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- [00:00]
A
A list of sensitive themes and topics included in this episode can be found in the episode description.
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B
Welcome to this Guy Sucked, the show, where we prove that it's never too.
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A
Late to have haters and you can't libel the dead. I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified hater.
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B
On this show, we talk about people.
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A
From throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar.
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B
Every week to tell us why.
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A
With me today is Dr. Madeline Pelling, who is a cultural historian, author and broadcaster.
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B
You might know her from her book Writing on the Graffiti and rebellion in 18th century Britain, or from her hit.
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A
Podcast, After Dark, which covers spook stuff from throughout.
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B
Spooky, spooky stuff.
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C
Spooky, spooky stuff. Spooky adjacent things. Sure.
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B
Throughout history. She's the editor of a new book that is freshly out with Bloomsbury, the 18th century today. And she's recently announced another forthcoming book out next May, called Truth and Lies.
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A
In the Age of Enlightenment.
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B
Welcome to the show.
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C
Thank you very much. Colette. Do you know I'd completely forgotten the 18th century today is coming out this side of Christmas. You've made me slightly panic. Now I feel like I've forgotten one of my babies.
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B
I think it's out. Is it not out?
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C
I think it's coming out soon. I think like in a couple of weeks maybe, if not already. Oh, God, who knows? I've not had my author's copy yet, so I'm assuming it's not out. Maybe I've just been forgotten about that.
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B
And also for everyone listening, you can blame anything on baby brain if you want to because you've, like, very kindly agreed.
- [01:55]
C
Yeah.
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B
You've kindly agreed to come on at a very pregnant moment in your.
- [02:00]
C
Yeah, before we started recording, I was saying to Claire, like, I cannot breathe. There is no room in my lungs. And even less now that it's after lunch while we're recording this. And there's now food sitting on top of my baby, so there really is no room for lungs. So I'm going to be breathing heavily down the microphone, which is going to be gorgeous for the editors to have to deal with. Apologies in advance.
- [02:20]
B
ASMR episode for everyone. Just us breathing. We normally like to start with, like a question or something so people know you since the. They hear my bullshit all day long. If you literally had to I'm saying, like, we're forced to go back in time and live in a different time period. So, like, someone put you in a time machine and said, you're going back. When would you? Like, I don't. It doesn't have to be a romantic. Like, I was.
- [02:48]
C
I was meant to be in the.
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B
50S, not like that kind of way.
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C
Well, do you know, I always think it's so funny when people are like, oh, I was meant to live in a different era. And it's like, bitch, please. Like, have you seen the healthcare in, like, different eras? Like, no, nobody wants to be in the past. Having said that, you know, unapologetic Outlander fan. It's gonna have to be the 18th century, because that is the moment of my expertise. And I spend a lot of time in that century in my imagination anyway. You know, I always joke with my husband. He has a job in the army and he comes home and he's like, I did this thing today, or I did this or I did that. You know, what did you do? And I'm like, well, I described an 18th century street and who was selling fruit on it and what it was like in the coffee house. And he's like, well done, darling. That's, you know, that's great. So I feel like I spent a lot of time in that world. I feel like I might be able to survive and navigate it a little bit. I don't know. I mean, my family background is all, like, immigrants and criminals and poverty. So it's still going to go well for me. I'm not going back as a duchess or anything like that.
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B
Sure. I mean, two things. One, it's always so funny when people mention Outlander. So I used to work in this, like, office during COVID because a lot of the offices were shut for the university, but I could, like, rent a space in a co working place that, like, nobody used, basically. And so it was just me alone. But it was in this close in Edinburgh, which is like a.
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A
For people who haven't been there.
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B
It's like an alley. It was in this close where they used filmed Outlander scenes.
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C
I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah.
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B
So people used to come on tours and look in the window at me working at this computer.
- [04:19]
C
And you were writing by candlelight, lit in a little shawl. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, exactly.
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B
Yeah, exactly that. One. And then two. I have the same experience that you have, except my partner is not in the army, he's a therapist, but he works at this, like, very intense community mental health place. Where, like, he's working with people of, like, very, very serious stuff going on with them.
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C
Yeah, he's doing important work. Yeah, yeah.
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B
He is saving lives. And it's wild because he. We have the same experience, and he comes home and is like, oh, I. You know, I had this patient who had. Did this and this and this and this. And, you know, I'm really trying to whatever.
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C
And what did you do?
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B
And I'm like, so I made a.
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A
Podcast about how much I hate Petrarch.
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C
We're doing God's work out here, Claire. It's fine. We're contributing to society in meaningful ways. Sure.
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B
100%.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Well, I think the people who are listening think that we're at least making their day, actually, in some cases, slightly worse for this show. Slightly worse, to be honest.
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C
Oh, great. I'm looking forward to the reviews already.
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B
Well, they're gonna hate us because we're two women talking about smart stuff. So we're in trouble from.
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C
Well, exactly. We've already fucked up. Yeah. Yeah.
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B
Let's get into what we're all actually here for. Who are you talking to me with me about today?
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C
Well, do you know when you asked me to come on the show and you were like, pick someone from history you hate, I was like, there are so many options. How can you choose? But this guy stood out for me because I encounter him all the time in my work, and every single time I do, he leaves me feeling enraged. And it is George iv. I cannot stand this man. This is therapy. I need therapy about this. Like, he literally makes me so angry. I'm. I'm outraged by so many of his behaviors and just the general state of him and will continue to be for the rest of my life.
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B
So that I will say a lot of people come on the show and are like, at the end, are like, wow, that was so cathartic. Like, wow.
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C
Maybe I will have let go of some anger by the end of this.
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B
Hopefully you experience, like, an exorcism, I think, during this, where you finally get to be like, this thing I'm not allowed to say most of the time because people need me to be this objective, scholar person. I can finally say it publicly and be taken seriously. I think it's important. Let's talk about some biographical stuff in terms of George iv.
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C
So.
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B
Or maybe actually a good place to start here is how will people have encountered him? What will people have heard about him before now?
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C
So people might know that he is the kind of party prince, essentially. So if you've ever read A Jane Austen if you've ever watched a Regency period drama. God forbid, if you've watched Bridgerton, I forgive you, sort of. I have thoughts. I'll come on and talk about that another time. He is sat on the throne during the Regency era. So he is the son of George III and Queen Charlotte and he is the Prince of Wales. He then becomes the Prince Regent once his father, King George, becomes too mentally and physically unwell to rule the nation. From 1811 until 1820 when George III dies and George becomes George IV, he has a 10 year reign and dies in. And in that time just manages to make an ass of himself at every single opportunity.
- [07:39]
B
Yeah, he really gets up to some stuff. I will say, having in doing the research for this, I was like, wow, there are so many things that are wrong with this guy, given the relatively brief amount of time that he has this much power. Can you tell me a little bit about his early life or like what it looks like before he ascends the throne?
