Genealogy Richard Remmé, The Hague, Netherlands » George III (William Frederick Guelph) of England and Hannover King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820) (1738-1820)

Personal data George III (William Frederick Guelph) of England and Hannover King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820) 

• Alternative name: George III (William Frederick Guelph) King of Great Britain & Ireland
• He was born on June 4, 1738 in Norfolk House, St James Square, Westminster, London, England, Great Brittain.
• Occupations:
• Electeur.
• Roi.
• (Property) : Angleterre.
• (Property) : Grande-Bretagne.
• (Property) : Hanovre.
• (Property) : Irlande.
• (Crowned) in the year 1821.
• He died on January 29, 1820 in Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England, Great Britain, he was 81 years old.

  Oorzaak: Sufferd from porphyria

• He is buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England, Great Britain.
• A child of Frederick Louis [Braunschweig] van England and Hannover and Augusta [Wettin] von Sachsen-Gotha
• This information was last updated on December 4, 2022.

Household of George III (William Frederick Guelph) of England and Hannover King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820)

(1) He is married to Hannah Lightfoot.

They got married on April 17, 1759, he was 20 years old.

Child(ren):

1. George Rex  
2. William Taylor   
3. Sarah [Hanover] Rex  1770-1842 

(2) He is married to Sophia Charlotte Herzoginn von Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

They got married on September 8, 1761 at Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England, Great Brittain, he was 23 years old.

Child(ren):

1. George IV (Augustus Frederick Guelph) of Great Britain & Ireland  1762-1830 
2. Frederick Augustus of England and Hannover  1763-1827 
3. William Henry king of England and Hannover  1765-1837 
4. Charlotte Augusta Matilda of England and Hannover  1766-1828
5. Edward Augustus Guelph of England and Hannover  1767-1820 
6. Augusta Sophia of England and Hannover  1768-1840
7. Elisabeth of England and Hannover  1770-1840
8. Ernst August I of England and Hannover  1771-1851 
9. Augustus Frederick [Braunschweig] prince of England and Hannover  1773-1843 
10. Adolphus Frederick of England and Hannover  1774-1850 
11. Mary of England and Hannover  1776-1857
12. Sophia of England and Hannover  1777-1848
13. Octavius Hannover  1779-1783
14. Alfred Hannover  1780-1782
15. Amelia of England and Hannover  1783-1810

Notes about George III (William Frederick Guelph) of England and Hannover King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820)

(Medical):Sufferd from porphyria

Profession : Roi de Grande-Bretagne (1760-1820) - Angleterre
Roi d'Irlande (1760-1820)
Electeur de Hanovre (1760-1815)
Roi de Hanovre (1815-1820)

E1. GEORGE III William Frederick, King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820), King of Hanover (12.10.1814-1820), Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, King of United Kingdom 1.1.1801, *Norfolk House 4.6.1738, +Windsor Castle 29.1.1820, bur St.George´s Chapel, Windsor; blind from 1811; m.St.James's Palace 8.9.1761 Dss Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz ; (*19.5.1744 +17.11.1818)

============================================

http://www.e-familytree.net/F66/F66254.htm

Family Sheet

HUSBAND
         Name: King George Iii Hanover Of England <../F72/F72730.htm> [1] Note
         Born: May 24, 1738 at Norfolk House, St. James Square, London, England [2]
      Married: 17 Apr 1759
         Died: January 29, 1820 at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England [4]
Other Spouses: Margaret Frances Sheldon <../F66/F66205.htm>
          ;     Sofie Charlotte Princess Mecklenburg Strelitz <../F8/F8902.htm>
       Father: Frederick Louis Hanover Prince Of Wales <../F72/F72730.htm>
       Mother: Augusta Of Saxe-gotha-altenburg Princess <../F72/F72730.htm>

