if they lived together.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41She's writing so frankly,
0:50:41 > 0:50:47although it took me by surprise when I first deciphered it, because,
0:50:47 > 0:50:51she says, "You're my husband." They haven't married,
0:50:51 > 0:50:55but in this fantasy life where she is buying the tea kettles
0:50:55 > 0:50:59and the silver and having them engraved, he is her husband,
0:50:59 > 0:51:04and so she can write to him on any matter.
0:51:06 > 0:51:08What gives this affair added poignancy
0:51:08 > 0:51:12is that Amelia's life was to be cut short at 27.
0:51:12 > 0:51:14She had tuberculosis.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18She's near death, in extreme pain...
0:51:20 > 0:51:27..and this love for FitzRoy is her way of rising above that.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31Some three months before her death, Amelia wrote a will
0:51:31 > 0:51:35which was to prove highly sensitive to the Royal Family.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38She left almost everything to Charles FitzRoy,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41and to avoid any doubt, she itemised it.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44"All," - underlined - "my personal property."
0:51:44 > 0:51:48"Jewels, plate, trinkets of every sort, books, prints, pictures,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51"chattels and every article of furniture."
0:51:53 > 0:51:57The Queen, of course, if she knew, said nothing.
0:51:57 > 0:51:59The King knew nothing.
0:52:04 > 0:52:08October the 25th, 1810, was the actual day of the King's Jubilee,
0:52:08 > 0:52:1150 years on from that momentous ride near Kew.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16To mark the occasion, George appeared on the arm of the Queen.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19It was his last public engagement.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23He was now almost blind and had to stop writing.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28His daily visits to Amelia had been emotional.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32She was now fading, and that Jubilee day,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35her brothers were summoned to make their farewells.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41On November the 2nd, Amelia succumbed to the tuberculosis.
0:52:42 > 0:52:44The King was distraught.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47The news came in a letter from the King's doctor
0:52:47 > 0:52:49to the Prince of Wales.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52"It gives me pain to inform Your Royal Highness
0:52:52 > 0:52:54"that the Princess Amelia is no more.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57"I have just witnessed her last expiration."
0:52:57 > 0:52:59And he notes the time - 12 o'clock.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04In a separate letter that very afternoon,
0:53:04 > 0:53:06FitzRoy made clear the Prince of Wales
0:53:06 > 0:53:08had immediately been in touch.
0:53:08 > 0:53:10He'd wasted no time with condolences.
0:53:10 > 0:53:13He wanted FitzRoy to surrender his rights in the will.
0:53:15 > 0:53:19The next day, FitzRoy agreed to hand over all Amelia's property to
0:53:19 > 0:53:21the Prince and one of his brothers.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25They were to be residuary legatees for their beloved sister,
0:53:25 > 0:53:27the Princess Amelia, "In lieu of me."
0:53:28 > 0:53:32So FitzRoy is elbowed out.
0:53:32 > 0:53:39For them, it was just too incendiary an issue.
0:53:42 > 0:53:44Over the next six weeks or so,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48FitzRoy tried to retrieve his position,
0:53:48 > 0:53:51in increasingly tense exchanges with the Royal solicitors.
0:53:52 > 0:53:53He expressed,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57"Most decidedly my objection to any part of the jewels being sold."
0:53:57 > 0:54:02She'd wanted him to dispose of them as he thought best.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06The princes replied, they were surprised at his tone.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09The truth was they wanted to avoid a public scandal,
0:54:09 > 0:54:12and the Queen was anxious to protect the King.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14"There still remains one point to be broke to him,
0:54:14 > 0:54:17"namely poor Amelia's will,
0:54:17 > 0:54:21"the ignorance of which may lead to very unpleasant conversations."
0:54:22 > 0:54:24But events had overtaken them.
0:54:24 > 0:54:26Two days after Amelia's death,
0:54:26 > 0:54:28the King had a relapse
0:54:28 > 0:54:31and had to be confined in a straitjacket once more.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35His doctors were quizzed about his prospects.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39The archives contain their replies to a Royal questionnaire,
0:54:39 > 0:54:41and within days, the King had agreed his son
0:54:41 > 0:54:42should take over all his duties -
0:54:42 > 0:54:47the start of what became known as the Regency.