- [08:01]
C
So George is one of 15 siblings, 13 of whom survive into adulthood or at least teenagehood. He has a difficult relationship with his father in particular. From the start he's the Prince of Wales, so I. E. The eldest son, the inheritor of the throne. And so he grows up with the knowledge that he will become the next King of Great Britain. And this sort of causes so many problems for him. On the one hand, he lives this incredibly privileged life by our modern standards and, you know, has every kind of luxury afforded to him, education, safety, all of this stuff. But he also has a father who is mentally ill for a large portion of his life. And George iii, by contrast to George iv, who we're talking about today, is someone that I'm so interested in. You know, he's in his own right, kind of a mythologized figure. He's known as the Mad King or the King who Lost America. He has all this kind of baggage that comes with him and he's not to whitewash his legacy. He's also a king that sits astride an empire that deals in violence and enslavement and all of those kind of colonial issues that very much benefit him and bolster his position. But he's a really interesting figure. He's someone who is thoughtful, intelligent, obsessed with learning. He's nicknamed Farmer George because of his interest in agriculture. He spends some of his summers on the south coast of England. So he doesn't want to be at Kew palace or at Windsor. And during that time he will like wander down the beach and talk to people, just random people and, you know, ask them questions about their lives. He's genuinely fascinated by everything. He's obsessed with the stars and the heavens and kind of mapping that. And he builds himself an observatory at Kew. He's a real intellectual and he's really, really interested in the idea of monarchy and what it should be. He takes his job very seriously. He's constantly kind of reflecting in his own writing and we have so much of his papers that survive in the royal archives. You know, kind of talking about from the very first moment of his coronation, saying, what kind of king should I be? Like, what do I owe to my people? He talks about having to put his private passions aside in order to kind of take on this role. And George, his son, the Prince of Wales by comparison is kind of just a spoiled brat really. I mean, he has none of that kind of intellectual interest. He is very fascinated with art and aesthetics, but it is only in relationship to himself. His self fashioning is off the graph. He is just so obsessed with image and the version of himself that he puts out in the world. And the other thing that I think is interesting about George from an early age is the relationship that he will go on to have with women is very, very different from the relationship that George has with George iii, has with our George's mother, Queen Charlotte.
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B
I don't know, we're calling him our George.
- [10:52]
C
Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I'm going to claim him actually. Yeah. But the terrible George, let's call him the terrible George and the more acceptable George father. So George III and Queen Charlotte have a really remarkable relationship. And anyone who has watched the Queen Charlotte George spin off of Bridgerton will know that there is some truth in that depiction. They have an arranged marriage, they, you know, meet for the first time, are literally about to go into their wedding ceremony and yet they have this passionate, long term, respectful on both sides, quite amazing relationship really. And obviously, you know, it's pretty successful. They have 15 children and it's a sort of, it's a love affair that's marked by different tragedies at different points. Charlotte is someone who really stands by her husband when he becomes mentally ill and he has these, these kind of various moments or crises with his health possibly from the moment of his coronation, certainly five years into his reign in the 1760s. There's a suggestion that he has his first kind of major bout of mental illness. The biggest One comes in 1788, 89. And there's this crisis in this moment And I think this tells you so much about the George that we're discussing, Terrible George, who is by now sort of a young man, a teenager, I guess that when George III becomes ill, he is removed from public view and treated largely at Kew Palace. And he undergoes all kinds of what we would consider really brutal treatments today. He's given ice baths, he's put in straitjackets, he's essentially tortured. Leeches are applied to his head and things like that. His head is shaved, all of this stuff. He's sleep deprived. He has the so called best doctors of the time working on him, at least one of whom has come from Bedlam Hospital, which is kind of, you know, this infamous asylum in the age. And in this moment, the public is sort of unaware of the extent of the King's illness, but behind scenes there are really panicked discussions going on about who could take over if George III really is incapacitated. And Charlotte herself steps forward to the government and says, I can do it. This is a woman who is in her own right, very well educated. She is someone who socializes on the periphery of the bluestocking group of intellectual women. She's highly connected to important collectors, important thinkers, important writers of the time. But she doesn't see herself as occupying the space of a monarchy. However, she puts herself forward because she knows her son George is completely incompetent. George himself, the Prince of Wales, builds his own support and there's a kind of rift in the royal family immediately where she goes off in one direction and the government do support her. They're not very keen on this idea of a woman, God forbid, taking over from her husband. But the alternative is this party prince who cannot take himself seriously. He has no responsibilities. There's a lot of satire that comes from this moment. You know, the 18th century is this great age of print media and satire in particular. And so we have this kind of wonderful archive of cartoons that speak to so many of the social and political issues of the day. And there's one in particular that I can think of. I think it's a Rawlinson print where it depicts King George III himself in bed, very unwell. He doesn't have his wig on. It's not the sort of kingly impression that we usually have of him. He's got his little nightcap on and he's visibly suffering, and into the room has burst the Prince of Wales and some friends, and they're sort of in like pseudo military red coat uniforms and they're drunk and they're sort of staggering in and there's a little speech bubble coming from George and he's saying something like, you know, oh, I'm just checking the old man isn't dead yet. And it's, you know, this is such.
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B
An archetype of a guy, like to just to. We have this happen a lot on the show where you're like, oh, actually I know that this image, this characterization of a person where it's sort of like you have wealthy parents who maybe strive for something and are ambitious in this way that's like they have a sort of great world historical ambition. They are trying to do something whether we think it's a good or a bad thing. They have something that they're trying to do beyond just be famous and wealthy. And then they have this kid who's this dickhead.
- [15:10]
C
He's the ultimate Nepo baby, right? Like he's literally, he's just out there, like living off the wealth and the pomp and circumstance and the privilege of his family, literally without a care in the world, you know, and he is frequenting taverns and brothels. He's a notorious womanizer. He is kind of depicted in a lot of sutter as well as a glutton. And he was known throughout his life as being overweight and particularly unhealthy. But this idea of his gluttony seeps over into a kind of moral gluttony as well, right, that he's not only physically unhealthy and therefore not really fit to be king. You know, this is still an idea, still a moment in history, I suppose, where the idea of the health of the nation and the health of the monarchy and the health therefore of the person on whose head rests the crown is sort of completely intertwined. But also this kind of moral gluttony, right, where he just can't stop himself. He has no filter, he has no self control when it comes to women, when it comes to wine, all of this stuff. There's a really amazing wine shop near St. James's palace in London, which is still a wine shop today, called the Berry Brothers.
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B
Very good wine shop.
