Negroid Knight: John Gromont

HENRY OF GROSMONT
Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster, 4th Earl of Leicester and Lancaster, KG = Order of the Garter, (c. 1310 – 23 March 1361), also Earl of Derby, was a member of the English nobility in the 14th century, and a prominent English diplomat, politician, and soldier.

Portrait of Henry Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster (1310-1361), a Knight Founder of the Order 
of the Garter, wearing a blue Garter mantle over plate armour and surcoat with his
 arms. A framed tablet displays painted arms of successors in his Garter stall at St.
George's Chapel, Windsor

The son and heir of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, and Maud Chaworth, he became one of Edward III's most trusted captains in the early phases of the Hundred Years' War and distinguished himself with victory in the Battle of Auberoche.

He was a founding member and the second Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1348, and in 1351 was created duke. An intelligent and reflective man, Grosmont taught himself to write and was the author of the book Livre de seyntz medicines, a highly personal devotional treatise.

He is remembered as one of the founders and early patrons of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which was established by two of the guilds of the town in 1352. Grosmont's uncle, Thomas of Lancaster, was the son and heir of Edward I's brother Edmund Crouchback. Through his inheritance and a fortunate marriage, Thomas became the wealthiest peer in England, but constant quarrels with King Edward II led to his execution in 1322. Having no heir, Thomas's possessions and titles went to his younger brother Henry – Grosmont's father.

Earl Henry of Lancaster assented to the deposition of Edward II in 1327, but did not long stay in favour with the regency of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer. When Edward III took personal control of the government in 1330, relations with the Crown improved, but by this time the older Henry was already struggling with poor health and blindness.

Blanche of Lancaster one of the daughter of Henry Grosmont, wife of John of Gaunt mother of,
Philippa, Queen of Portugal and the Algarve, Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter,
Henry IV Bolingbroke, King of England.

Little is known of Grosmont's early years, but that he was born at Grosmont Castle in Grosmont, Monmouthshire, Wales, and that he was born c. 1310, not around the turn of the century as previously held.

According to his own memoirs, he was better at martial arts than at academic subjects, and did not learn to read until later in life. In 1330 he was knighted, and represented his father in parliament.

The next year he is recorded as participating in a royal tournament at Cheapside.

In 1333 he took part in Edward's Scottish campaign, though it is unclear whether he was present at the great English victory at the Battle of Halidon Hill. After further service in the north, he was appointed the King's lieutenant in Scotland in 1336. The next year he was one of the six men Edward III promoted to the higher levels of the peerage. One of his father's lesser titles, that of Earl of Derby, was bestowed upon Grosmont.

With the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War in 1337, Grosmont's attention was turned towards France. He took part in several diplomatic missions and minor campaigns and was present at the great English victory in the naval Battle of Sluys in 1340. Later the same year, he was required to commit himself as hostage in the Low Countries for the king's considerable debts.

He remained hostage until the next year and had to pay a large ransom for his own release. On his return he was made the king's lieutenant in the north and stayed at Roxburgh until 1342.

Bishop Henry Beaufort, the second of the
four children of John of Gaunt and his
 mistress (later wife) Katherine Swynford.

The next years he spent in diplomatic negotiations in the Low Countries, Castile and Avignon.

In 1345 Edward III was planning a major assault on France. A three-pronged attack would have the Earl of Northampton attacking from Brittany, the king himself from Flanders, while Grosmont was dispatched to Aquitaine to prepare a campaign in the south. Moving rapidly through the country, he confronted the Comte d’Isle at Auberoche on 21 October and there achieved a victory described as "the greatest single achievement of Lancaster's entire military career".

The ransom from the prisoners has been estimated at £50,000. The next year, while Edward was carrying out his Crécy campaign, Grosmont laid siege to, and captured, Poitiers, before returning home to England in 1347.

In 1345, while Grosmont was in France, his father died. The younger Henry was now Earl of Lancaster – the wealthiest and most powerful peer of the realm. After participating in the Siege of Calais in 1347, the king honoured Lancaster by including him as a founding knight of the Order of the Garter in 1348. A few years later, in 1351, Edward bestowed an even greater honour on Lancaster when he created him Duke of Lancaster. The title of duke was of relatively new origin in England; only one other ducal title existed previously. In addition to this, Lancaster was given palatinate status for the county of Lancashire, which entailed a separate administration independent of the crown.

This grant was quite exceptional in English history; only two other counties palatine existed: Durham, which was an ancient ecclesiastical palatinate, and Chester, which was crown property.

Coin of John of Gaunt

It is a sign of Edward's high regard for Lancaster that he would bestow such extensive privileges on him. The two men were second cousins through their great-grandfather Henry III and practically coeval (Edward was born in 1312), so it is natural to assume that a strong sense of camaraderie existed between them. Another factor that might have influenced the king's decision was the fact that Henry had no male heir, so the grant was made for the Earl's lifetime only, and not intended to be hereditary.

Lancaster spent the 1350s intermittently campaigning and negotiating peace treaties with the French. In 1350 he was present at the naval victory at Winchelsea, where he allegedly saved the lives of the Black Prince and John of Gaunt. The years 1351-2 he spent on crusade in Prussia. It was here that a quarrel with Otto, Duke of Brunswick, almost led to a duel between the two men, narrowly averted by the intervention of the French king, John II. In the later half of the decade campaigning in France resumed.

Coin of Jean or John II of France

After a chevauchée in Normandy in 1356 and the siege of Rennes in 1358, Lancaster participated in the last great offensive of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War: the Rheims campaign of 1359–60. Then he was appointed principal negotiator for the Treaty of Brétigny, where the English achieved very favourable terms.

After returning to England in November 1360, he fell ill early the next year, and died at Leicester Castle on 23 March. It is possible that the cause of death was the plague, which that year was making a second visitation of England.

Edward III

He was buried in the Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, Leicester, the church which he had built within the religious and charitable institution founded by his father next to Leicester Castle, and where he had re-buried his father some years previously.

Lancaster was married to Isabella, daughter of Henry, Lord Beaumont, in 1330. The two had no sons, but two daughters: Maud and Blanche.

While Maud was married to William I, Duke of Bavaria, Blanche married Edward III's son John of Gaunt.

Gaunt ended up inheriting Lancaster's possessions and ducal title, but it was not until 1377, when the dying King Edward III was largely incapacitated, that he was able to restore the palatinate rights for the county of Lancaster.

When Gaunt's son Henry of Bolingbroke usurped the crown in 1399 and became Henry IV, the vast Lancaster inheritance, including the Lordship of Bowland, was merged with the crown as the Duchy of Lancaster.

We know more about Lancaster's character than of most of his contemporaries through his memoirs, the Livre de seyntz medicines (Book of the Holy Doctors).

