Attributed to Thomas Frye 1710-1762 Portrait of George III (1738-1820)

Attributed to Thomas Frye 1710-1762

Portrait of George III (1738-1820)

inscribed on the reverse " King George 3rd"

oil on canvas

30 x 25 in. (76 x 64 cm.)

George III (1738–1820), king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and king of Hanover, was the second child and eldest son of Frederick Lewis, prince of Wales (1707–1751), and his wife, Augusta (1719–1772) of Saxe-Gotha. He was the first prince of Wales to be born in England since Charles II in 1630, which he turned to advantage in his accession speech of 1760: ‘Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain’ (Brooke, George III, 390). Both his parents had been educated in Germany and spoke German as their native tongue. Since his father had been forbidden St James's Palace in 1737, after the quarrel over the birth of his first child, Princess Augusta, George was born in the duke of Norfolk's house in St James's Square, on 24 May 1738. He was privately baptized by the bishop of Oxford at 11 p.m. on the day of his birth as there were doubts whether he would live; he was publicly baptized George William Frederick at Norfolk House on 21 June. At the age of ten he appeared in a family performance of Addison's Cato, and spoke a new prologue: ‘What, tho' a boy! It may with truth be said, A boy in England born, in England bred’ (GM, 1st ser., 19, 1749, 37).

Princely dreams

Estimates of George's ability have varied. Horace Walpole was responsible for the story that he could not read English at the age of eleven, but Walpole cherished a deep dislike of the prince and his mother (Walpole, Memoirs, 1.56). George's father complained that he did not sufficiently care to please—no unusual remark for a father—and in a long conversation in 1752 with George Bubb Dodington the princess confessed that ‘she wished that he was a little more forward, and less childish, at his age’, and that all his affection was focused on his younger brother Edward (Diary of … Dodington, 151). Romney Sedgwick thought that there were signs of mental retardation, but John Brooke produced evidence that the prince could read and write English and German by the age of eight, and that from the age of eleven he received systematic schooling from George Lewis Scott. The truth seems to be that he was a boy of average ability, rather reserved, and surrounded by tutors like Lord Harcourt and Thomas Hayter, bishop of Norwich, who were not particularly stimulating. In another conversation with Dodington in 1755 the princess admitted that her son was ‘shy and backward … but, with those he was acquainted, applicable and intelligent’ (Diary of … Dodington, 317). But in later life he spoke French and German, was keenly interested in astronomy and clocks, drew and painted well, was fond of chess, and was a great collector of books. He was devoted to music, played the flute and harpsichord, and confided to Fanny Burney that he found it as strange to meet people who had no ear for music as to meet people who were dumb. The most detailed analysis of his character was made by Lord Waldegrave, who took over as governor from Harcourt, obliged to resign in 1752 after complaining that George was being brought up on Jacobite, in other words autocratic, notions. ‘His parts’, wrote Waldegrave, ‘tho' not excellent, will be found very tolerable’. He was ‘uncommonly indolent’ and had ‘a kind of unhappiness in his temper’ which led him to become ‘sullen and silent’, and to retire to his room ‘to indulge the melancholy enjoyment of his own ill humor’ (Memoirs and Speeches, 148–9). Some of these characteristics disappeared as he grew older. Indolence was replaced by restless activity, and inattention by meticulousness—his letters and memos dated to the precise minute. But an attribute which did remain was a tendency to censoriousness—‘his religion’, wrote Waldegrave, ‘is not of the most charitable sort: he has rather too much attention to the sins of his neighbour’ (ibid., 148–9)—and h