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C
Yeah, it's really incredible. I got to film in there once for a TV show, the Skye, and we were actually talking about George iv. And one of the things that they have in there are these multi volume record books. So they used to have, I think they have a replica of it now or like a later version, but they used to have, in the 18th century, scales that people could come and sit in. It was basically a chair and you could weigh yourself. And famous people would come in and do this. And they have all these record books of the names of people who came in and the weights that they weigh. And we have people like Lord Byron coming in, talking of other kind of bad boys of this era who have no self control and have questionable morals. And George would frequent there. His name is given in a kind of code. Like, you know, they don't write down the Prince of Wales this much, but, you know, they're a little bit more discreet than that. But you can work the code out and you can find him in the records and, you know, he was kind of this very unhealthy person who was. Yeah. Kind of seen about town, always having a good time, never taking responsibility. And one of the things that he does in his youth, which will haunt him forever and deepens this rift between his father and mother and him, is that he has what is essentially an illegal marriage. So, of course, he is the heir to the throne. He's going to take over. There's the crisis. Regency, as I say, the end of the 1780s at the moment, by the way, when just across the Channel, not that many miles away in France, the French Revolution is happening and they're about to send their monarchy to the guillotine. So protecting the monarchy and stabilizing it in Britain has never been more important. And George III has disappeared. He's unwell. George iv, as he will become, is a nightmare child. And he makes this decision to get married to one of his mistresses, a woman called Maria Fitzherbert, who is well known as a Catholic.
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B
And a widow.
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C
And a widow, yeah. Yeah. Like she has all kinds of complications. I mean, I always feel incredibly sorry for her. Right. Because she was just out here living her life, but in a way that is not in keeping with the royal protocol. And there's an act called the Royal Marriages act of 1772, which basically sets out that you cannot marry a Catholic if you're going to take over the throne, and also that you cannot marry without the King's permission if you're a royal child, particularly if you are the Prince of Wales. And so George has just, you know, he's gone against his parents, obviously. His father is kind of AWOL in this moment and he. Yeah, he marries this woman and it basically causes a national crisis.
- [18:46]
A
Hello, everybody, it's Claire. If you're hearing me, that means you're currently listening to the free version of our show, because we're trying to make accessible, engaging history independently and sustainably. We switch off between free weeks and Patreon weeks. So if you're a fan of public history made by actual experts and it's in the budget for you, consider supporting our Patreon. It's only one tier, which means everyone who subscribes gets access to the same perks across the board. For the price of a pint of beer, you'll get access to a new episode every week instead of just the bi weekly free ones. And they'll all be ad free for you. You'll also get access to the full episode archive, bonus content, early access to merch and lots of other fun Patreon exclusives to sweeten the deal, just head over to patreon.com thisguysucked or follow the link in our episode description to sign up.
- [19:33]
C
So he's incredibly in debt. He's married this woman who's inappropriate, and he goes to Parliament and says, can I please? Because my mommy and daddy are busy at the moment dealing with my father's mental illness. Please could I be bailed out of the debt that I'm in? And also I haven't secretly married this Catholic lady. Everyone's lying. It's just a rumor, guys. It's, it's fine. And this is debated in Parliament and like, some of George's friends have to like, defend him on one side of the House because he's kind of associated with the Whig side of the House to the more liberal side of the House and the sort of traditional Tories are there being like, Jesus Christ, this guy needs to be stopped. Like, we're not paying his debts. What is going on? He's going to bankrupt Britain and he can't be trusted and he can't be trusted with the future of the monarchy and all this. So, yeah, he causes this whole drama. And poor Maria Fitzherbert is kind of left to disappear into the sidelines. And she is someone who is in George's life on and off forever, essentially. But she's never given the recognition or position that she believed she was marrying into. And she will eventually be sidelined when George is In, I think, 1795, forced to marry a more suitable candidate. And that Claire does not go well. It's not good.
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B
I think that should be the next.
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C
Thing we talk about, talk about.
- [20:51]
B
But I want to add, I do think it sort of presents a picture of him or paints a picture of him. If you think about the fact that, like, he is married to this woman in 19. 1985, 1785, different year in 1785. This is invalid under the Royal Marriages act of 1772, which is happening when his father is on the throne.
- [21:14]
C
So it's called.
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B
There's this actual. And then he literally, 13 years later, is like, not me, though. Can that apply to everyone but me, please? That's wild.
- [21:26]
C
Yeah. Like, you say, like, this act, you know, it's an act of Parliament, but it's literally made under the rule of his father and it's very much meant to specifically apply to the Prince of Wales, this is, you know, and future monarchs.
- [21:37]
B
It's for him.
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C
It's very much for him. Like, you know, you have known about this since 1772 at least. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, it's completely wild. So he's someone who, at least on the surface, and I think this is very much the perception of him at the time, someone who just has no respect for the institution that he's been born into and is expected to uphold. And you can look at that from a modern perspective and certainly an American perspective in this moment and in the centuries afterwards and say, well, why is there a need to uphold the monarchy? Why does that matter so much? But I think if you were a person of the sort of middle or lower classes living in Britain in this moment, and certainly by the end of the 1780s, you see what's happening in France, that sort of bubbling up of radical politics and revolution is going to spread to a certain extent into Britain. The 1790s is an incredibly paranoid moment where everyone is attempting revolution, seeing revolution, trying to squash revolution. There are multiple assassination attempts on George III throughout his life. But one of the major ones comes in the 1790s, which also involves an attempt to potentially blow up the Tower of London and raid the bank of England and things like, you know, these people. Why not? Like, these people mean business, right? Yeah. And so George, in this moment, is sort of betraying his people. He is taking it so unseriously and doesn't appear to care. And I think one of his legacies is that he's always interested in the kind of the glamour of monarchy. Right. He doesn't want to abolish the monarchy, he doesn't want to walk away from it. Like, what would he do? He has no skills, he has no appeal in the real world. And he, you know, he loves. Everything he owns is diamond encrusted. All his interiors are lavish and gorgeous. He likes a good time, he likes the best wine, he likes the best food, he likes the best women. But he is not interested in ruling, which is so different from his father. Who is, if anything, too focused on that and overthinks everything and is kind of self flagellating all the time, you know, and sort of critiquing himself and wondering what he's done wrong. And you know, famously writes in his own notes, america is lost with a big exclamation point. And like, that's like the biggest, most devastating thing that happens to him. You know, he's kind of lost the colonies and really messed up in this way. And, you know, that, you know, possibly has an effect on his mental health along with other contributing factors. But yeah, George, just George iv, as he's going to become, just does not care. And I think people in Britain are just furious at him and nobody ever really forgives him for the secret marriage to Maria. And as a result, the next woman to come into his life becomes a sort of symbol of everything that George isn't. Yeah. And so it's doomed from the start, really, because of that. She's set against him.
- [24:13]
B
Yeah. And I think there's something to the idea that if he were disrespecting the institution of the monarchy for like some subversive reason, like, if he was doing it because he was like, we need to abolish the monarchy. I want to give the power back to the people. If that's what was happening.
- [24:27]
C
He doesn't have a political thought in his head. Yeah, exactly.
- [24:30]
B
Like, it's not that he's doing that. Like, this is not a safe space for people who are like, I love the monarchy in the 18th century, like this, you know, like, we're not people who are like, we. He should have defended that. That's not the issue. The issue is that he's not doing it for anything other than personal gain. Like, for anything other than, like, mostly just kind of fun.
- [24:50]
C
He literally, he cannot think past himself. Like, he is actually incapable of thinking even about his own parents as a human being and a son, let alone as a member of the royal family. It doesn't register.
- [25:01]
B
Yeah, this is bad. On like a interpersonal and a world historical scale.