Coin of Henry III

This book is a highly personal treatise on matters of religion and piety, but it also contains details of historical interest.

It, among other things, revealed that Lancaster, at the age of 44 when he wrote the book in 1354, suffered from gout.

The book is primarily a devotional work though; it is organised around seven wounds which Henry claims to have, representing the seven sins.

Lancaster confesses to his sins, explains various real and mythical medical remedies in terms of their theological symbolism, and exhorts the reader to greater morality.

Negroid Knight: William Bruges

William Bruges (c. 1375 – 9 March 1450) was an English officer of arms. He is best remembered as the first person appointed to the post of Garter King of Arms, which is currently the highest heraldic office in England.

An illuminated manuscript from around 1430 AD,
showing William Bruges kneeling before St George

William Bruges was the son of Richard Bruges, Lancaster King of Arms, and his wife Katherine.

The younger Bruges was appointed Chester Herald on 7 June 1398. He was later attached to the household of Henry of Monmouth, then Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, and Duke of Aquitaine.

It is believed that Bruges was promoted to Guyenne King of Arms on the accession of Henry V and was sent to France in that capacity in early 1414. In February 1416, as Aquitaine King of Arms, Bruges was sent to emperor-elect, Sigismund, on royal business.

At this time, the titles of Aquitaine and Guyenne were interchangeable. The position of King of Arms of the Order of the Garter, usually known as Garter King of Arms, was created sometime around 1415, and Bruges appointed to it.

His father's will, dated July 1415, refers to William Bruges as both Guyenne and Garter King of Arms. After this, the next mention of Bruges in the position is 13 September 1417. It was the first time a king of arms had been specifically appointed for the service of an order of chivalry. By virtue of this office, he held permanent authority over the provincial kings of arms. Bruges's appointment as the first Garter King of Arms coincided with a series of moves to regulate heraldic matters.

In June 1417 the king clamped down on the unauthorized wearing of coat armour. In September the duke of Clarence ruled on matters of precedence between the heralds and the serjeants-at-arms.

In January 1421 the English heralds held their first chapter and directed that a common seal for that office be made.  Resolutions were to govern the office of arms and its members, with chapters summoned by Garter. In the same year, as part of Henry's revival of the Order of the Garter, some statutes of the order were revised and at about the same time many heraldic stall plates of former companions were set up in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

Bruges was also responsible for producing his Bruges Garter Book around 1430, which is the earliest known armorial of the order. In 1421 Bruges took part in the coronation of Queen Catherine, and in the following year he officiated at Henry V's funeral.

St George

Under Henry VI there was scarcely a year in which he was not sent on at least one mission, sometimes staying abroad for many months.

He was usually concerned with France, but he also visited Normandy and Brittany, Flanders, Hainault and Holland, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Bruges died on 9 March 1450 on his sizeable estate in Kentish Town. He was buried in St George's Church, Stamford.

He had married, before 1415, Agnes Haddon, and they had three daughters, one of whom, Katherine, married John Smert, Bruges' successor as Garter.

ST GEORGE
Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος, Geṓrgios; Latin: Georgius; AD 275–281 to 23 April 303), according to legend, was a Roman soldier of Greek origin and officer in the Guard of Roman emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for failing to recant his Christian faith.

As a Christian martyr, he later became one of the most venerated saints in Christianity and in particular the Crusades. In hagiography, as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and one of the most prominent military saints, he is immortalised in the myth of Saint George and the Dragon. His memorial, Saint George's Day, is traditionally celebrated on April 23. (See under "Feast days" below for the use of the Julian calendar by the Eastern Orthodox Church.)

Numerous countries, cities, professions and organisations claim Saint George as their patron. George's parents were Christians of Greek background, his father Gerontius (Greek: Γερόντιος, Gerontios meaning "old man" in Greek) was a Roman army official from Cappadocia, and his mother Polychronia (Greek name, meaning she who lives many years) was a Christian and a Greek native from Lydda in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina.

Accounts differ regarding whether George was born in Cappadocia or Syria Palaestina, but agree that he was raised at least partly in Lydda.

St George

There is little information on the early life of Saint George. Two stories tell of his possible origins. One says that he was born in the region of Cappadocia, which is now located in central Turkey.

George's parents were both Christian, and they brought him up to be a Christian. His father died when he was fourteen, and his mother took George back to her homeland of Syria Palaestina.

At seventeen, he joined the Roman army. A second story says that George's father came from Cappadocia.

His mother was from Lydda, in Syria Palaestina, and George was born in Lydda.

Both of his parents were from noble Greek families and gave him the Greek name of Georgios (meaning farmer, earth-worker). George's father had been an officer in the Roman army, so George joined the Roman army as soon as he could. At the age of 14, George lost his father; a few years later, George's mother died. George then decided to go to Nicomedia and present himself to Diocletian to apply for a career as a soldier. Diocletian welcomed him with open arms, as he had known his father, Gerontius—one of his finest soldiers. By his late twenties, George was promoted to the rank of military tribune and stationed as an imperial guard of the Emperor at Nicomedia.

On 24 February 303, Diocletian, influenced by Galerius, issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods of the time. However, George objected, and with the courage of his faith, approached the Emperor and ruler. Diocletian was upset, not wanting to lose his best tribune and the son of his best official, Gerontius. But George loudly renounced the Emperor's edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian.

St George

Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money, and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Roman gods; he made many offers, but still George refused. Recognising the futility of his efforts and insisting on upholding his edict, Diocletian ordered that George be executed for his refusal. Before the execution, George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself.

After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords during which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on 23 April 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra of Rome and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians, as well, so they joined George in martyrdom. His body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

Moorish Britain, Multicultural Infidelity

Dr Samuel Johnson (1755 A.D.) has, "(Moor, and in Latin Maurus): A Negro Black Moor." European animosities were chiefly those of sex, class, religion and nationality.

Francis Barber

Under Edward III an English man who so "lowered" himself as to have intercourse with an Irish woman, was guilty of high treason. The penalty of which is to be half-hanged, disembowelled and quartered.

The irony of this is that both the Irish and English were of the same faith of Catholicism. Dr Samuel Jackson said his Negro servant and heir, Frank Barber, was a great favourite with the women. "Frank," he said "has carried the empire of cupid further than most men." He had a white wife that bore him children.

FRANCIS BARBER

Francis Barber (c. 1742/3 – 13 January 1801), born Quashey, was the Jamaican manservant of Samuel Johnson in London from 1752 until Johnson's death. 

Johnson made him his residual heir, with £70 a year to be given him by Trustees, expressing the wish that he moves from London to Lichfield, in Staffordshire, Johnson's native city. After Johnson's death, Barber did this, opening a draper's shop and marrying a local woman. Barber was also bequeathed Johnson's books and papers, and a gold watch. In later years, he had acted as Johnson's assistant in revising his famous Dictionary of the English Language and other works. Barber was also an important source for Boswell concerning Johnson's life in the years before Boswell himself knew Johnson.

