George III

"To most English people George III is the King who went mad; to most Americans he is the King stigmatized in the Declaration of Independence as 'unfit to be the ruler of a free people'." "In this absorbing book Christopher Hibbert reassesses a remarkable man, discusses his political beliefs and aspirations, his relationships with his ministers, courtiers and family, and the reasons why he came to be so widely loved by his subjects. He is portrayed as a man of great courage and sensibility, a generous patron of scientists, musicians, authors and artists, and as a discerning book collector in whose library Dr Johnson was so taken by his charm and knowledge. For all his eccentricities and occasional cantankerous outbursts, he is seen as a man of wide sympathies, intelligence and interests, farmer, amateur astronomer, architect and mechanic, a man of strong sexual urges who remained faithful to a plain and difficult wife, someone who was capable of flashes of wit and irony and who greatly enhanced the reputation of the British monarchy in the sixty years of his reign despite the fact that, suffering from a rare hereditary disorder, for a time he lost his reason and disappeared into a world of strange imaginings." --Book Jacket.