King George III and Lessons in Insanity

This is a column about King George III who was King of England before, during and after the American Revolution.  This is not a column about any other human being. 

            The paintings of King George III show a man with puckered, rubbery lips, a supercilious expression, and a pretentious white wig.  Most people with even a passing understanding of American history know that King George was mad as a hatter. 

            Excepting his inability to see the world in a consistently and reliably accurate frame of mind, there are no excuses for George not being able to rule his nation.  He was, after all, born to the purple.  George (like Trump, whom this blog is not about) was of largely German extraction.  Unlike Trump, he was well educated. He also liked science and became an avid gardener.  [The only thing Trump seems to grow is adipose tissue—but this column isn’t about him.]  George was shy, quiet, and raised with a sense of duty.  Careful upbringing did not keep him from wandering into insanity, but at least we know he started on home base. 

            George William Frederick became king at age 22.  He married a year later.  As all royal marriages at that time the woman he would marry was chosen for him and for political reasons.  He wed Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (more German blood, for those of you keeping score) on the same day he met her.  To the credit of both George and Charlotte they were happily married for 50 years and had 15 children. 

            King George certainly gets much of the blame for losing thirteen fractious colonies in North America.  But while he was opposed to “liberty” and “freedom” (two lofty concepts he was not allowed to practice in his own life which was guided by duty, responsibility and marrying the woman you are told to) King George is not the one who pissed off the Colonists.  The British Parliament is the body that passed the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Act of 1767 which put that pesky tax on tea. 

            While having bouts of clear and easily defined insanity from 1788 onward, George fought back and retained his throne until 1811.  At that time, his disassociation from reality was so consistently apparent that he had to relinquish his crown.  George III died on January 29, 1820.  Whether George’s madness can be attributed to the inherited disease porphyria or the arsenic found in chemical analysis of his hair or some unknown cause, the result was the same.  Even the hide-bound British royalists were able to figure out that crazy in meant crazy out and the King’s rule had to come to an end. 

            Some people are genetically disposed to insanity.  Some have insanity thrust upon them.  Others warp their own thinking by the enthroning of their own ego.  When you create a persona that you know is false, and falsely exalted, you are living a lie.  When you know, in your darkest thoughts and most solitary moments, that people must never know who—or what—you truly are, you give yourself up to insanity.  No one must ever hold the mirror to your own, personal Don Quixote.  You are ever defensive; ever on the run; ever vigilante; ever angry; ever, ever, ever alone.

            Such lost souls can not heal themselves.  They must simply be put in a place where they can not do harm to others. 

            When you recognize insanity you keep your own faith.