- [25:05]
C
I'm sucking a little bit.
- [25:06]
B
Okay. I do want to talk about him and Princess at the time, Charlotte, because one of the things in our notes before the show that you sent me in terms of your suggested topics was just women. And a lot of the things he does were infuriating to me while doing the background research. But the way that he behaves towards women was like. It created this, like, evil feeling inside my body, you know, where I feel so angry about this.
- [25:38]
C
It's so outrageous. The way that he behaves is just. I mean, I think he would be delicious to play if you were an actor, because he's so repulsive and vile. It would be so much fun to kind of inhabit his skin. Okay, so in 1795, having had this previous 10 years ago now, illegal marriage, he is set up with his first cousin. Not unusual for any of history, but certainly not for the Hanoverian monarchy.
- [26:06]
B
A classic.
- [26:08]
C
Yeah. The European rules in this moment are just marrying each other left, right and side.
- [26:12]
B
Look, everybody's doing incest or grifting on this show. That's one of the two options you have, basically.
- [26:18]
C
Yeah, well, there's plenty of incest here, so. Yeah, his first cousin and she's called Caroline of Brunswick and they've never met, which is, you know, again, sort of classic thing and not dissimilar to the situation in which George III and Queen Charlotte found themselves as the previous generation, however, where George and Charlotte took one look at each other and were like, oh, hello, you're nice. Like, you'll do. This is going to go well. When George and Caroline meet, I mean, it's honestly a comedy of errors. They walk into the same room together and Caroline, there's kind of rumours at court at this moment that she has bad personal hygiene, that she's kind of unattractive, she's not very pretty, she's quite plain looking. And so, of course, George is immediately kind of pissed off about this, so he walks into the room with her, they take one look at each other, and Caroline says that she feels ill just from the state of him and George. I mean, this is wild. This is like the worst possible date you could ever imagine. George runs out the room screaming that he wants a brandy. He's like, get me a drink. Yeah, it's so awful. And so within a few hours, they are marching to the altar and George is drunk. When they get there for the whole wedding ceremony, he's crying. He's visibly crying. I mean, he's so pathetic. And they spend their wedding night with George drunkenly sleeping off the day in a fireplace. Not next to a fireplace, in the fireplace. And she's just there in bed, like, okay, I've just come to this country.
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B
I'm married to this frat boy.
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C
Yeah, he's like. He wretched when he saw me, had brandy and now can't stop drinking and is like, passed out. Great. So poor, poor Caroline. Even if, you know, maybe she just needed a bath or some deodorant or something, like, poor Caroline, they managed to spend, eventually, I think it's two nights in each other's company after they're married. And they do manage to consummate the marriage. And by luck or bad luck, depending on your position, they do manage to conceive a child. And for Caroline, this is great news because it means they can then separate. They don't have any other business with each other, and so they spend years apart, during which time George just carries on with his affairs and his mistresses. And, you know, Mariah Fitzherbert is still very much on the scene, along with some other women. And he kind of sets up his own mini court in Brighton, down on the south coast of England, and creates the Brighton Pavilion, which is this kind of famous, ridiculous, gaudy, kind of quote unquote, exotic, oriental, mad, wild, architectural smorgasbord of stuff. Like, it's.
- [28:49]
B
Everyone go Google it.
- [28:50]
C
Yeah. Like, it has no coherence. There are, like, domes, there's pineapples, there's like, monkeys. There's like, some things that are meant to be sort of Chinese. There's a lot of Indian influence. It's basically like the British Empire in this moment on the English coast, made by people who have never set foot out of Britain. That's the vibe, right? And so he kind of sets this up in opposition to his father's court, which is a more kind of somber and serious affair, and he is just partying the whole time. So Caroline gets on with her own life. Good for her. She has her own affairs, she has her own relationship. And the press, you know, absolutely have a field day with this. There's depictions of her, like, sharing a bath with her Italian lover. And she supposedly has an illegitimate child.
- [29:31]
B
Honestly, go off, like, you go, queen.
- [29:34]
C
Like, good for you. Absolutely.
- [29:36]
B
Honestly, it's kind of a slave.
- [29:38]
C
Yeah, it absolutely is. And, you know, but again, it comes down to, you know, this isn't just a kind of soap opera of these people living crazy lives, but there's even discussion that the child that Caroline has had with George is illegitimate because they're both so unfaithful. Like, how can we possibly know? And therefore, you know, that impacts the future of the monarchy and all of that. So these are conversations we had in public all of the time. But the public hatred for George will really spill over. And because of that, sort of as a direct reaction, there will be support for Caroline. And it's not really because she does anything that great. She just is the opposite of George. And therefore people are like, she's our icon. Like, we're gonna go with her. So we now get into the Regency around kind of 1811 and the sort of 1810s, you know, which is very much kind of Jane Austen era. It's when Pride and Prejudice is coming out. Sense sensibility, all of that. It's the kind of, you know, polite ballroom world that we all know and love. On screen, the reality, of course, is much grimier, but this is, you know, people will have an inkling into what this world looks like. And at this moment, George iii, George's father, is so mentally unwell that he has retired again from public view. He is being treated at Kew and he will never really recover at this point. So George iv, as he is going to become in a few years, he's the Prince Regent now, for all intents and purposes, he is the monarch. And he knows his father's life won't last that long. I mean, it's remarkable, really, that George III lives as long as he does because, you know, we have all these moments of, like, real crisis. But George knows that he will become King in the foreseeable future. And he decides that he doesn't want Caroline to be his queen because he spends no time with her. She's unfaithful, he's unfaithful. Whether or not he wants Mariah, I think that's. Even he would acknowledge that was kind of unrealistic in that moment. But he certainly doesn't want Caroline. And so he wants a divorce, but he has been so publicly unfaithful that he can't really say, well, she's been unfaithful, so it's fine, we'll be able to divorce. And so he's trying to think of the way to do this, and he wants to kind of drag her through the mud, but he knows that any court in the land is going to criticise him as well. So he basically goes to Parliament, which is a rogue move, instead of a court. He's like, I am going to drag Caroline up in front of the entirety of the British Parliament. We're going to talk about her sex life, because politicians have nothing better to do. This is the era of the Napoleonic wars at this moment. So, you know, the French revolutions happened in 1789. Going into the 1790s, the French royal family been killed, Napoleon's come to power. Britain is fighting for its life across its empire with the French. It's, you know, completely wild time. There are soldiers and sailors coming back with limbs missing. In this moment, there are food shortages across Britain, particularly in the Industrial North. There's immense poverty. People are feeling pissed off. There is unrest, and there is this feeling that, you know, maybe the revolution in France wasn't such a bad thing, and maybe we should do something similar here, because this guy is not helping us. He's not doing anything to help. He's just slagging off his wife in public. So poor Caroline is called into Parliament and all the politicians on both sides of the House basically have to go through with a fine tooth comb all of her affairs, whether her children are legitimate or not. And she is just raked through the mud in a really public way. And this isn't just like, one day she has to turn up, for this is day after day after day, she is being ritually and publicly humiliated by George simply because he doesn't want her as the Queen. And eventually this becomes so popular, what he's doing to her, and she becomes the kind of symbol of the working people of Britain, the people who feel that they're being wronged by the monarchy, even though she is herself living the life of a member of the Royal family. Like, she's not slumming it, and she's not out there, like, with a placard calling for universal suffrage. She does not care. She's not invested. But she's kind of taken up as this symbol. And so George kind of backs down. Eventually, Parliament's like, what are you doing? Like, we're here every day discussing who your wife has had sex with. Like, this is embarrassing for everybody, it's embarrassing for her, it's embarrassing for you, it's embarrassing for us. We don't want to do this anymore. So eventually he kind of drops that, because they're like, we can't. We're not going to give you a divorce. This is not how Parliament works. This is not what it's for. Have you not seen in the previous century what we did to the monarchs who overstepped? Like, come on, you know, this isn't good. So eventually he kind of gives up there. But obviously the damage has been done. Caroline's been humiliated. We get to 1820 and George III dies finally, and George, Prince Regent, is now George IV officially. And the pettiness. My God, the pettiness. So he has his coronation at Westminster Abbey, as do most of the British monarchs of history, and it's, as you can imagine, a kind of ridiculous affair. He has a diamond diadem made for himself, like a tiara that was worn, I think, up until Queen Elizabeth ii. And if you see, like, old postage stamps of the queen, she's wearing it. It's very recognisable crown. But he has that made for him on the day. He's like, I want a little tiara.
