George III: America's Last King (review)

Let me begin this review with a confession. Upon reading the subtitle of this new work by the ever-industrious Jeremy Black, I felt rather dismayed. Here, it seemed, was yet another example of the life of a prominent eighteenth-century British figure being told from a primarily American, and thus limited (if not misleading), perspective. As I am a Canadian-born student of the eighteenth-century British army who received his doctorate and currently teaches European history in the United States, this hardly came as a surprise. Still, one might justly wonder, with some concern, whether the biography of George II for Yale's English Monarch series, evidently yet to be contracted, will be subtitled "America's Penultimate King." Given these reflections on the title page alone, I must further confess my pleasant surprise to find that the subtitle of Black's George III is unfortunate not because it reflects the work's narrow focus, but because it suggests a narrowness of focus that in fact does not exist.

For America's "last king," American affairs necessarily played an important role. Yet it must also be remembered that while George III reigned for some six decades, America was a primary concern of British politics for little more than twenty-three years (1760–1783). Even if George's reign may be said to have effectively ended with the establishment of the Regency, this meant a further twenty-seven years on the throne before his final incapacitation in 1810. Reflecting the length of the king's life, Black offers ten narrative chapters. Yet, as well written as these are, they do not form, to this reviewer's mind, the true value of this study. That, rather, is to be found in the nine chapters that approach George III on a thematic tack. These chapters focus on the royal family (chapter 8), British cultural trends during the period (chapter 9), the changing role of the Electorate of Hanover in British politics (chapter 15) and the expansion of the empire (chapter 16). As this is a royal biography, the common denominator of these chapters is the king, while George's "Character and Behaviour" are specifically addressed in chapter 7, a discussion that forms an important foundation for the material addressed in chapter 10 ("Religion and Morality").

Among these thematic chapters, the most interesting are those that discuss King George within the context of the realities of contemporary European monarchy. Chapter 3 ("Eighteenth-Century Monarchy") presents an invaluable comparison of George III to George II, one that almost compensates for the lack of a volume on the latter in the Yale series. Chapter 19 ("Reputation and Comparisons") discusses George's reputation at the hands of, among others, Sir Lewis Namier, Herbert Butterfield, John Brewer, and John Brooke, and offers Black's own stimulating comparison of George with his royal contemporaries, not to mention that other almost-as-famous George: Washington. Finally, chapter 20 ("George III and the Making of the Modern British Monarchy") examines the king's role in a time of transformation for the nation, the empire, and most particularly the monarchy, concluding that while he was more successful than many of his crowned contemporaries, "a positive assessment of George must be qualified, both as far as his own reign is concerned and with regard to the long-term developments of the British state" (450). All too many discussions of the Georgian monarchy focus on the relatively parochial and, at the very least, rather unique, context of the British experience on either side of the Atlantic. Yet the institution did not exist solely within the context of either London or Philadelphia, but was rather the most common form of governance known to the world at that time. Thus, it would only make sense that a discussion of George III as man and monarch would take into account his position as both vis à vis his crowned contemporaries. Yet however much such a context makes...