The King’s mental health worsened throughout his nearly 60-year reign.
Ballgowns, secret relationships, and Lady Whistledown are back in full force with Netflix’s new series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. In the latest installment of the Bridgerton cinematic universe, we see Queen Charlotte’s rise to prominence and power amid her marriage to King George III. What you might not know, though, is that the Bridgerton royals are loosely based on the real Queen Charlotte and King George and the events that unfolded during their relationship in 1700s Britain. While they had a loyal and loving relationship on-screen, things got complicated IRL as the King faced mental health issues that were not properly identified during the era.
Over the course of Bridgerton’s first two seasons, we see that Queen Charlotte runs the monarchy as the King gets treated for his mental illness, and in the prequel series, we see where and how it originated. Ahead, find everything we know about King George’s mental health in real life and how it pans out in the Bridgerton universe.
What was King George likely diagnosed with?
As pictured on Queen Charlotte, King George began showing symptoms of mild depression and mania when he was 27 years old in 1765, per a medical journal article, “The madness of King George III: a psychiatric re-assessment” by Timothy J Peters. Due to the lack of mental health knowledge and medical resources in the 1700s, it’s difficult to pinpoint what the King might be diagnosed with today. According to the National Library of Medicine and a recent study that programmed a computer to read letters the King had written from 1760 to 1820, George showed signs of “acute mania” and may have had bipolar disorder I.
In 1788, the King suffered his first major bout of mental illness when he was 50, and according to the Smithsonian, he had trouble sleeping for more than two hours at a time and would “speak out of turn,” making inappropriate advances toward the Queen’s attendants. Per the Georgian Papers, he reportedly assaulted their oldest son, George, Prince of Wales, as a result of his mania.
Over the years, George also had hallucinations and felt physical pain as a result of his mental illness. Researchers found that the King’s erratic behavior could have been tied to porphyria, which is a group of rare disorders that can cause toxicity to nerves in the brain, per the Mayo Clinic.
Vogue reports that in September 1811, the King also showed signs of dementia as one of his physicians Robert Willis wrote, “We have seen His Majesty sometimes in a state of delirium, sometimes strongly impressed by false images, neither of which states has characterised this day so much as a degree of irritability, which could only be met by coercion, and which was only varied by occasional exclamations and noises without meaning.”
How did King George die?
As the King’s conditions grew worse over time, George, the Prince of Wales officially became Regent in February 1811. Queen Charlotte became the permanent guardian of King George and was his primary caretaker until she died of pneumonia at 74 years old in 1818. The King outlived the Queen, and he died blind, deaf, and “mad” at Windsor Castle on January 19, 1820, per the Royal Family’s official website.