- [34:41]
A
Sure.
- [34:42]
C
And, like, you know, he's like, all eyes on me, please. As I come into the abbey, Caroline turns up on the day of the coronation expecting to be crowned alongside him as the queen, and she is locked out and she is literally knocking on the doors of the abbey, like, hello, can I come in? I'm going to be queen. And she is not allowed in and she is turned away. It's. I mean, it's unprecedented. It's completely wild.
- [35:05]
A
And they're still married at this point.
- [35:07]
C
They're still married. Like, she should be the queen. She has every right to turn up and expect to be ground. Yeah, Crazy.
- [35:13]
B
So to add a little bit of context also on the. Him trying to divorce her via parliament.
- [35:19]
A
So this is part of something called.
- [35:20]
B
The Pains and Penalties Bill, or the Pains and Penalties Act.
- [35:23]
C
Yeah.
- [35:23]
B
He attempts to do this. It's so weird, like, trying to imagine someone being like, I'm going to put you on public trial because I want a divorce.
- [35:32]
C
Yeah. I mean, this isn't unusual for the 18th century, by the way. Like, lots of aristocrats were doing this in various cases. You know, there was a real kind of move to. Yeah. Humiliate your wife in a public space. But obviously, when you are the Prince Regent and eventually the king, it has ramifications that other cases just won't do. Yeah.
- [35:50]
B
And it makes the government look vindictive and authoritarian, which it is attempting to be like, he and the people who he's in cahoots with. Even though the members of Parliament are like, we gotta wrap this up, we.
- [36:01]
A
Need to be done with this.
- [36:02]
B
I mean, like, the fact that he's willing to do that says a lot about, like, how he views himself in relation to other people in his life. In relation to, like, just the idea that, like, the best use of Parliament's time is publicly debating whether or not.
- [36:16]
A
You should be allowed to divorce your.
- [36:17]
B
Wife because you want to cheat on her without. Because you want to have sex with more people without her.
- [36:24]
C
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly in this moment as well. So one of the things that happens just months before George ii dies in 1820, at the end of the 1810s, is what's known as the Peterloo Massacre. Right. And this is obviously. So we have the victory against Napoleon in 1815. The Battle of Waterloo is fought and won mostly by German forces, by the way, but it's claimed very much as a British victory, of course. And you know, that's, and still is today understood in those terms. But so we have this idea of like Waterloo suddenly becomes part of the public consciousness. You know, whole streets are named after it. Yeah. Obviously Wellington is this huge hero, as is Nelson from, you know, various naval battles in this moment as well. So we have these kind of big military heroes emerging this moment and this huge victory. But back home, as I've said, these soldiers, these people who fought a war that, you know, these might be people who were working in a factory before, they've been conscripted or whatever or signed up to fight and they're coming back, they're injured, they're disabled, there's no food, there's no jobs at home and they also don't have the vote in this moment. And so one of the things that happens in Manchester and across the north more generally is that the call for universal suffrage becomes louder and louder. And when I say universal suffrage, I do mean for men. Yeah. Women are not having the vote in this moment. But you know, we'll just shelve that for a second.
- [37:44]
B
We have another episode about that coming out before this. So they will have already learned about anti sephragists.
- [37:50]
C
Amazing. Okay, great. So the men want the vote and there's a speaker who is talking to the crowds in Manchester about this. And people, you know, it's a peaceful protest essentially against the lack of the vote, against all of these conditions for the working poor and just a call for a better life. Basically. Women come dressed in white dresses, the sign of peace. People even sing God Save the King. Like this is not a violent situation. Yeah. But the local militia, the local authorities decide this needs to be put down because it's too dangerous. This is, you know, still within living memory of the French Revolution. We don't want this on British soil. And so the cavalry is sent in with their sabers drawn and they slash at people in the crowd and 18 people are killed, including a two year old child. Women are slashed across their breasts. Famously. There's lots of depictions of this and this kind of. It becomes this incredible moment. And it happens in Peter's Fields in Manchester and it becomes known as Peterloo. And it's this kind of inversion of the great success that Waterloo was. And it's this big shame of Britain and what happens in the aftermath in order to kind of calm this down. Because this can be a moment where Britain has its own revolution. There are several moments throughout the 18th century where this could be true. There's the Gordon Riots of 1780, for example. Go look them up. There's seven days when London is like almost burnt to the ground. It's wild. 600 people are shot by the British army on London streets. Like, it's truly wild time. But the Peterloo Massacre is a moment where this could really ignite, this could really take off in a, you know, this post war, hungry, desperate world in which George is fannying around in Brighton with his, you know, exotic interiors and his fancy ladies. And what happens is there's a kind of effort to paper over what's happened and to silence the people who are involved. It becomes an act of sedition. If you talk about what happened at Peterloo, you can be prosecuted, you can be taken away, you can be sent to jail. And George is very much involved in this. He's like, I don't want this revolution happening. I just want to party. This is annoying and it's taking up too much of my time. And so in this moment in the lead up to 1820, when he's crowned, in this sort of conflict between him and Caroline, the fact that the Parliament is being called upon to debate the issue of this royal marriage, when people are being cut down in the street in the north for just asking for the vote peacefully, is completely wild. And it just gives you an impression, I think, of George's priorities, but also his complete lack of awareness and engagement and understanding with the politics of his own time. Maybe not an unawareness, but a sort of. I don't think he's ignorant. I think he's willfully ignorant. I think he is ignoring the issues.
- [40:31]
B
Or like a disregard for it.