Barber was born a slave in Jamaica on a sugarcane plantation belonging to the Bathurst family. His original name was Quashey, which was a common name for a male slave.

Dr Samuel Jackson

 At the age of about 15, he was brought to England by his owner, Colonel Richard Bathhurst, whose son, also called Richard, was a close friend of Johnson. Barber was sent to school in Yorkshire. 

Johnson's wife Elizabeth died in 1752, plunging Johnson into a depression that Barber later vividly described to James Boswell.

The Bathursts sent Barber to Johnson as a valet, arriving two weeks after her death. Although the legal validity of slavery in England was ambiguous at this time (with Somersett's Case of 1772 clarifying that it did not exist in England), when the elder Bathurst died two years later he gave Barber his freedom in his will, with a small legacy of £12 (equivalent to £2,000 in 2015).

Johnson himself was an outspoken opponent of slavery, not just in England but in the American colonies as well.

The Earl of Craven caught his Negro servant, with his mistress, Harriette Wilson. He was reported as saying, "her dismissal from my cottage was because I caught her on the knee of my black footman, Mingo, and I bundled black and white into the coach together to seek their fortune."

Harriette, was the most talked-of female writer of her time. She later became the mistress of the Duke of Wellington of Waterloo fame. Harriette though, does mention Mingo.

WILLIAM CRAVEN 1st Earl of Craven (1770–1825)
Craven was the eldest son of William Craven, 6th Baron Craven, and succeeded his father as seventh Baron Craven in 1791. He served in the Army and achieved the rank of major-general.

William Craven

 In 1801 he was created Viscount Uffington, in the County of Berkshire, and Earl of Craven, in the County of York. The earldom was a revival of the title held by his 17th-century kinsman and namesake William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven.

Craven later served as Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire from 1819 to 1826. He mostly resided at Coombe Abbey, near Coventry in Warwickshire and occasionally at Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire. He is not entirely forgotten — Harriette Wilson begins her famous memoir, "I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven." Craven married Louisa Brunton in 1807. He died in July 1825, aged 54, and was succeeded in his titles by his son William.

HARRIETTE WILSON
Harriette Wilson (22 February 1786 – 10 March 1845) was a celebrated British Regency courtesan, whose clients included the Prince of Wales, the Lord Chancellor and four future Prime Ministers.

Harriette Dubouchet was one of the fifteen children of Swiss John James Dubouchet (or De Bouchet), who kept a small shop in Mayfair, England, and his wife Amelia, née Cook.

Her father is said to have assumed the surname of Wilson about 1801. She began her career at the age of fifteen, becoming the mistress of William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven, 7th Baron Craven.
 Among her other lovers with whom she had business arrangements was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who commented "publish, and be damned" when informed of her plans to write her memoirs.

Her decision to publish was partly based on the broken promises of her lovers to provide her with an income in her older age. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Written By Herself, first published in 1825, are still in print. They are celebrated for their opening line:

Harriette Wilson

"I shall not say how and why I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven."

Her sisters Amy, Fanny and Sophia also became courtesans. Sophia married respectably into the aristocracy, when she wed Lord Berwick at age 17.

ARTHUR WELLESLEY 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852), was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain. His defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 put him in the top rank of Britain's military heroes. Wellesley was born in Dublin, belonging to the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. He was commissioned as an ensign in the British Army in 1787, serving in Ireland as aide-de-camp to two successive Lords Lieutenant of Ireland. He was also elected as a Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons.

He was a colonel by 1796, and saw action in the Netherlands and in India, where he fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War at the Battle of Seringapatam. He was appointed governor of Seringapatam and Mysore in 1799 and, as a newly appointed major-general, won a decisive victory over the Maratha Confederacy at the Battle of Assaye in 1803.

Wellesley rose to prominence as a general during the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, and was promoted to the rank of field marshal after leading the allied forces to victory against the French Empire at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Following Napoleon's exile in 1814, he served as the ambassador to France and was granted a dukedom. During the Hundred Days in 1815, he commanded the allied army which defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, together with a Prussian army under Blücher.

Wellesley's battle record is exemplary; he ultimately participated in some 60 battles during the course of his military career.

Wellington is famous for his adaptive defensive style of warfare, resulting in several victories against numerically superior forces while minimising his own losses. He is regarded as one of the greatest defensive commanders of all time, and many of his tactics and battle plans are still studied in military academies around the world.

After ending his active military career, Wellington returned to politics. He was twice British prime minister as part of the Tory party: from 1828 to 1830, and for a little less than a month in 1834. He oversaw the passage of the Catholic Relief Act 1829, but opposed the Reform Act 1832. He continued as one of the leading figures in the House of Lords until his retirement and remained Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until his death.

Moorish Britain A love Poem

A Latin poem entitled, "Aethiopissa ambit cestum Diversi Coloris Virum," Ethiopian umfasst die offensichtliche Farbe Mann, German, or Éthiopien englobe l'homme de couleur évidente, French.

Purely for Visualisation not the
Real Black Moor Woman

Meaning "Ethiopian encompasses the obvious colour man" of the English poet George Herbert 1593 to 1633 AD, translated to English by his contemporary Henry Rainolds.

In these poems was a love letter from a Black Moor woman to Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, 1592 – 1669 AD. 

Stay lovely boy, while fliest thou me That languish in this flame for thee I’m black ‘tis true, why so is night And love cloth in dark shade delight The whole world do but close thine eyes

Will seem to thee as black as I am Or open it and see what a black shade Is by thine own fair body made That follows thee where ere thou go (Oh, who allowed would not do so?) Let me for ever dwell so nigh

And thou shall need no other shade than I. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, replied: Black maid complain not that I fly When fate commands antipathy Prodigious might that union prove Where night and day together move

And the conjunction of our lips Not kisses make but an eclipse In which the mixed black and white Portends more terror than delight Yet if my shadow then will be Enjoy thy dearest wish: But se Thou take my shadow’s property

Thou hastes away when I come nigh Else stay till death has blinded me And then I will bequeath myself to thee.

Henry King, Bishop of Chichester

Sir William Smith says the Moor were Known in the Alexandrian dialect as "Black," and that “the Moors must not be considered a different race from the Numidians." Atgier said "to the Greeks, Romans and Gauls, the Moor were Known as Black people."

He added "the word Mauretania, inhabited by Black populations and was later called Nigrita, or Negroland." 

"Moor" for Negro continued to be use in England until at least the 18th century A.D. Nathaniel Bailey, compiler of the first English dictionary, (1736 A.D) has "(Moor): more (French); more (Italian and Spanish), or Black Moor native of Mauretania." 

