He is one of the most maligned monarchs in British history, portrayed as dull and overly frugal in his lifetime, labelled the “royal brute” by Thomas Paine and remembered by subsequent generations as the mad king who lost America.

But a major project led by the Royal Archives will, it is hoped, lead to a radical reappraisal of George III, one that pitches him as a complex, humane and deeply engaged polymath.

The archives have announced details of the Georgian Papers Programme, in which more than 350,000 usually unseen documents are being made available online over the next four years.

On Saturday, the online portal opens for business, allowing anyone, whether an academic or someone with only a vague interest, to go through documents including intimate letters between the king and his wife, Charlotte, household bills, essays, notes about the war in America and menus for grand occasions.

Detail from portrait of George III by Johan Joseph Zoffany. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.

Oliver Urquhart Irvine, the librarian and assistant keeper of the Queen’s Archives, called it “a major milestone” that heralded a revolution in access to documents stored away from public view in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle.

“The opportunity to make available for the first time a vast, largely unseen, private archive of this scope and quality is rare at any time and, today, probably unequalled.”

Irvine said there was nothing like viewing source material. “Seeing original documents is utterly compelling,” he said. “You can feel the passion, personality, worries and triumphs of individuals who have shaped major events. It can change your perspective on history.”

The project’s launch coincides with a BBC2 documentary to be broadcast on Monday that follows the early stages of the programme and explores some of the key questions around George’s rule.



One of the most fascinating is his mental illness, which would manifest itself in breakdowns where he was confined to Windsor Castle or Kew, sometimes in a straitjacket.

Modern opinion is that it was a form of bipolar disorder. The symptoms – talking ridiculously fast, being excitable and irritable and sexually inappropriate – would be called hypomania today, Sir Simon Wessely, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, tells the programme.



The documentary follows researchers opening boxes of papers that have never been properly explored. It includes a draft letter of abdication written by George III during the American war of independence, but never deployed. It was full of crossing out and redrafting, blotches and scrawls.

George’s observations on the transit of Venus. Photograph: PAPicselect

Another sheds light on the network of private agents and spies used by the king. One, codenamed Aristarchus, writes that the king had been seen walking in disguise in the Queen’s Garden at a time when the French were planning to assassinate him.

George’s intelligence and love of science is reflected in detailed drawings and calculations he made for the transit of Venus on 23 June 1769, an event he witnessed from his specially commissioned observatory in Richmond Park.



He writes, accurately, that such an event will happen again in 1874 and 2004.

George III took his job very seriously, well tutored by his father, Frederick, who would have been king had he not died, aged 44, in 1751.

One document is a manual of kingship written by Frederick for 10-year-old George in which he writes: “Convince this nation that you are not only an Englishman born and bred, but that you are also this by inclination.”

That was important and George was the first Hanoverian British king not to have German as his first language. It was during George’s long reign, between 1760-1820, that the union flag was adopted and the term United Kingdom first used.

Frederick also warned his son to “employ all your hands, all your power, to live with economy”, something he did all his life, preferring a frugal existence on his country estates to the expense and pomp of court life.

There were many huge events during George’s reign. He was the last British king of America and the first of Australia and he took a keen interest in the exploration of the time including the voyages of Captain Cook to the south seas.

One paper reveals secret instructions to Cook that he should treat any locals he finds with respect and “endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship with them, making them presents of such trinkets as you may have onboard … showing them every kindness, civility and regard”.

The Georgian papers going online also reveal lots about those around him including his wife and their 15 children, the most famous of which was his eldest son who became Prince Regent, and later George IV.

The Prince Regent has gone down in history as a dissolute, extravagant and promiscuous philanderer, one held in some contempt by his father.

He was going off the rails as young as 19 and one letter from George III to the prime minister, Lord North, reports that the young prince had got into “a very improper connection with an actress, a woman of indifferent character” who was blackmailing his son. He proposed buying her off for £5,000, about £750,000 in today’s money, which North agreed to.

Researchers have been going through the papers to decide what to place online first. One of the more poignant discoveries is a note from Charlotte to her children’s nanny Lady Charlotte Finch. It thanks her for her care of Prince Alfred, Charlotte’s 14th child who died aged one year and 10 months, and has sewn into it a lock of blond hair taken from Alfred before he died.

Many of the documents will have been studied already by historians visiting archives that were established in 1914. But Prof Arthur Burns, academic director for the Georgian Papers Programme at King’s College London, said they could be looked at through different lenses.

Many academics in the 20th century were looking for the history of “the dead white males” when they researched the Georgian era. Historians today had many different approaches and specialisms and were were good at keeping open lines of communication. “This is the perfect sandpit for us all to meet on and explore those interconnections. Getting people together and having the conversation is going to be a great deal of the fun and intellectual challenge of this,” he said.

• George III – The Genius of the Mad King is on BBC2 on Monday at 9pm.