WIFE
         Name: Hannah Lightfoot <../F66/F66255.htm> [5]
         Born: October 12, 1730 at St. John  s, Wapping, London, England [6]
         Died: ; at PA [7]
       Father: Mathew Lightfoot <../F66/F66255.htm>
       Mother: Mary Wheeler <../F66/F66255.htm>

CHILDREN
         Name: George Rex <../F66/F66256.htm>
         Born: 1750 at City Of London, , London, England
         Died: May 01, 1821 at , Green, Pennsylvania
         Wife: Margaret Kepler <../F66/F66256.htm>

SOURCES
1). royalfam.ged
2). royalfam.ged
4). royalfam.ged
5). royalfam.ged
6). royalfam.ged
7). royalfam.ged

NOTES
1). royalty.ged George III of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick Luneburg r. 1760 1820 , who presided over the loss of Britain s American colonies. He was also elector of Hanover 1760 1815 and by decision of the Congress of Vienna, King of Hanover 1815 20 . After the dismissal of several ministers who did not satisfy him, the king found a firm supporter in Fredereick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782. Lord North executed the royal policies that provoked the American Revolution. The unsuccessful conclusion of that protracted conflict forced North to resign, and during the government crisis that followed when three cabinets came and went in less than two years. The King himself was almost induced to abdicate. In 1809 the king became blind. As early as 1765 he had suffered an apparent dementia, and in 1788 his derangement recurred to such a degree that a regency bill was passed, but the king recovered the following year. In 1811 he succumbed hopelessly to this dementia and his son, later George IV, acted as regent for the rest of his reign. or 4 Jun 1738, Norfolk House, St. James Square, London, England?royalfam.ged AFN 9FNG NM Copyrighted material George III was the longest reigning of male British monarchs. Born onJune 4, 1738, he was th e son of Frederick, prince of Wales, and thegrandson of George II. He succeeded his grandfath er in 1760, his fatherhaving died in 1751. George had high but impractical ideas of kingship. On his accession hesought to rule withou t regard to party, to banish corruption frompolitical practice, and to abandon the Hanoveria n preoccupations of hispredecessors. The chief minister chosen to implement his new system of politics, the third earl of Bute 1713 92 , however, was an unpracticedpolitician who merel y succeeded in disrupting the established politics ofthe day without creating a viable altern ative. The result was 10 years ofministerial instability and public controversy, which ende d only in 1770with the appointment of Frederick, Lord North, an able and congenialminister. Although never an autocratic monarch in the sense that his opponentscontended, George III wa s always a powerful force in politics. He was astrong supporter of the war against America, a nd he viewed the concessionof independence in 1783 with such detestation that he consideredab dicating his throne. At the same time he fought a bitter personal feudwith the Whig leader Ch arles James Fox, and his personal interventionbrought the fall of the Fox North ministry in 1 783. He then found anotherminister, William Pitt, the Younger, who suited him. Even as late a s 1801he preferred, however, to force Pitt to resign as prime minister ratherthan permit Cath olic Emancipation, a measure that he interpreted ascontrary to his coronation oath to uphol d the Church of England. After 1801 George III was increasingly incapacitated by an illness,sometimes identified as po rphyria, that caused blindness and senility.His recurring bouts of insanity became a politica l problem and ultimatelycompelled him to submit to the establishment of a formal Regency in 1 811.The regent was his oldest son, the future George IV, one of 15 childrenborne him by his w ife, Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg Strelitz. George III was bitterly criticized by Whig historians of his own andlater days. But 20th cent ury scholarship has somewhat redressed thebalance, and he is now seen as a strong minded bu t public spiritedmonarch who perhaps ascended the throne at an overly young andimpressionabl e age. He learned quickly, however, and developed into ashrewd and sensible statesman, althou gh one of conservative views. To thecourt he brought a sense of public duty and private moral ity that provedpopular in a society already being transformed by the evangelicalrevival. He s howed considerable interest in agricultural improvement andwas an avid collector of painting s and books. The best loved of theHanoverian rulers, he enjoyed a personal reputation that st ood his housein good stead during the disastrous reign of his son George. George IIIdied on J an. 29, 1820. " Not all information in this family tree has been verified." All corrections are welcome. Updated September 14, 2001