NATHAN BAILEY

Nathan Bailey (died 27 June 1742), was an English philologist and lexicographer. He was the author of several dictionaries, including his Universal Etymological Dictionary, which appeared in some 30 editions between 1721 and 1802. Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum (1730 and 1736) was the primary resource mined by Samuel Johnson for his Dictionary of the English Language (1755).

Bailey, with John Kersey the younger, was a pioneer of English lexicography, and changed the scope of dictionaries of the language. Greater comprehensiveness became the common ambition. Up to the early eighteenth century, English dictionaries had generally focused on "hard words" and their explanation, for example those of Thomas Blount and Edward Phillips in the generation before. With a change of attention, to include more commonplace words and those not of direct interest to scholars, the number of headwords in English dictionaries increased spectacularly. 

Innovations were in the areas of common words, dialect, technical terms, and vulgarities.

Nathanael Bailey

Thomas Chatterton, the literary forger, also obtained many sham-antique words from reading Bailey and Kersey.

Bailey's An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, from its publication in 1721, became the most popular English dictionary of the 18th century, and went through nearly thirty editions. It was a successor to Kersey's A New English Dictionary (1702), and drew on it. 

A supplementary volume of his dictionary appeared in 1727, and in 1730 a folio edition, the Dictionarium Britannicum containing many technical terms. Bailey had collaborators, for example John Martyn who worked on botanical terms in 1725.

Samuel Johnson made an interleaved copy the foundation of his own Johnson's Dictionary. The 1755 edition of Bailey's dictionary bore the name of Joseph Nicol Scott also; it was published years after Bailey's death, but months only after Johnson's dictionary appeared. 

Now often known as the "Scott-Bailey" or "Bailey-Scott" dictionary, it contained relatively slight revisions by Scott, but massive plagiarism from Johnson's work. A twentieth-century lexicographer, Philip Babcock Gove, attacked it retrospectively on those grounds. 

In all, thirty editions of the dictionary appeared, the last at Glasgow in 1802, in reprints and versions by different booksellers.

George Herbert 

Bailey's dictionary was also the basis of English-German dictionaries. These included those edited by Theodor Arnold (3rd edition, 1761), Anton Ernst Klausing (8th edition, 1792), and Johann Anton Fahrenkrüger (11th edition, 1810). 

Bailey also published a spelling-book in 1726; 'All the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus Translated,' 1733, of which a new edition appeared in 1878; 

'The Antiquities of London and Westminster,' 1726; 'Dictionarium Domesticum,' 1736 (which was also a cookbook on recipes, including fried chicken); Selections from Ovid and Phædrus; and 'English and Latin Exercises.' In 1883 appeared 'English Dialect Words of the Eighteenth Century as shown in the . . . Dictionary of N. Bailey', with an introduction by W. E. A. Axon (English Dialect Society), giving biographical and bibliographical details.

Negroid Russian: Alexander Pushkin

ALEXANDAR PUSHKIN
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin  6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

His matrilineal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was kidnapped from what is now either Eritrea or Cameroon (there are various scholarly views on this) and raised in the household of Peter the Great.

He published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov.

His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialised between 1825 and 1832. Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment who attempted to seduce the poet's wife, Natalia Pushkina.

Pushkin's mother, Nadezhda (Nadya) Ossipovna Gannibal (1775–1836), was descended through her paternal grandmother from German and Scandinavian nobility. She was the daughter of Ossip Abramovich Gannibal (1744–1807) and his wife, Maria Alekseyevna Pushkina (1745–1818).

Ossip Abramovich Gannibal's father, Pushkin's great-grandfather, was Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696–1781), an African page kidnapped to Constantinople as a gift to the Ottoman Sultan and later transferred to Russia as a gift for Peter the Great.

Marquess of Milford Haven, descendant of Pushkin,
Great-grandson of Queen Victoria, cousin of George VI

Abram wrote in a letter to Empress Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, that Gannibal was from the town of "Lagon".

Largely on the basis of a mythical biography by Gannibal's son-in-law Rotkirkh, some historians concluded from this that Gannibal was born in a part of what was then the Abyssinian Empire. Vladimir Nabokov, when researching Eugene Onegin, cast serious doubt on this origin theory.

Later research by the scholars Dieudonné Gnammankou and Hugh Barnes eventually conclusively established that Gannibal was instead born in Central Africa, in an area bordering Lake Chad in modern-day Cameroon. After education in France as a military engineer, Gannibal became governor of Reval and eventually Général en Chef (the third most senior army rank) in charge of the building of sea forts and canals in Russia.

Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen. By the time he finished school as part of the first graduating class of the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg, his talent was already widely recognised within the Russian literary scene. After school, Pushkin plunged into the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of the capital, Saint Petersburg. In 1820 he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Ludmila, amidst much controversy about its subject and style.

Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. This angered the government, and led to his transfer from the capital in May 1820. He went to the Caucasus and to Crimea, then to Kamianka and Chi?inau, where he became a Freemason.

General Abraham Petrovic Hannibal or Gannibal, Pushkin's Great Grandad

Pushkin's married lover, Anna Petrovna Kern, for whom he probably wrote the most famous love poem in the Russian language. Here he joined the Filiki Eteria, a secret organisation whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule in Greece and establish an independent Greek state. He was inspired by the Greek Revolution and when the war against the Ottoman Turks broke out he kept a diary recording the events of the great national uprising.


He stayed in Chi?inau until 1823 and wrote two Romantic poems which brought him wide acclaim; The Captive of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisaray. In 1823 Pushkin moved to Odessa, where he again clashed with the government, which sent him into exile on his mother's rural estate of Mikhailovskoye (near Pskov) from 1824 to 1826.

present day Marquess of Milford Haven

 In Mikhaylovskoye, Pushkin wrote nostalgic love poems which he dedicated to Elizaveta Vorontsova, wife of Malorossia's General-Governor. Then Pushkin continued work on his verse-novel Eugene Onegin.

In Mikhaylovskoye, in 1825, Pushkin wrote the poem To***. It is generally believed that he dedicated this poem to Anna Kern, but there are other opinions. Poet Mikhail Dudin believed that the poem was dedicated to the serf Olga Kalashnikova. Pushkinist Kira Victorova believed that the poem was dedicated to the Empress Elizaveta Alekseyevna.

Vadim Nikolayev argued that the idea about the Empress was marginal and refused to discuss it, while trying to prove that poem had been dedicated to Tatyana Larina, the heroine of Eugene Onegin.

