The King and Madness

King George III
(1738-1820)
(Wellcome Library)

George III went mad.  Everybody knew it, and when his bouts occurred, the English wrote about it in their diaries.  "The King's determined illness, its probable event, and all its consequences, must, in one way or another, interest every mortal, and ... cast a degree of uncertainty over everybody's plans." (Extracts from the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry, 1783-1852, ed. Lady Theresa Lewis (3 vols., London, 1865), vol 2, p. 438, quoted in Lane, 208.)

The king had episodes of madness in 1762 and 1765.  The first time he had three blisters applied and was bled seven times, recovering after one to two months.  The second time there was more secrecy about the episode, but it seems also to have resolved in a month or two.  The worst attack began in June 1788, when he could not concentrate, understand governmental business, and became delirious (Arnold, 146-47).  He was manic: Fanny Burney recorded "he conversed upon his health near half-an-hour, still with that extreme quickness of speech and manner that belongs to fever; and he hardly sleeps, he tells me, one minute all night ... he is all agitation, all emotion, yet all benevolence and goodness."  (Macalpine, Ida and Hunter, Richard.  George III and the Mad-Business (London: Allen Lane, 1969) 19, quoted in Arnold, 147.)

Movie poster
(Wikipedia)

The court physicians had no idea what the problem was, nor what to do.  They isolated His Majesty from his family in a very cold and uncomfortable castle.  Finally Rev. Dr. Francis Willis was summoned.  He had been a clergyman who qualified as a physician when he was 39, and he ran a madhouse which had a keeper to every two patients.  The patients had jobs, were encouraged to dress neatly, had freedom to take long walks, but were disciplined with fear (Arnold, 149).  Dr. Willis arrived in December and used a straightjacket to restrain the king every time the patient got agitated.  George also had his legs blistered, he was cupped, and had leeches placed on his temples.  The blisterings were so bad he could not walk.  A special chair was made to restrain him in.  By March the king was better and Willis was rewarded with 1,000 pounds a year for the following 21 years (Arnold, 150-52).  I would highly recommend the film made about this episode, "The Madness of King George" (Hytner, Nicholas.  The Madness of King George.  Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1994).

George had episodes again in 1801, 1804, and 1810, which included
conversations with angels, being convinced he was having an affair with a duchess (he wasn't), talking constantly for hours, and being severely delusional.  He spent the last ten years of his life insane, locked up at Windsor Castle.  Because his madness had been so obvious, it became respectable to treat those who were mad (Arnold, 155-57).  After all, insanity had happened to the most prestigious man in the country.

Lock of George III's hair
(Wellcome Museum,
14 October 2012)

So what really caused George's mental illness?  This lock of hair was purchased by the medical artifacts collector Henry Wellcome in 1927, and is supposed to be King George III's.  "Recent tests on the hair may have discovered the reason for the king's episodes of so-called 'madness'.  The hair was found to have an unexpectedly high concentration of arsenic.  Heavy metals such as arsenic are known to exacerbate a hereditary condition called porphyria, which can lead to mental disturbances." (Label, "Lock of Hair, Said to be King George III's," Wellcome Museum, 14 October 2012.)  Porphyria's symptoms include hallucinations, paranoia, purplish urine, sensitivity to light, and skin problems (Arnold, 156) like edema.  It is a metabolic blood disorder, and most porphyrias are inherited (Mayo Clinic, "Prophyria," www.mayoclinic.org/prophyria, accessed 5 January 2013).

I understand that many people today object to the term of "madness."  This description is no longer used today, since it is now considered shamefully derogatory.  However, this was the description of severe and uncontrolled mental illness in the 18th century and that is why I use it.  It does give some sense of the hopelessness of mental illness at that time.