===============================

     George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of
Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Sachsen-Gotha. He became heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his grandfather, George II, in 1760. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the first one to be born in England and to use English as his first language. George III is widely remembered for two things: losing the American colonies and going mad. This is far from the whole truth. George's direct responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. He opposed their bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies (such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper and other products) which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of Parliament. These policies were largely due to the financial burdens of garrisoning and administering the vast expansion of territory brought under the British Crown in America, the costs of a series of wars with France and Spain in North America, and the loans given to the East India Company (then responsible for administering India). By the 1770s, and at a time when there was no income tax, the national debt required an annual revenue of £4 million to service it. The declaration of American independence on 4 July 1776, the end of the war with the surrender by British forces in 1782, and the defeat which the loss of the American colonies represented, could have threatened the Hanoverian throne. However, George's strong defence of what he saw as the national interest and the prospect of long war with revolutionary France made him, if anything, more popular than before. The American war, its political aftermath and family anxieties placed great strain on George in the 1780s.  George's accession in 1760 marked a significant change in royal finances. Since 1697, the monarch had received an annual grant of £700,000 from Parliament as a contribution to the Civil List, i.e. civil government costs (such as judges' and ambassadors' salaries) and the expenses of the Royal Household. In 1760, it was decided that the whole cost of the Civil List should be provided by Parliament in return for the surrender of the hereditary revenues by the King for the duration of his reign. (This arrangement still applies today, although civil government costs are now paid by Parliament, rather than financed directly by the monarch from the Civil List.) The first 25 years of George's reign were politically controversial for reasons other than the conflict with America. The King was accused by some critics, particularly Whigs (a leading political grouping), of attempting to reassert royal authority in an unconstitutional manner. In fact, George took a conventional view of the constitution and the powers left to the Crown after the conflicts between Crown and Parliament in the 17th century.