Authorities allowed Pushkin to visit Tsar Nicholas I to petition for his release, which he obtained. However, insurgents in the Decembrist Uprising (1825) in Saint Petersburg had kept some of Pushkin's earlier political poems, and he quickly found himself under the strict control of government censors, unable to travel or publish at will. During that same year (1825), Pushkin also wrote what would become his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov, while at his mother's estate. He could not however, gain permission to publish it until five years later. The original and uncensored version of the drama was not staged until 2007.

Around 1825–1829 he met and befriended the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, during exile in central Russia.

Ivan Abramovich Gannibal,
Puskin's Great Uncle 

 In 1829 he travelled through the Caucasus to Erzurum to visit friends fighting in the Russian army during the Russo-Turkish War. Around 1828, Pushkin met Natalia Goncharova, then 16 years old and one of the most talked-about beauties of Moscow.

After much hesitation, Natalia accepted a proposal of marriage from Pushkin in April 1830, but not before she received assurances that the Tsarist government had no intentions to persecute the libertarian poet.

Later, Pushkin and his wife became regulars of court society. They officially became engaged on 6 May 1830, and sent out wedding invitations. Due to an outbreak of cholera and other circumstances, the wedding was delayed for a year.

The ceremony took place on 18 February 1831 (Old Style) in the Great Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow. When the Tsar gave Pushkin the lowest court title, the poet became enraged, feeling that the Tsar intended to humiliate him by implying that Pushkin was being admitted to court not on his own merits but solely so that his wife, who had many admirers including the Tsar himself, could properly attend court balls.


In the year 1831, during the period of Pushkin's growing literary influence, he met one of Russia's other great early writers, Nikolai Gogol. After reading Gogol's 1831–1832 volume of short stories Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, Pushkin supported him and would feature some of Gogol's most famous short stories in the magazine The Contemporary, which he founded in 1836.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

By the autumn of 1836, Pushkin was falling into greater and greater debt and faced scandalous rumours that his wife had a love affair. On 4 November he sent a challenge to a duel for Georges d'Anthès (Dantes-Gekkern).

Jacob van Heeckeren, d'Anthès step-father, asked the duel be delayed by two weeks. With efforts by the poet's friends, the duel was cancelled.

On 17 November Georges d'Anthès made a proposal to Natalia Goncharova's (Pushkina's) sister – Ekaterina Goncharova.

The same day Pushkin sent the letter to refuse the duel. The marriage didn't resolve the conflict. Georges d'Anthès continued to pursue Natalia Goncharova in public. Rumours that Georges married Natalia's sister just to save her reputation started to spread.

On January 26 (7 February) of 1837 Pushkin sent a "highly insulting letter" to Heeckeren. The only answer for that letter could be a challenge to a duel, and Pushkin knew it.

Pushkin received the formal challenge to a duel through his sister-in-law, Ekaterina Gekkerna, approved by d'Anthès, on the same day through the attaché of the French Embassy Viscount d'Archiac. Since Dantes-Gekkern was the ambassador of a foreign country, he could not fight a duel – it would mean the immediate collapse of his career.

The duel with d'Anthès took place on January 27 at the Black River. Pushkin was wounded in a hip and the bullet penetrated into the abdomen.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

At that time that kind of wound was fatal. Pushkin learned about it from the medic Arendt, who did not conceal the true state of affairs. Two days later, on January 29 (February 10) at 14:45 Pushkin died of peritonitis.

By Pushkin's wife's request he was put in the coffin in an evening dress – not in chamber-cadet uniform. The funeral service was assigned to the St. Isaac's Cathedral, but it was moved to Konyushennaya church.

The ceremony took place at a large gathering of people. After the funeral, the coffin was lowered into the basement, where it stayed until 3 February, before the departure to Pskov.

Alexander Pushkin was buried on the territory of the monastery Svyatogorsk Pskov province. His last home is now a museum.

Negroid Russian: Admiral Ivan Hannibal

IVAN HANNIBAL
Ivan Abramovich Gannibal June 5, 1735 – October 12, 1801) was an eminent Russian military leader.

Ivan Abramovich Gannibal

 He was the son of military commander and politician Abram Petrovich Gannibal, as well as the great-uncle of Russia's most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin. His father was born somewhere in Africa, either in modern Eritrea or modern Cameroon.

Gannibal led a detachment of the Imperial Black Sea Fleet, which besieged and captured the Turkish fortress of Navarin during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), and took part in the founding of the city of Kherson. Gannibal's ultimate military rank was Général en Chef.

Gannibal was the oldest of 10 children born to Abram Gannibal and his Swedish wife Christina Regina Siöberg in Karjaküla, Reval Governorate, Russian Empire (presently in Estonia).

Gannibal was destined for a military career from an early age, entering the Naval Artillery School in the imperial capital at the age of 9.

He would eventually graduate from the Naval Academy and join the Imperial Russian Navy as an officer. At the height of the Russo-Turkish War, the 34-year-old Gannibal, in the rank of Brigadier, took a leading role in the siege and capture of the Ottoman fortress of Navarin.

The Russian Mediterranean Expeditionary Force under the command of Count Alexey Grigoryevich Orlov, sent a Squadron of ships toward Navarin in the early spring of 1770.

 Abram Petrovich Gannibal, Ivan Gannibal's Dad

 Three of the vessels were sent toward shore with a forward force of 300 men and a number of artillery pieces, under Gannibal's command. The forward force commenced an artillery barrage on the fortress, eventually forcing its surrender after several days of bombardment. The Russians would use Navarin as a temporary naval base for the following several months. Gannibal was awarded the Order of St. George, third degree, for his actions in the siege of Navarin.

Gannibal also took part in the Battle of Chesma later on in 1770. During the battle he was aboard the battleship "St. Eustathius", which exploded and sank as a result of the intense action.

Ivan Abramovich Gannibal

 Gannibal had to be rescued from the water after the explosion. In 1772 Gannibal was promoted to Major-General, and in 1776 he was given in the command of the entire naval artillery in the Imperial Navy. The following year, 1777, he was appointed by Empress Catherine II to a seat in the Russian Admiralty, the supreme governing body of the Imperial Navy.

In 1778 Gannibal was appointed commander of the Kherson fortress, which he was tasked with building along with the surrounding city, on the order of Catherine II. He took to the task with zeal, erecting a functioning fortress and port within a relatively short period of time.

For his efforts in the founding and building of Kherson, the Empress bestowed upon Gannibal the Order of St. Vladimir, first class (1780), the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (1781), a jewel-encrusted snuff box decorated with a portrait of the Empress herself, and a 20,000-desiatina estate southwest of Kherson, now within the town of Bilozerka.

Gannibal is considered to be one of the founders of the city of Kherson. One of the squares of Kherson bears his name. Gannibal retired from the army in 1784, having fallen out with Prince Grigory Potyomkin. His ultimate rank was Général en Chef, the same rank as his father two decades before.

