Britain under rule of a mentally diseased King? Movie: The Madness of King George (1994)

Do we all know what a trope is? One may or may not have a basic description of it. In practice, it seems that the term it is only reserved for linguists. One thing about not knowing this technical word is that we can get really confused about its deeper meaning. Let us take the word madness, for instance. This one, of all, it is certainly a dangerous word. At least it is from the perspective of literary tropes and translation. Madness covers a wide range of meanings but when it comes to be related to history it could be troublesome. All in all, madness was confusing enough that even today is a hard topic to discuss. In the words to come we will see that avoiding a more technical or specific word for madness was in purpose (perhaps it was fictionalized).

One image is worth a thousand words… this may be true and so does music. The first thing one recognises through the first black screen is the florid rococo type of music. The famous musician George Fenton performs Georg Friedrich Händel baroque music to bring the epoch come to live. Along with this, the outfits are opulent and the whole set in brilliant.

Another advantage the movie had is that the writer, Alan Bennett studied History at Oxford University. He specialised in medieval history teaching and he is (he continues to be) also a researcher. As it is presented here, from Bennett’s point of view, the King begins a sort of a strange journey from sanity to dementia towards sanity. Of all the crazy things the King has done, shouting obscenities and behaving erratically became the norm. But, again, it has been a journey that came, with some affectation, to a happy ending. The renewed and cured King was ruling once again.

Due to the fact that insanity cannot be cured even today, this is whether a facade or at least it is charged with enough affectation to make it rarely believable. Lately, the illness was  supposed to be “porphyria”, that, of all the illnesses that one can come up with is the most suitable, two hundred and fifty years later. It seems that it is not with a sense of irony. Of course, it serves as well to cover the political and disastrous personal life that King had. In a way, and presented like this, it is essentially comical or at least a satire on the whole.

With all these information now presented, it is undeniable that it is also a historical satire. by madness the historians only refer to the first entry on the dictionary while many believe the king was insane which was really impossible. It was stated that madness cannot be cured and this idea is supported by the Web Medical Mental Health (webmd.com/mental-health). It is true that today one may find a suitable drug to lessen the symptoms but not in those times. The whole idea of using the word “madness” was politically “correct” in order not to destroy the weak reputation surrounding George. Avoiding technical words is a treat  that has been used seen the beginning of time by politicians, liars and of course… kings. Finally, Britain was not under the rule of a mentally diseased King.

George III (image)

George III

George I of Great Britain

War of the Spanish Succession

Ring Titanic

Compare and contrast the two views of the Glorious Revolution

The history has been always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history. It is true that official histories frequently have the advantage that the author or authors have been given access to archives, interview subjects and other primary sources which would be closed or inaccessible to independent historians. However, because of the necessarily close relationship between author and subject, such works may be partisan in tone, and to lack historical objectivity. That way, the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 can be told from two different views, so taking into account who wrote the article, we will find similarities and differences about the same event.

The Glorious Revolution is defined by the Parliament as a  peaceful war, yet Edward Vallance, from the BBC, said that they ignore a series of events. According to the Whig account, the events of the revolution were bloodless. But Edward said: “Although bloodshed in England was limited, the revolution was only secured in Ireland and Scotland by force and with much loss of life”.

The Whig view of the Glorious Revolution is simply that it was a triumph for the purity of constitutional law over an outrageous attempt at its perversion, a reaffirmation of the liberties of the English people. However, others have analysed the Bill of Rights and they have revealed that in several aspects it is indeed a rather conservative document. It is a declaratory Act, reasserting ancient rights and restoring the monarchy with

limitations which differed in no major or significant way from the traditional ones.

This revolution has been seen as a peaceful way in which Parliament asserted its rights over the monarchy in 1688, while the BBC describes it as an event that converts England in a merely a satellite state, under the control of an all-powerful Catholic monarch.