Although he was careful not to exceed his powers, George's limited ability and lack of subtlety in dealing with the shifting alliances within the Tory and Whig political groupings in Parliament meant that he found it difficult to bring together ministries which could enjoy the support of the House of Commons. His problem was solved first by the long-lasting ministry of Lord North (1770-82) and then, from 1783, by Pitt the Younger, whose ministry lasted until 1801. George III was the most attractive of the Hanoverian monarchs. He was a good family man (there were 15 children) and devoted to his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom he bought the Queen's House (later enlarged to become Buckingham Palace). However, his sons disappointed him and, after his brothers made unsuitable secret marriages, the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 was passed at George's insistence. (Under this Act, the Sovereign must give consent to the marriage of any lineal descendant of George II, with certain exceptions.) Being extremely conscientious, George read all government papers and sometimes annoyed his ministers by taking such a prominent interest in government and policy. His political influence could be decisive. In 1801, he forced Pitt the Younger to resign when the two men disagreed about whether Roman Catholics should have full civil rights. George III, because of his coronation oath to maintain the rights and privileges of the Church of England, was against the proposed measure. One of the most cultured of monarchs, George started a new royal collection of books (65,000 of his books were later given to the British Museum, as the nucleus of a national library) and opened his library to scholars. In 1768, George founded and paid the initial costs of the Royal Academy of Arts (now famous for its exhibitions). He was the first king to study science as part of his education (he had his own astronomical observatory), and examples of his collection of scientific instruments can now be seen in the Science Museum. George III also took a keen interest in agriculture, particularly on the crown estates at Richmond and Windsor, being known as 'Farmer George'. In his last years, physical as well as mental powers deserted him and he became blind. He died at Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820, after a reign of almost 60 years - the second longest in British history. In 1786 a deranged woman, Margaret Nicholson, tried to stab the king of England outside St. James's Palace. Fortunately the king escaped injury and Nicholson was captured. As she was taken away, King George was heard to exclaim, "Pray do not harm the poor woman!"  As the king had wished, Nicholson was shown a certain amount of mercy. In an age when a child could be hung for stealing a spoon, the life of this would-be royal assassin was spared. She was sent to a mental institution, Bethlem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam. She became something of a celebrity, even "writing" a bestselling book (it was actually ghostwritten).  It's not surprising that King George III showed compassion toward "the poor woman" who had tried to kill him. He was a kind-hearted man, and he knew first hand what it was like to be mentally ill. In 1765 he had suffered a breakdown. He was depressed, then cheerful, then depressed again. At first his doctors attributed his distress to a violent cold, which they treated by bleeding him. Weeks passed, and the king remained "sulky" and "agitated"; eventually, however, he seemed to recover. There is dispute today about the cause of this illness and whether it was related to King George's later madness. His wife, Queen Charlotte, felt that he was overly stressed by the duties of kingship, and certainly that was a difficult time for George, who was struggling to hang on to the rebellious American colonies.   In 1788, two years after Margaret Nicholson's assassination attempt, King George had another breakdown. He suffered fits of gloom alternating with excited spells during which he talked incessantly and behaved oddly -- for instance, he presented a visitor to the palace with a blank sheet of paper for no apparent reason. Again his physician, Sir George Baker, tried to cure him by bleeding him. When this failed, Baker concluded that the king's problem was more than physical. He later commented, "Nothing is more embarrassing to families as well as physicians than the condition of persons half-disordered, whom the law will not confine, though they ought not to be at liberty. Such appeared to me to have been His Majesty's case." Not wanting to call public attention to the king's problem, Baker did little to treat it. He tried to keep it secret, but the Prince of Wales had different ideas. Eager to seize his father's power, the Prince spread word of George's illness all over town. He further advanced his cause by bringing in his own physician, Dr. Warren, to "treat" the king. George was by turns depressed and agitated, and did and said things people found strange, but he had not taken leave of his senses. Indeed, some observers thought he was thinking more clearly than ever before. But he was not fit to rule, and no one understood what was wrong or how to help him. Under Dr. Warren's enlightened leadership, the royal physicians blistered the king's forehead to "draw the poison out of his brain." They forced him to take useless drugs -- ordering servants to sit on the king when he resisted -- and refused to let him have a fire in his room during the terribly cold winter. Of course, the king did not thrive under this regime. Even Dr. Warren didn't expect his patient to recover. "He will not live to be certified a lunatic," the doctor stated. A new set of physicians, Dr. Francis Willis and his son John, arrived on the scene. The Willises confined the king to a straitjacket when they deemed it necessary, and gave him medicine to make him vomit when they felt his behavior was getting out of hand, but on the whole they treated George more gently than the other doctors had. The king began to get better, and within a few months he was able to resume his royal duties. Over the next 20 years King George suffered occasional brief relapses, but it wasn't until 1810 that he truly became the mad King George depicted in film and legend. The Prince of Wales was named Prince Regent and assumed the king's powers, and George was relegated to the role of laughable lunatic. Wild stories were told about him -- that he had addressed a tree as the King of Prussia, insisted on ending every sentence with the word "peacock," etc. etc. -- and many of these stories were completely untrue. What is true is that he spent his last years deaf, blind, lonely and confused, talking to the ghosts of his dead children. He died in 1820 and the Prince Regent became King George IV. Today it is widely believed that the king suffered from porphyria, a rare genetic disorder which interferes with the body's chemical balance. The symptoms include rashes, abdominal pain, and reddish blue urine, all of which George suffered. Untreated, it can affect the nervous system and lead to insanity. If King George were alive today, he would be treated with drugs and advised to avoid too much sunlight.