Gannibal retired to his father's estate (and final resting place) in the village of Suyda near the capital city. There he died, childless and a lifelong bachelor, in 1801.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin 

 He was buried in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

ALEXANDAR PUSHKIN
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin  6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.

Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His matrilineal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was kidnapped from what is now either Eritrea or Cameroon (there are various scholarly views on this) and raised in the household of Peter the Great.

He published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialised between 1825 and 1832.

Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment who attempted to seduce the poet's wife, Natalia Pushkina.

Negroid Russian: General Abraham Hannibal

General Abraham Hannibal was born in 1670 in Eritrea, East Africa. As a young child he was stolen from his parents and sold in to slavery. He ended up in Turkey.

General Abraham Hannibal or Gannibal

In parts of Europe the fate for black people was much kinder than that of the millions who were sold into the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as the story of Abraham Hannibal shows.

Abraham was taken to Russia where Tsar Peter (Peter the Great) and his wife Christina Queen of Poland adopted him.When Abraham was a young man, his biological parents found him and told him his real name was Ibrahim Hannibal and he was a descendent of the Carthaginian Empire. Alike his namesake Hannibal, the great African military genius who lived around 200 BC, Abraham also became a military genius.

Tsar Peter sent Abraham to France to learn mathematics and engineering from the highest education institutes. During Abraham's studies, war broke out between France and Spain and in 1718, he joined the French army to gain access to the best military engineering program and was captured by the Spanish army. He was released in 1722 and promoted to lieutenant and continued to study mathematics and engineering in France for anther year. he returned to Russia the following year and his advanced training enabled him to apply and successfully acquire posts first as an engineer and than as a mathematics tutor for one of the Tsar's private guard units.

Coin of Russian Tsar Peter the Great

Abraham was sent to Siberia for three years to complete an engineering project. During this time he built a fortress and led several construction projects where he became a master engineer. he completed his service in Siberia in 1733 and returned to the court in 1741. Abraham had 11 children, most of whom became members of the Russian royalty, he was the great grandfather to one of Russia's great men, Alexander Pushkin the poet and father of modern Russian literature.

In 1704, after one year in Constantinople, Gannibal was ransomed and taken to the Russian capital by the deputy of the Russian ambassador Sava Vladislavich-Raguzinsky, on orders of his superiors (one of whom was Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, great-grandfather of the celebrated writer Leo Tolstoy), and was presented to Peter the Great.

The Emperor is noted to have taken a liking to the boy’s intelligence and potential for military service, and brought the child into his household.

Abram had a close relationship with Peter, and starting at a young age the boy Abram would travel alongside the emperor during his military campaigns. During these military journeys, Abram served as his godfather’s valet. Abram valued his relationship with his godfather, as well as that with Peter’s daughter (Elizabeth), and was loyal to them as if they were family.

Gannibal was baptised in 1705, in St. Paraskeva Church in Vilnius, with Peter as his godfather. The date of Gannibal’s baptism held personal significance. He used that date as his birthday because he did not know his actual date of birth. In an official document that Gannibal submitted in 1742 to Empress Elizabeth, while petitioning for the rank of nobility and a coat of arms, he asked for the right to use a family crest emblazoned with an elephant and the mysterious word "FVMMO", which means "homeland" in the Kotoko language. In his book, Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg, Hugh Barnes writes of meeting with the sultan of Logone-Birni, who gave him the same translation of the word.

However, Frances Somers-Cocks, author of The Moor of St Petersburg: In the Footsteps of a Black Russian, met the same sultan and received a different translation for FVMMO.

General Hannibal Coat of  Arms

She also suggested that FVMMO stands for the Latin expression Fortuna Vitam Meam Mutavit Omnino which means "Fortune has changed my life entirely."

In 1717, Gannibal was taken to Metz to continue an education in the arts, sciences and warfare. By then he was fluent in several languages and excelled in mathematics and geometry. In 1718 Gannibal joined the French Army with hopes of pleasing his godfather by expanding his military engineering education.

Gannibal enrolled in the royal artillery academy at La Fère in 1720, and he fought for France against Spain in the War of the Quadruple Alliance. rising to the rank of captain. It was during his time in France that Gannibal adopted his surname in honour of the Carthaginian general Hannibal (Gannibal being the traditional transliteration of the name in Russian). While fighting in the French war against Spain, Gannibal received a head injury.

Gannibal returned to Metz to further his education at a new artillery school. In Paris he met and befriended such Enlightenment figures as the Baron de Montesquieu and Voltaire (this claim by his biographer Hugh Barnes is disputed by reviewer Andrew Kahn). Voltaire called Gannibal the "dark star of the Enlightenment".

In 1723 Gannibal returned to Russia to fill a post as a military engineer.

Ivan Hannibal II

Gannibal's education was completed by 1722 and he was due to return to Russia. After the death of Peter in 1725, Prince Menshikov gained power in Russia due to his good standing with Peter. However, Menshikov was not fond of Abram and was suspicious of his foreign origins and superior education.

Gannibal was exiled to Siberia in 1727, some 4,000 miles to the east of Saint Petersburg. He was pardoned in 1730 because of his skills in military engineering. After Peter's daughter Elizabeth became the new monarch in 1741, Gannibal became a prominent member of her court, rose to the rank of major-general, and became superintendent of Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), a position he held from 1742 to 1752.

A letter signed on 22 March 1744 by "A. Ganibal" (note only one 'n') is held at the Tallinn City Archives. In 1742, the Empress Elizabeth gave him the Mikhailovskoye estate in Pskov province with hundreds of serfs. He retired to this estate in 1762.

Gannibal married twice. His first wife was Evdokia Dioper, a Greek woman. The couple married in 1731. Dioper despised her husband, whom she was forced to marry. The marriage between Dioper and Gannibal was very volatile and he suspected her of infidelity early in their marriage. Gannibal’s suspicions were confirmed when Dioper gave birth to a white daughter.

When Gannibal found out that she had been unfaithful to him, he had her arrested and thrown into prison, where she spent eleven years. Gannibal began living with another woman, Christina Regina Siöberg (1705–81), daughter of Mattias Johan Siöberg and wife Christina Elisabeth d'Albedyll.

Aleksandr Pushkin

 And married her bigamously in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), in 1736, a year after the birth of their first child and while he was still lawfully married to his first wife.

His divorce from Dioper did not become final until 1753, upon which a fine and a penance were imposed on Gannibal, and Dioper was sent to a convent for the rest of her life. Gannibal's second marriage was nevertheless deemed lawful after his divorce.

Gannibal’s second marriage to Christina was much happier and he appreciated her fidelity and affection towards him. On her paternal side, Gannibal’s second wife was descended from noble families in Scandinavia and Germany: Siöberg (Sweden), Galtung (Norway) and Grabow (Denmark and Brandenburg).