0:54:47 > 0:54:50The possibility that he has more than one affliction
0:54:50 > 0:54:53becomes increasingly more likely as you get older.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57Perhaps he suffers from dementia. We know he was blind.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59That could have been the result of some of the things he was given,
0:54:59 > 0:55:03by the way, or it could be that this is the late phase of his illness.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09George was moved to the secluded north-facing part of Windsor Castle,
0:55:09 > 0:55:11where although he couldn't see the view,
0:55:11 > 0:55:13he would stand by the window and salute as he heard
0:55:13 > 0:55:15the ceremonial guard march past below.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20In a touching letter to the new Prince Regent,
0:55:20 > 0:55:23the Queen said she'd been to see her husband.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26"The dear King talked much of his family with great affection.
0:55:26 > 0:55:28"He looks better than I have seen him
0:55:28 > 0:55:31"after any one of his other illnesses."
0:55:31 > 0:55:33But this time there would be no recovery.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46The twilight of George III lasted nine years.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50This startling drawing in the Royal Library
0:55:50 > 0:55:51captures his isolation,
0:55:51 > 0:55:56and was only seen after his death in January 1820, aged 81.
0:55:58 > 0:56:01Even then, his family felt it would be better received
0:56:01 > 0:56:03if changes were made,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06befitting the man they called "the father of his people".
0:56:08 > 0:56:12And words of mourning were added that Handel had set to music.
0:56:12 > 0:56:15Biblical words, that George would have known well.
0:56:15 > 0:56:19"Kindness, meekness and comfort were in his tongue.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23"If there was any virtue and if there was any praise,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25"he thought on those things."
0:56:25 > 0:56:29"His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore."
0:56:31 > 0:56:34It had been an age of bloodshed and revolution,
0:56:34 > 0:56:36but not in George III's Britain.
0:56:38 > 0:56:39His contemporaries -
0:56:39 > 0:56:41Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great -
0:56:41 > 0:56:43these are revolutionary and dangerous figures.
0:56:43 > 0:56:46They destroy things. Napoleon destroys everything.
0:56:46 > 0:56:51George III makes everything secure and safe.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54We need to put him back as the presiding figure
0:56:54 > 0:56:57who has an active role interacting with the politicians,
0:56:57 > 0:57:01the statesman, the scientists,
0:57:01 > 0:57:04the warriors - and the scholars - who are creating a new Britain.
0:57:06 > 0:57:08None of this great project would have happened
0:57:08 > 0:57:11if the King hadn't been meticulous, obsessive even,
0:57:11 > 0:57:14about filing everything that came across his desk.
0:57:14 > 0:57:18And he was proud of it too - as, shortly before his final illness,
0:57:18 > 0:57:21he told his prime minister, Spencer Perceval.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23The King, Perceval noted,
0:57:23 > 0:57:26"mentioned his having preserved every political paper
0:57:26 > 0:57:28"that had come into his hands during his reign.
0:57:28 > 0:57:30"That he had already arranged all of them
0:57:30 > 0:57:33"from the time of Mr Pitt's first coming into office,
0:57:33 > 0:57:36"so that he could lay his hand at once upon any one."
0:57:36 > 0:57:38He added, "It's hard work."
0:57:40 > 0:57:44Historians get very excited about unseen documents.
0:57:44 > 0:57:47It's extraordinary, the riches of the archives.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50Oliver can tell you I visited on Monday,
0:57:50 > 0:57:53and I was practically levitating with enthusiasm.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56It's really, really... Really quite rich and wonderful.
0:57:56 > 0:58:00- Well, I think there's so much here. - Yes.- The early reign and everything.
0:58:02 > 0:58:07The lasting legacy of George III is an enduring constitutional monarchy.
0:58:07 > 0:58:12His advice to his own young sons captures the essence of his vision.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17"A bad prince may be restrained, and it is fit he should be so,
0:58:17 > 0:58:19"by the British constitution.
0:58:19 > 0:58:23"A good prince can never be embarrassed, much less distressed,
0:58:23 > 0:58:25"by the natural effects of it.
0:58:25 > 0:58:30"A King of Britain who has been bred to govern on such principles
0:58:30 > 0:58:34"will place himself deservedly in the highest rank of humanity."