==========================

http://www.cardinalpress.co.uk/hannah-regina.htm

Hannah Regina:
      Britain's Quaker Queen

Whilst still Prince of Wales, King George III is alleged to have married secretly, on 17th April 1759, a Quaker named Hannah Lightfoot by whom he had three children (‘two princes and a princess’). Eighteen months later, on 25th October 1760 his grandfather King George II died and he became King George III. A year after that, on 8th September 1761 he officially married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh-Strelitz, by whom he had 15 children; his direct descendants from this marriage include Queen Elizabeth II, her son Charles Prince of Wales, and his son Prince William. However, when King George married Princess Charlotte he had not divorced Hannah Lightfoot who was now of course, according to the stories, his legitimate queen.
In June 1866 there was a trial in an Appeal Court which was supposed to be examining an alleged bigamous marriage of King George’s youngest brother, the Duke of Cumberland; but it effectively considered the documentary evidence of the King’s own alleged marriage to Hannah Lightfoot. The early marital affairs of these two royal brothers were so closely intertwined (for instance the claimed first marriage of Cumberland’s had been to the daughter of the cleric who had conducted George’s marriage to Hannah Lightfoot) that it was not possible to examine one without exposing the other. Documents were produced testifying, amongst other things, to the marriage of George to Hannah, but the constitutional consequences of allowing any evidence of the Duke of Cumberland’s alleged first marriage to impugn the legitimacy of the King’s marriage to Queen Charlotte were of course enormous.  Therefore against the very considerable weight of these documents, many of which, including a Certificate of Marriage to Hannah, bore George’s signature and all of which were supported by signed affidavits and expert testimony as to the legitimacy of these signatures, the Judges (who included the Lord Chief Justice) denounced them all as forgeries. The Attorney General called the plaintiff (who claimed to be Cumberland’s granddaughter by this alleged first marriage) insane; and Hannah Lightfoot’s very existence was initially denied. The Special Jury, without even retiring, agreed with the Judges and found against the plaintiff; the case was then dismissed and it was ordered that the documents be impounded for 100 years. However since 1966 they been available for inspection at the Public Records Office, and together with other documents, including the account of the trial itself, they make a compelling case to query the legitimacy of King George’s marriage to Queen Charlotte because of his earlier supposed clandestine marriage to Hannah Lightfoot.

The Hannah Lightfoot ‘affair’ is of course very familiar in UK Quaker circles; and there has been sufficient interest over the intervening years for the Society of Friends to have made available to interested parties copies of certain of their own papers. The case is also well-known to historians, one of whom noted about the documents in the trial that ‘Learned opinion at the time leaned to the view that these documents were genuine’ and that ‘If George III did make such a marriage when he was Prince of Wales…then his subsequent marriage to Queen Charlotte was bigamous and every monarch of Britain since has been a usurper, the rightful heirs being his children by Hannah Lightfoot, if they ever existed.’

Some of the principal characters in the affair have strong US connections. The Rev. Dr Wilmot -- who performed George’s marriage to Hannah, and whose daughter was the Duke of Cumberland’s legitimate wife -- is commemorated in New Hampshire by having the town of Wilmot named after him for his support for the Colonists’ cause. Hannah Lightfoot herself is, according to the well-regarded records in these matters of the Society of Mormons, buried in Pennsylvania where presumably she was sent when King George eventually abandoned her. An American family claims direct descent, with a well-researched family tree to back up the claim, from one of the favourite ‘contenders’ to have been one of  Hannah’s sons. William Pitt, First Earl of Chatham, who witnessed Prince George’s marriage to Hannah Lightfoot and whose signature also appears on many others of the relevant documents, is recalled by his prominent statue in Pittsburgh, the city named after him

Even after almost two hundred and fifty years the story simply refuses to die and seems to demand a full and open investigation. Yet although the whole affair has from time to time been taken up by the media, including at least two TV programmes in recent times, it remains an unresolved mystery that the authorities are, perhaps understandably, content to leave that way