- [40:33]
C
Yeah, he just doesn't see that it's important or he sees his own struggles as more important. Getting rid of Caroline is the priority so he can have someone else. You know, it's not even like he has multiple people lined up for this. He has, you know, string of mistresses. But, like, what is your plan, George?
- [40:49]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think also there's something to the idea that, like, so Peterloo, like you said, happens in August 1819, and a big part of what they're calling for is parliamentary reform. Like, that's a big thing that they're asking for, is they're being like, also people in Parliament, what are they doing and how are they representing us? And. And this is like, they don't actually care about us. Our living conditions are abysmal. We want a better life. We've just gone and done all this stuff for you. We've just gone and fought for you in like this incredibly, incredibly bloody, horrific war or series of wars, I should say. We, we've just gone and done all this stuff. They come back home, things are bad. They're like, we want Parliament to be better. And he's like, less than a year later, let us tie Parliament up in my insane interpersonal.
- [41:32]
C
Basically, it's completely wild. It's. Yeah, he's just, it's indefensible really. And you know, again, if you were living in Britain in this moment and you're not part of the aristocracy or the royal court, I think you would have a very different perspective on George from the one that he has on himself. Yes.
- [41:53]
A
Hi everybody, it's Claire here with my usual quick shout out to tell.
- [41:57]
B
You about other multitude shows I think you'll like.
- [41:59]
A
If you're enjoying this guy sucked this.
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B
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A
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B
Haver Isabel J. Kim are the right.
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A
Internet experts and real life besties to help us all understand what the hell is going on.
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B
I recently recorded an episode of wow if True about some Internet issues that.
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A
Are near and dear to my own heart.
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B
Things like why being an academic online is so extremely weird.
- [42:31]
A
And you'll have heard them on our.
- [42:33]
B
Show in the insidification slash Internet episode. And if you haven't listened to that one, go listen to it.
- [42:39]
C
It's.
- [42:39]
A
It's pretty good.
- [42:40]
B
And I say a lot of really mean things about Mark Zuckerberg. But that means that I can confirm that the show is a very fun to be a guest on and b.
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A
Will take you on some unexpected journeys as a listener. More importantly, wow, if True is the only show that will explain both neopets and horizontal mergers in the same episode.
- [42:57]
B
So go check it out.
- [42:58]
A
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- [44:33]
C
The other thing that I just find so fascinating about him in this moment in particular and throughout the Napoleonic wars, so sort of, you know, the end of the 1790s through the Regency is his absolute obsession with Napoleon. And it's so cringe. It gives me the ick, it really does. It's so bad. So as I said, the 1790s are this kind of time of like paranoia and, you know, worry that revolution is going to spread into Britain. And there are political groups like the London Corresponding Society that are a supposedly radical group. I mean, they're just kind of left wing people who meet and discuss things like should all people have the vote? And you know, that kind of thing. And obviously at the same moment you've got heightened calls for the abolition of slavery, which is eventually going to happen in the early 1800s. So you have the world is shifting, power is shifting. Who has power, who has a voice is changing and people are challenging that. And obviously in France, Napoleon emerges as this kind of hero of the people. Obviously that's the. There's much more nuance to that. Have you covered Napoleon yet? I imagine there's a clamoring.
- [45:30]
B
We have two episodes on Napoleon. He's our first guy that we've had double the fun.
- [45:35]
C
I mean, you could just do a podcast on Napoleon, how awful he is. Absolutely. There's so much to say, but for all intents and purposes, he's perceived as to begin with, at least, I suppose, the hero of the people. Even though he buys into the kind of royal system and actually wants to be part of that later on, or indeed from the very beginning. But we have him on one side of the Channel. And then George sees himself as the antidote to Napoleon and he starts to do things like, oh, this is so embarrassing. Obviously, you know, this is the age of, like, as I say, kind of great military heroes. You've got Nelson, you've got Wellington, you've got artists who previously were society artists painting, like, such and such lords that. Such and such. His wife and their pet dog, you know, in their lovely sweeping Capability Brown garden, They're now turning their hand to painting war heroes and putting them in these great battle scenes or with these big fearsome horses or next to a cannon or whatever it is. And George is like, I want this for me. This is my rebranding. I'm a war hero. And he is painted in military uniform again and again and again and again and again and again. He never set foot on a battlefield.
- [46:43]
B
You say, is he a war hero?
- [46:45]
C
He never leads any men anywhere. He does not fight.
- [46:49]
B
Oh, my God. Stolen valor.
- [46:51]
C
He's like, yeah. Literally, he's obsessed with this idea that he is somehow a hero. And he's like, guys, I defeated Napoleon. It was me. I've done it. And he. In the years after Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo, he collects lots and lots of items that Napoleon owned and then is painted with them.
- [47:10]
B
Ew.
- [47:11]
C
There's a famous painting where he's painted with, like, a table that Napoleon had. And he's, like, pointing at the table like, guys, I've got this table that Napoleon had.
- [47:17]
B
I'm sorry, this is so. This is so embarrassing.
- [47:20]
C
It's gross. It's so embarrassing. It's so bad. Like, it really. It makes my toes curl so badly.
- [47:26]
B
It's bad enough that we're here 200 years later being like, that's so embarrassing.
- [47:32]
C
Mortifying at the time, right? Like, and he. When he gets to the end of his life and he, you know, there's some suggestion that maybe he started to get a little bit sort of confused in his mind. And obviously, you know, there's a strong history of mental illness in his family. With his father and he would sit at court sometimes with the elderly, quite elderly by then. Wellington, who had been at Waterloo and, you know, was credited with the victory, and George would sit there and reminisce about being on the battlefield that he was never on, and he'd be like, oh my God. Do you remember that time when like I was a hero.
- [48:07]
B
I'll give him a pass in case he had like, like early on said dementia or something point.
- [48:12]
C
Sure. But earlier on when he's being painted like that, like, he's fine, he knows exactly what he's doing and he is just. He wants to be the British Napoleon, basically. And I think he. There are so many similarities between the two of them. They love a bit of bling, their sort of self indulgence and this grandiose idea of how important they are, like completely tracks. Both of them are so similar in that way. Even though obviously Napoleon represents, for all intents and purposes, a threat to the British monarchy. I think there's so many things that align there and I just. If they'd ever got in the same room together, they would have been best friends. They would have.
- [48:45]
A
Well, sure.
- [48:46]
C
It's giving Trump energy. Let's be honest.
- [48:48]
B
I think part of this also that's been so funny over all of the episodes of the show so far is that there are so many guys that we look at from different parts of history who want to be another guy that we've talked about on the show. Like this person wants to be Napoleon, who wants to be Alexander the Great, who wants to be Alcibiades, who wants to be. Like, there's this, this thing where we're like, there's a direct line from one guy to the next guy on the show that I find so, so funny where I'm like, part of this is that you all are picking the worst dudes in the world to emulate. Like, part of your problem is that you want to be another guy who sucks. Like, not just you being bad on your own.
