George III: Madness and Majesty (Penguin Monarchs)

A short, fresh and expert account of Britain's longest reigning king

King of Britain for sixty years and the last king of the future United States, George III has traditionally had a bad press as the villain of Whig history and for America's Founding Fathers a monarch of madness - and, more recently, a figure of fun and menace in the musical Hamilton. Black turns back to the archives and instead locates George within his age as a man of duty and piety, and a king who faced the loss of key colonies, rebellion in Ireland, insurrection in London, constitutional crisis in Britain and an existential threat from Revolutionary France as part of modern Britain's longest period of war.

George III rose to these challenges with fortitude and helped settle parliamentary monarchy as an effective governmental system, eventually becoming the most popular monarch for well over a century. He was also a talented and curious individual, committed to music, art and science. Taking the duties of monarchy seriously, from reviewing death penalties to trying to organize his children, George III offers a fascinating guide to this most interesting of periods.