“Fascinating…much in the book that I simply didn’t know.”  Quaker Journal review
“George III -- a right royal bigamist. Have any of his successors been legitimate sovereigns?”   Newspaper comment
“Is the Queen simply Mrs Betty Windsor?”      Newspaper headline

Paperback, 174pp.  ISBN: 0 9533505 1 7
First published 2002, revised & expanded 2003
Recommended retail price: £14.99/US$19.99

E-book:  ISBN  0-9533505 4 1
First published 2005

=============================

http://www2.newsquest.co.uk/local_london/features/ed01080402.html

Should the Queen be plain old Betty Windsor?
Alex Kasriel reports

Royalty: A new book exposes King George III as a bigamist and casts doubts on the legitimacy of the House of Windsor.

As the Queen settles down for her Golden Jubilee year, she will be less than amused to hear that she has no right to be on the throne.

At least that is the conclusion reached by Michael Kreps, a sprightly 74-year-old, of Holders Hill Road, Hendon, whose book Hannah Regina: Britain's Quaker Queen, explores the clandestine marriage in 1749 between King George III and Hannah Lightfoot, the Quaker Queen.

Together they had three children, two sons and a daughter, after which, King George was married to Queen Charlotte.

"It was clandestine because he was the Prince of Wales and she was a simple Quaker girl," explains Mr Kreps, who is also chairman of the Barnet Borough Talking Newspaper.

What sparked his interest in the affair was a magazine article he read early last year about a newly discovered vault in St Peter's Church, Carmarthen.

"Underneath the church was discovered a vault which nobody knew was there.

"When they looked into it, there were coffins in there which had names which were related directly to Sarah Dalton, the daughter of George III by Hannah Lightfoot.

"What is coincidental was that in the middle of his life, George III ordered an organ to be installed at Windsor Castle.

"When the order was completed but before it was installed, he changed his mind, and he gave it to this church. Nobody knew why, they thought it was strange, but they were very pleased to have it."

The couple's first son, George Rex, was said to have moved to South Africa where there are people alive who claim to be his descendants.

Their second son, believed to be called John Mackelcan, is thought to have had a remarkable career in the army, made possible by his secret connections.

The discovery of this marriage has significance to the subsequent future of the monarchy.

"It's actually a very minor blip in history with the possible exception of course in fact that all the sovereigns after King George III were out of a bigamous marriage and therefore usurpers," he said.

The reason the public has heard very little about it before, Mr Kreps explains, is that the marriage documents were kept under wraps until 1910 and they are not allowed to be forensically tested, even today.

The whole argument is based on the marriage documentation which was produced at the time.

The judge and the jury who examined the documents in a trial in 1866, said that they were forgeries. Mr Kreps believes this was a cover up to protect the monarchy.

"In the trial, the leading handwriting experts of the day said that they were genuine. The public thought they were genuine. The court said not.

"At the end of 1866, all the documents were impounded and nobody had access to them, they were locked up.

"You have to ask why. People wrote about the subject, there was a lot of correspondence after the trial. But nobody had access to these documents until 1910."

Over the year, Kreps has been a busy man. He's been in and out of the Public Records Office in Kew and the British Library, looking at documents and writings of the time in order to complete the book.

Despite the book's stark conclusions, Mr Kreps claims he is no republican.

"I tend to be a monarchist, rather than an anti-monarchist. I have no quarrel with Queen Elizabeth II," he said. "I'll be celebrating the Jubilee like everyone else I've even phoned up for tickets to see the Jubilee concert at the Palace."

Hannah Regina: Britain's Quaker Queen is published by Cardinal Publishing and will be available at all major booksellers at £14.99.

Do you have supplementary information, corrections or questions with regards to George III (William Frederick Guelph) of England and Hannover King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820)?
The author of this publication would love to hear from you!

Timeline George III (William Frederick Guelph) of England and Hannover King of Great Britain, Ireland (1760-1820)

Click on the names for more info. Symbols used:  grandparents    parents    brothers/sisters    children