- [49:25]
C
Yeah. And I wonder. It reflects as well like thinking today of like the Mark Zuckerbergs or Elon Musk's of the world who are so obsessed with like Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire. And you know, there's this kind of. Yeah, this through line of toxic masculine trash in history. Like, there's obviously just one bad idea that runs through the whole of this. And all these men are like, oh, I want to be like this version. It's just, it's the same thing sort of repeated again and again. And it always seems to manifest as people who are again, this very grandiose idea of self importance and a complete blinkedness of when it comes to seeing or perceiving the world or the need of others beyond your own little empire that you've created. And I think that's it's definitely true of George. He's sort of. Yeah, he's just obsessed with Napoleon. He's, you know, this great nemesis, supposedly. But I think it's a love affair, really, that never gets off the ground.
- [50:15]
B
And part of this also is this willingness to sacrifice the lives of anybody else in service of achieving this thing.
- [50:24]
A
Right.
- [50:24]
B
So like, he's not a war hero. He isn't Napoleon in that millions of people die in wars in his name necessarily. It's not like that. But he is like, I don't care about the people who are assaulted or killed at Peterloo. I don't care about these other people who have real valid concerns about what's happening in this country that I rule or this empire that I have access to and rule.
- [50:48]
C
Yeah. And, you know, often he will visit places within the British Isles and Ireland where he will be confronted by people saying, we need this from you sure you are not giving us this. This is what we require. You know, he goes to Ireland at one point and promises Catholic emancipation, which is something his father absolutely never did, even though. So George III actually had quite an interesting relationship with Catholicism. And, you know, a lot of the issues that bubble up during his reign are because of his deep feeling that the oath he takes as king is to the Protestant faith. And therefore, even though he's quite a lenient, tolerant human being in private, in political life, he's like, we can't have Catholics. That's that. But George IV rocks up to Ireland's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can all have Catholic emancipation. That's fine. Then backtracks when he gets to London, he's like, catholic what now? Never heard of it. Yeah.
- [51:35]
B
Also, as though that's not an incredible thing for him to do in the first place. And so this isn't like a world changing choice to make in the first place.
- [51:45]
C
Yeah, yeah. Like in that moment in Ireland, you know, there's this like long, long standing campaign for emancipation. And it's been peaceful predominantly. And, you know, it's just wild that he does that. And also he does things like he goes to Scotland at one point and it's kind of a trip that's like choreographed and planned by Walter Scott, who, you know, is the sort of father of like Scottishness and sort of reinventing that romantic version of Scotland. And George is so tone deaf to, you know, the requirements of the Scottish people, what they want from him in this moment, how they are suffering, how they are affected by everything that's happening in the empire. And, you know, Scotland in the 18th and 19th century has these really deep ties across the British Empire, for better and worse. And he, again, just parties when he gets up there. But one of the things that he does is he dress. Can't believe I'm saying this, he dresses all in tartan. As a Jacobite, this is insane for multiple reasons. So for listeners who aren't aware of this history. Yeah, like, it's completely wild. So we often think about, at the end of the 17th into the 18th century, the Stuart line is exiled from Britain. This is a very potted history of the Jacobite risings and the Jacobites, who are, you know, supporters of James. King James and his descendants rise up at various points in the earliest decades of the 18th century against the Hanoverian monarchies. The Hanoverians being the Georges, essentially. Yes. And this culminates in 1745 and 6 with the final rising that ends at Culloden battle on Culloden Moor. And it's. There's a more nuanced debate around this, but it's popularly seen as the end of Highland culture. You are no longer allowed to speak Gaelic. You cannot wear your clan tartan. It's kind of erasure of the culture of the people who've stood with the Jacobites, who are predominantly make up the Jacobite force in Scotland. And here is George iv, just two, three generations later, rocking up in Scotland and dressing up as the same people who tried to destroy his dynasty and who his family in turn, obliterated. And it's like party wear for him. It's like fancy dress. It's like going to a tasteless fancy dress party as a student and then being like, I should not have worn that outfit. Not that something I've ever done. But, you know, it's a wild. It's a wild choice, George.
- [54:01]
B
It's the Prince Harry Nazi party thing.
- [54:05]
C
Yeah. I mean, I definitely think, like, you can draw a through line there. Absolutely. And it's a wild thing to do. And, you know, and it's interesting because I think we associate Walter Scott with maybe slightly later into the 19th century, you know, his sort of romantic novels like Ivanhoe and things like that, that have such an impact on Queen Victoria and Albert when they go to Scotland and they fully embrace wearing tartan and, you know, spend lots of time in the Highlands and want to kind of reinstate or recreate, like a Disney version of the Scotland that they see as being lost. But here we have George, way before Victoria, decades before Victoria, just cosplaying as a Highlander, and it's again, it just speaks to how tone deaf he is and how he will not let anything, including the political stability of his nation, get in the way of a good time. It's hilarious.
- [54:53]
B
Yeah, I hate him. It is also so funny. Like, I think there is still this belief, having lived in Scotland, which listeners.
- [55:01]
A
Will have heard me say 1,000 times.
- [55:04]
B
Having spent a lot of time there, there is this, like, view of Scotland as this, like, thing that particularly English people can just, like, suck stuff out of. Can just like, take some out of, Put on a costume, wear a kilt, run around, whatever. And that's not to say that, like, Scottish people are the most oppressed people in the world or whatever. Like, it's not. Let us be real now. But there is this weird thing where, like, it just becomes this costume over and over again. And for someone in. Again, I'm also not gonna do a. My culture is not your costume thing for Scotland, because, like.
- [55:42]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [55:43]
B
Let's be real about that, too.
- [55:45]
C
Yes. And, you know, Scotland. Scotland, particularly in the 18th century, as I say, like, it has deep ties to colonialism. And, you know, a lot of. A lot of Scotland is built on the back of slavery. So, you know, it's not as simple as that, but. Yes.
- [55:55]
B
No, no. But it is interesting to, like, show up and be like, let me also rub in your face this thing that you tried to do to rid yourselves of this Central European dynasty that has taken over your. Your monarchy and be like, ha, ha. And here I am. Is like. It's just.
- [56:14]
A
If nothing else, you're right.
- [56:15]
B
It's incredibly tasteless. And it shows, like, an un about his position and, like, his power that, I think is pretty abominable. And again, if he were doing this to be subversive, I would be all for it. But he's not. He's doing it exclusively for his own, like, political. Not even political gain. It's not even. Cause he wants more power. He just wants to have fun. But he has so many people who depend on him and whose lives literally depend on him, like, keeping his act together.
- [56:46]
C
Yeah. And he's just rocking up there with Walter Scott, and you can just imagine them planning, like, you know, the little food on trays or whatever when people come to their parties and, oh, we'll.
- [56:54]
B
Have little tartan flags.