Her paternal grandfather was Gustaf Siöberg, Rittmester til Estrup, who died in 1694, whose wife Clara Maria Lauritzdatter Galtung (ca. 1651–98) was the daughter of Lauritz Lauritzson Galtung (ca. 1615–61) and of Barbara Grabow til Pederstrup (1631–96).

Abram Gannibal and Christine Regina Siöberg had ten children, including a son, Osip. Osip in turn would have a daughter, Nadezhda, the mother of Aleksandr Pushkin. Gannibal's oldest son, Ivan, became an accomplished naval officer who helped found the city of Kherson in 1779 and attained the rank of General-in-Chief, the second highest military rank in imperial Russia.

Some British aristocrats descend from Gannibal, including Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster and her sister, Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn. George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, is also a direct descendant, as the grandson of Nadejda Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven. Aberaham died around 1761 AD.
To be continued.

British Negroid King & Queen: George III, Charlotte

GEORGE III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death.

George III

He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors he was born in Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

George was born in London at Norfolk House. He was the grandson of King George II, and the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. As Prince George was born two months prematurely and he was thought unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker, who was both Rector of St James's and Bishop of Oxford.

One month later, he was publicly baptised at Norfolk House, again by Secker. His godparents were the King of Sweden (for whom Lord Baltimore stood proxy), his uncle the Duke of Saxe-Gotha (for whom Lord Carnarvon stood proxy) and his great-aunt the Queen of Prussia (for whom Lady Charlotte Edwin stood proxy). George was smitten with Lady Sarah Lennox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, but Lord Bute advised against the match and George abandoned his thoughts of marriage. "I am born for the happiness or misery of a great nation," he wrote, "and consequently must often act contrary to my passions." Nevertheless, attempts by the King to marry George to Princess Sophie Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel were resisted by him and his mother; Sophie married the Margrave of Bayreuth instead.

The following year, at the age of 22, George succeeded to the throne when his grandfather, George II, died suddenly on 25 October 1760, two weeks before his 77th birthday. The search for a suitable wife intensified. On 8 September 1761 in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, the King married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whom he met on their wedding day.

Queen Charlotte

A fortnight later on 22 September both were crowned at Westminster Abbey. George remarkably never took a mistress (in contrast with his grandfather and his sons), and the couple enjoyed a genuinely happy marriage until his mental illness struck.

George, in his accession speech to Parliament, proclaimed: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain".

He inserted this phrase into the speech, written by Lord Hardwicke, in order to demonstrate his desire to distance himself from his German forebears, who were perceived as caring more for Hanover than for Britain. Although his accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties, the first years of his reign were marked by political instability, largely generated as a result of disagreements over the Seven Years' War.

George was also perceived as favouring Tory ministers, which led to his denunciation by the Whigs as an autocrat. On his accession, the Crown lands produced relatively little income; most revenue was generated through taxes and excise duties. George surrendered the Crown Estate to Parliamentary control in return for a civil list annuity for the support of his household and the expenses of civil government. Claims that he used the income to reward supporters with bribes and gifts are disputed by historians who say such claims "rest on nothing but falsehoods put out by disgruntled opposition".

Debts amounting to over £3 million over the course of George's reign were paid by Parliament, and the civil list annuity was increased from time to time. George was deeply devout and spent hours in prayer, but his piety was not shared by his brothers. George was appalled by what he saw as their loose morals.

George III on Barbados Penny

In 1770, his brother Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, was exposed as an adulterer, and the following year Cumberland married a young widow, Anne Horton. The King considered her inappropriate as a royal bride: she was from a lower social class and German law barred any children of the couple from the Hanoverian succession. George insisted on a new law that essentially forbade members of the Royal Family from legally marrying without the consent of the Sovereign.

The subsequent bill was unpopular in Parliament, including among George's own ministers, but passed as the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

Augusta of Saxe-Gotha

Shortly afterward, another of George's brothers, Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, revealed he had been secretly married to Maria, Countess Waldegrave, the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole.

The news confirmed George's opinion that he had been right to introduce the law: Maria was related to his political opponents. Neither lady was ever received at court.

Lord North's government was chiefly concerned with discontent in America. To assuage American opinion most of the custom duties were withdrawn, except for the tea duty, which in George's words was "one tax to keep up the right [to levy taxes]".

In 1773, the tea ships moored in Boston Harbor were boarded by colonists and the tea thrown overboard, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. In Britain, opinion hardened against the colonists, with Chatham now agreeing with North that the destruction of the tea was "certainly criminal". With the clear support of Parliament, Lord North introduced measures, which were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists: the Port of Boston was shut down and the charter of Massachusetts was altered so that the upper house of the legislature was appointed by the Crown instead of elected by the lower house.

Up to this point, in the words of Professor Peter Thomas, George's "hopes were centred on a political solution, and he always bowed to his cabinet's opinions even when sceptical of their success.

Frederick, Prince of wales

 The detailed evidence of the years from 1763 to 1775 tends to exonerate George III from any real responsibility for the American Revolution." Though the Americans characterised George as a tyrant, in these years he acted as a constitutional monarch supporting the initiatives of his ministers.

The American War of Independence was the culmination of the civil and political American Revolution resulting from the American Enlightenment. Brought to a head over the lack of American representation in Parliament, which was seen as a denial of their rights as Englishmen and often popularly focused on direct taxes levied by Parliament on the colonies without their consent, the colonists resisted the imposition of direct rule after the Boston Tea Party.

Creating self-governing provinces, they circumvented the British ruling apparatus in each colony by 1774. Armed conflict between British regulars and colonial militiamen broke out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. After petitions to the Crown for intervention with Parliament were ignored, the rebel leaders were declared traitors by the Crown and a year of fighting ensued.

The colonies declared their independence in July 1776, listing grievances against the British king and legislature while asking the support of the populace. Among George's other offences, the Declaration charged, "He has abdicated Government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

George II

The gilded equestrian statue of George III in New York was pulled down. The British captured the city in 1776, but lost Boston, and the grand strategic plan of invading from Canada and cutting off New England failed with the surrender of the British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga.

George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the revolutionaries in America, despite the opinions of his own ministers.

In the words of the Victorian author George Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal."

The King wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse". However, more recent historians defend George by saying in the context of the times no king would willingly surrender such a large territory, and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporary monarchs in Europe. After Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were in favour of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and although political opponents were vocal, they remained a small minority.

With the setbacks in America, Prime Minister Lord North asked to transfer power to Lord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in Lord North's administration, but Chatham refused to cooperate.

Queen Charlotte 

He died later in the same year. In early 1778, France (Britain's chief rival) signed a treaty of alliance with the United States and the conflict escalated.

