EXCLUSIVE: Express.co.uk spoke to historian Professor Andrew Roberts about the demise of the king.
Netflix dropped Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story recently with the series shining a spotlight on King George III (played by Corey Mylchreest) and his mental health issues, along with his marriage to Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio).
The series finished on a poignant note as the older Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) went to see her husband King George III (James Fleet) with the couple living entirely separate lives – as depicted in the parent series Bridgerton.
Many viewers are curious to know more about the real king away from the show, which is a fictional take on the love story.
How did King George III die?
King George III died in 1820 after suffering from Alzheimer’s and what scientists now believe to be bipolar disorder.
Professor Roberts exclusively told Express.co.uk about the monarch’s last days: “Well, they’re hugely sad. It’s a bit like King Lear.
“There he is poor man, he played the harpsichord in his rooms on the North Terrace in Windsor Castle but he couldn’t hear it because he’d gone deaf.
“He would so-called meet people from his past and have conversations with them.
“The good thing was in the last 10 years he didn’t have to be put in a straitjacket any longer. He was no longer violent.”
Along with suffering from dementia and deafness, King George III had also gone blind after doctors put leeches on his eyeballs to bleed him in an effort to treat him with the historian saying 18th century medicine was “very horrible”.
Professor Roberts said the view on mental health was “incredibly backwards” during the Georgian era as was the treatment offered to those who were considered mad.
The historian continued: “It was heartless and cruel and the way the king was treated was incredibly cruel. What they didn’t have was a sense that you could ever get better and people recognized that you could come out of madness, which he did.”
King George had four big episodes, the first between 1788 to 1789, the second in 1801 for a few months, the third in 1804, and his final one in 1810 until his death 10 years later.
But Professor Roberts said in between these episodes, the king was “back” and on official duty “doing all the other things kings do”.
Professor Roberts said if King George III was treated today, he would be given a course of drugs and “calming ways” of dealing with his illness.
Reflecting on whether the pressures of rule took their toll on King George III’s mental health, he said: “I don’t think so because there have been loads and loads of people who have been kings or politicians or statesmen, who’ve had pretty Much equal pressure, who has not gone mad or been depressed.
“Many people say Winston Churchill had black dog depression. He didn’t. He mentioned it once in a letter to his wife Clementine in a letter in 1911, during a time when people talked about ‘black dog’ just being in a bad mood.”
Adding: “He did not have something that plunged him into a deep depression when there was no need to.”