- [56:57]
C
Yeah, it's like little tartan flags and the hors d', oeuvres, and we'll only serve whiskey. You know, it's like, you can just imagine them doing, like. This is a themed party, guys. This is our Scotland Theme party. It's so gross. It's so inappropriate. And he. Yeah, he just. I just feel like he. At every single point, every opportunity he has to grow as a person, to take up the mantle that has been given to him by his father, who, as I say, was a very sort of intellectually curious, serious man who took the role of King, whether we think that was a good or a bad thing, very seriously. Yeah. You know, in some ways, it's in keeping. All the Hanoverian kings have bad relationships with their sons, so, I mean, they all should have gone to therapy instead of repeating this cycle constantly. But I do think that George, Ivan, he just turns down every opportunity to be a better person. There is no personal growth, there is no understanding or learning. There's no awareness of the impact he has on others. He leaves in his wake this devastation, including, you know, strings of women who've been abandoned by him or ruined by him in different ways, left to fend for themselves, publicly humiliated. He embarrasses his parents and, you know, poor Queen Charlotte, who lives. Lives a significant portion of her life towards the end of her husband's reign, alone, without the man that she deeply loved. She is closely involved in his medical care to the point where she is speaking to doctors every day. She wants reports. If a doctor isn't doing well enough, she will replace him with a different doctor. She's talking to experts all the time and she gets to the point where she can't go to see her husband anymore because he, as part of his illness, he becomes very sexually aggressive. There's a famous anecdote about him chasing one of the ladies in waiting, Frances Burney, who goes on to be a famous novelist and diarist at the time. He chases her around the grounds, I think, at Kew, and she describes it as one of the most terrifying events of her life. She's absolutely petrified. So, you know, this man, who has been deeply in love with his wife and deeply dignified as King, is descended to this point where everyone's horrified and Charlotte has to live out these final decades away from him and also without the support of her son, who is just being a trash person elsewhere.
- [59:11]
B
Yeah, he was like this atrocious Nepo baby who wants to dress up in costumes all the time.
- [59:16]
C
Exactly. Yeah. He's busy just dressing up as a Highlander, embarrassing himself, claiming Catholic emancipation in Ireland, cheating on his wife, Cheating on his wife, dragging her in front of Parliament and making her speak about her sex life. You know, all of this. And his parents are just having the Most horrendous time until they both eventually die. And it's so grim. And I think. I mean, he's just a terrible son. He's a terrible husband. And it's interesting. It's very telling. I think that George and Charlotte, as I say, they have these 15 children, 13 of whom survive to a reasonable age, but lots of them die in childhood. And there are two, I think, two sons, some of the youngest sons who are painted. And George III is so heartbroken by their loss that he has them painted as cherubs. And the painting hangs above his bed, or certainly in his bedroom for, like, the majority of his life. And so they mourn all of these children, apart from their first son, who is just awful, you know, and he really kind of burns his bridges there. And I can't think of anything that's redeeming about him. Like, I really can't. I was trying to think before we had this conversation of, you know, what is his legacy? Did he do anything good? I think, you know, he's kind of a patron of the arts, and he engages with the aesthetics of the day in a way that has left, like, an interesting art historical legacy for us. Yeah. But morally, politically, I just don't think there's anything there to save him. It's not looking good.
- [60:37]
B
When I was looking at this, I was also trying to do that because we get accused not often anymore, because people kind of know what the show's about.
- [60:43]
C
But every once in a while we'll.
- [60:44]
B
Get people being like, well, that's not fair, or whatever. But, like, he's not evil in a, like, Napoleonic sense. He corrodes the monarchy's legitimacy through his selfishness and stuff like that. Whatever. Those are kind of bad. Mostly because he uses his power in a way where he could have helped.
- [61:03]
A
People and instead helps himself.
- [61:04]
C
Yeah.
- [61:04]
B
His legacy really is architectural. Like, that really is the only thing.
- [61:09]
C
I can think of. Yeah. The architecture and also the military painting. Yeah.
- [61:15]
B
He leaves, like, Regents park, the Brighton Pavilion, Windsor Castle, renovations. But even these are, like, print things that he's doing.
- [61:25]
C
Yeah. The other thing that he does, which is architectural, but I don't think it's forgivable, is that he renovates Buckingham palace, which is Buckingham House, beforehand. But of course, since then, it's been hated by every monarch who's ever lived in there. Victoria famously hated it. Albert complained that, like, nothing worked properly and everything was freezing cold. And even today, I think the monarchy, you know, Charles doesn't like to use it. It's only used for events. They never live there. They don't spend any time there other than what they have to for work kind of thing. And you know, so that's a kind of. It's a big legacy in the. That it's a huge landmark in the middle of London. But again, it's quite a negative one. Nobody wants that palace. It's not great. So, yeah, I don't think he's salvageable.
- [62:04]
B
You know what? I think that's fair and I think that's a great place to end the episode because we did attempt some redemption and still couldn't really come up with anything to rehabilitate him. I'm thoroughly convinced. I think he sucks. Thank you so much for coming on. For listeners, Dr. Pelling can be found on Instagram. Maddie Pelling, her podcast After Dark is available. Wherever you get your podcast, you can get yourself a copy of Writing on the Wall. And by the time this comes out, the 18th century one.
- [62:35]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 18th century today will be out. There we go. Yeah, yeah, it will, it will. And my second proper trade press book hoax is out on, I think the 7th of May, 2026. But it really, really, really does help if people pre order it. Like, it really does make a difference.
- [62:49]
B
We say this all the time on the show and I've said it on other shows, so it's worth saying, I used to manage a bookstore and I will tell you that pre ordering, absolutely, especially if you can pre order it from your local bookstore, really, really impacts the book and its sales and how the publisher pushes and looks at books. So for people who are listening and.
- [63:10]
A
Are like thinking about getting books that.
- [63:12]
B
We talk about on the show but are waiting for them to come out, it's actually more helpful if you pre order them. Get them now, like, please.
- [63:18]
C
Yeah. And I always say, you know, especially if you've enjoyed listening to a podcast. You know, on my own podcast, we have, have incredible experts that we're so lucky to talk to. And I just think even if you're not a subscriber to the podcast and you've enjoyed that conversation for 30 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever it is for free, just go and buy their book. If you've enjoyed it, like, just go and support them. It's. It's a good thing to do. You're putting something good into the world. Don't be a George. Buy my book.
- [63:39]
B
Yeah, and also, that's a new saying. Also, the amount of money that people imagine academics, even like especially public academics make versus how much they actually, it's so much lower. If you're thinking about buying a book from someone like us, like do it and don't buy Amazon Buy. Use the code tgs@bookshop.org and you can get 10% off your entire purchase of pre orders of the books that we're talking about.
- [64:05]
C
She's a professional.
- [64:07]
B
I try thanks for tuning in to.
- [64:12]
A
This episode of this Guy Sucked. A member of the Multitude Podcast Collective. This episode was Hosted by me, Dr. Claire Aubin, featuring special guest Dr. Madeline Pelling, and edited by Julia Sheffini. All of our theme music was written and produced by super cool guy Marshall Dean Williams.
- [64:26]
B
If you'd like to support the show.
- [64:27]
A
And get access to all episodes including two extra episodes per month.
- [64:31]
C
Wow.
- [64:32]
B
And access to our full archive of episodes. Double wow. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or.
- [64:37]
A
To our patreon@patreon.com thisguysucked See you next time Week.
- [65:07]
D
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