The United States and France were soon joined by Spain and the Dutch Republic, while Britain had no major allies of its own. Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence. Opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as the Gordon Riots. As late as the Siege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their eventual victory, as British troops inflicted heavy defeats on the Continental forces at the Battle of Camden and the Battle of Guilford Court House.

In late 1781, the news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at the Siege of Yorktown reached London; Lord North's parliamentary support ebbed away and he resigned the following year. The King drafted an abdication notice, which was never delivered, finally accepted the defeat in North America, and authorised peace negotiations. The Treaties of Paris, by which Britain recognised the independence of the American states and returned Florida to Spain, were signed in 1782 and 1783.

Queen Charlotte a Europeanised Version

When John Adams was appointed American Minister to London in 1785, George had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies. He told Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."

For George III, Pitt's appointment was a great victory. It proved that he was able to appoint Prime Ministers on the basis of his own interpretation of the public mood without having to follow the choice of the current majority in the House of Commons. Throughout Pitt's ministry, George supported many of Pitt's political aims and created new peers at an unprecedented rate to increase the number of Pitt's supporters in the House of Lords. During and after Pitt's ministry, George III was extremely popular in Britain. The British people admired him for his piety, and for remaining faithful to his wife. He was fond of his children, and was devastated at the death of two of his sons in infancy in 1782 and 1783 respectively. Nevertheless, he set his children a strict regimen. They were expected to attend rigorous lessons from seven in the morning, and to lead lives of religious observance and virtue. When his children strayed from George's own principles of righteousness, as his sons did as young adults, he was dismayed and disappointed.

By this time George's health was deteriorating. He had a mental illness, characterised by acute mania, which was possibly a symptom of the genetic disease porphyria, although this has been questioned.

Christian the Elder, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg 
one of the ancestor of George I

A study of samples of the King's hair published in 2005 revealed high levels of arsenic, a possible trigger for the disease. The source of the arsenic is not known, but it could have been a component of medicines or cosmetics.

The King may have had a brief episode of disease in 1765, but a longer episode began in the summer of 1788. At the end of the parliamentary session, he went to Cheltenham Spa to recuperate. It was the furthest he had ever been from London—just short of 100 miles (150 km)—but his condition worsened.

In November he became seriously deranged, sometimes speaking for many hours without pause, causing him to foam at the mouth and making his voice hoarse.

With his doctors largely at a loss to explain his illness, spurious stories about his condition spread, such as the claim that he shook hands with a tree in the mistaken belief that it was the King of Prussia. Treatment for mental illness was primitive by modern standards, and the King's doctors, who included Francis Willis, treated the King by forcibly restraining him until he was calm, or applying caustic poultices to draw out "evil humours".

In the reconvened Parliament, Fox and Pitt wrangled over the terms of a regency during the King's incapacity. While both agreed that it would be most reasonable for George III's eldest son and heir apparent, the Prince of Wales, to act as regent, to Pitt’s consternation Fox suggested that it was the Prince of Wales's absolute right to act on his ill father's behalf with full powers.

Pitt, fearing he would be removed from office if the Prince of Wales were empowered, argued that it was for Parliament to nominate a regent, and wanted to restrict the regent's authority.

Cheltenham Spa

In February 1789, the Regency Bill, authorising the Prince of Wales to act as regent, was introduced and passed in the House of Commons, but before the House of Lords could pass the bill, George III recovered. After George’s recovery, his popularity, and that of Pitt, continued to increase at the expense of Fox and the Prince of Wales.

His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants, Margaret Nicholson in 1786 and John Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity.

Sako Dean Mahomed

James Hadfield's failed attempt to shoot the King in the Drury Lane Theatre on 15 May 1800 was not political in origin but motivated by the apocalyptic delusions of Hadfield and Bannister Truelock. George seemed unperturbed by the incident, so much so that he fell asleep in the interval.

The French Revolution of 1789, in which the French monarchy had been overthrown, worried many British landowners. France declared war on Great Britain in 1793; in the war attempt, George allowed Pitt to increase taxes, raise armies, and suspend the right of habeas corpus.

The First Coalition to oppose revolutionary France, which included Austria, Prussia, and Spain, broke up in 1795 when Prussia and Spain made separate peace with France. The Second Coalition, which included Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire, was defeated in 1800. Only Great Britain was left fighting Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of the French Republic.

A brief lull in hostilities allowed Pitt to concentrate effort on Ireland, where there had been an uprising and attempted French landing in 1798. In 1800, the British and Irish Parliaments passed an Act of Union that took effect on 1 January 1801 and united Great Britain and Ireland into a single state, known as the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland".

George used the opportunity to drop the title "king of France", which English and British Sovereigns had maintained since the reign of Edward III. It was suggested that George adopt the title "Emperor of the British Isles", but he refused. As part of his Irish policy, Pitt planned to remove certain legal disabilities that applied to Roman Catholics.

Chevalier de Saint-George

George III claimed that to emancipate Catholics would be to violate his coronation oath, in which Sovereigns promise to maintain Protestantism.

Faced with opposition to his religious reform policies from both the King and the British public, Pitt threatened to resign. At about the same time, the King had a relapse of his previous illness, which he blamed on worry over the Catholic question.

On 14 March 1801, Pitt was formally replaced by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Henry Addington. Addington opposed emancipation, instituted annual accounts, abolished income tax and began a programme of disarmament. In October 1801, he made peace with the French, and in 1802 signed the Treaty of Amiens.

In late 1810, at the height of his popularity, already virtually blind with cataracts and in pain from rheumatism, George became dangerously ill.

In his view the malady had been triggered by stress over the death of his youngest and favourite daughter, Princess Amelia. The Princess's nurse reported that "the scenes of distress and crying every day ... were melancholy beyond description."

He accepted the need for the Regency Act of 1811, and the Prince of Wales acted as Regent for the remainder of George III's life.

Prince William Duke of Gloucester

Despite signs of a recovery in May 1811, by the end of the year George had become permanently insane and lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle until his death.

Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in 1812 and was replaced by Lord Liverpool. Liverpool oversaw British victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequent Congress of Vienna led to significant territorial gains for Hanover, which was upgraded from an electorate to a kingdom. Meanwhile, George's health deteriorated.

He developed dementia, and became completely blind and increasingly deaf. He was incapable of knowing or understanding either that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818. At Christmas 1819, he spoke nonsense for 58 hours, and for the last few weeks of his life was unable to walk.

He died at Windsor Castle at 8:38 pm on 29 January 1820, six days after the death of his fourth son, the Duke of Kent. His favourite son, Frederick, Duke of York, was with him.

George III was buried on 16 February in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. George was succeeded by two of his sons George IV and William IV, who both died without surviving legitimate children, leaving the throne to the only legitimate child of the Duke of Kent, Victoria, the last monarch of the House of Hanover.