Look What Those Revolting Colonists Done!

Asides from all these royal scandals, George III had the usual kingly stuff to do. 

George III w/ Queen Charlotte & some of the elder royal kidlets

Bute no sooner got him out of all those pesky wars than he was tossed out by the Whigs & rebellion started brewing in the 13 American colonies b/c of incendiary legislation.  The Navigation Acts taxed the heck out of imports to & exports from the colonies that didn't come from or go to GB, which sorta strangled free enterprise & trade & all that stuff.  The Writs of Assistance meant crown govt-type peeps didn't have to bother getting search warrants on colonial peeps.  The British Royal Proclamation said colonial peeps couldn't go settle on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains, which they were not amused w/ as twas getting mighty crowded on that whole Eastern Seaboard thing.  This was actually done to designate that area as Indian Territory in an attempt to avoid those irksome Indian wars, but colonial peeps didn't pay it no nevermind & so there was some anyway.  The colonial peeps were expected to assume part of the burden of their own defense & got taxed for that, so lots of em started muttering "No taxation w/o representation" b/c there were no colonials allowed in Parliament & they weren't fussed. 

The Sugar Act taxed stuff like molasses, instrumental in making the rum sucked down by the vast British Navy.  The Currency Act said the colonies couldn't make their own money.  The Stamp Act taxed every little piece of paper.  Twas sorta like those little excise stamps we got on the bottom of packs of smokes nowadays & if any piece of paper, even decks of cards, newspapers, magazines, books, etc., didn't have it, then twas considered smuggled goods just like tis today, & peeps could get in trouble.  The colonials were all pffft & boycotted it.  The British were not amused & then they passed the Townshend Acts, taxing glass & tea.  Y'all may recall Catherine of Braganza brought that over & peeps slurped it up like gangbusters, so this was highly unpopular as well.  There was a riot that became known as the Boston Massacre when British troops fired on civilian peeps, but twas rather an exaggerated name b/c only 8 peeps were kilt, so not much of a massacre.  A group called the Sons of Liberty did the Boston Tea Party & dumped a whole shipment of tea into Boston Harbor rather than pay taxes on that nonsense.  I'm guessing this is when Americans started slurping up coffee w/ no tea available.

contemporary lithograph of the Boston Tea Party

George was all WTF is wrong w/ these peeps that they can't just play nicely?  To punish the New Englanders, what they called the Intolerable Acts were passed.  No more town meetings to discuss politics were allowed under the Massacushetts Governing Act, any British soldiers who got in trouble could no longer be tried in the colonies but had to go back to GB under the Administration of Justice Act, & the port of Boston was closed until someone coughed up repayment for all that wasted tea under the Boston Port Act.  The Quartering Act really got peeps' knickers in a twist, b/c that one said peeps had to let British soldiers come live w/ em free of charge.  Pretty soon the colonists were all pffft we don't need no steenking Mother Country & forming the Continental Congress & ignoring George's peeps entirely.  Most peeps were whatcha call Patriots, whilst mayhap 20% of em were whatcha called Loyalists or Tories, who wanted no part of glaring sternly at GB.

Wasn't George shocked when he found out the 13 Colonies had gotten together & signed the Declaration of Independence.

Signing of the Declaration of Independece, 1776

George was all wot? wot?  WTF?  They can't do that!  Send some peeps in red coats over there & show em who's boss!  This led to "the shot heard round the world" when the British Army exchanged fire w/ rebellious colonials at the battles of Lexington & Concord, followed by the battle of Bunker Hill, all in Massachusetts.  The colonials were all O SHITE & decided to send George what they called the Olive Branch Petition, basically saying oops our bad so sorry, what say ya just tinker w/ them taxes a little bit & we'll all put down our muskets & go home?

George III

Pffft said George, firing back his Proclamation of Rebellion & sending over more peeps to crush those pesky colonials.  Then he started to get a tad worried b/c the Frenchies, never one to lose a chance to irk the English, started funnelling over some aid to the rebels.  There was a nice raid on Fort Ticonderoga & the cannon were dragged back to Boston & aimed at the British, who were all RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! when they seen that.  They managed to occupy New York City & Philadelphia & it was starting to look as if George's peeps were going to be successful in putting down the rebellion, tho they were a trifle gobsmacked at how long it was taking em, what w/ some rebel victories here & there like when colonial commander George Washington crossed the Delaware River & trounced some roistering Hessians at Christmas.

Washington Crossing the Delaware

Then the British got creamed at the battle of Saratoga in New York.  This made peeps in Europe sit up & take notice.

Surrender of General Burgoyne to General Gates at Saratoga

The Frenchies signed the Treaty of Alliance w/ the Americans & sent over some nice naval assistance after that, which trounced the British real good in the battle of the Chesapeake & was instrumental in ending the war there entirely.  Both France & Spain decided to declare war on GB & sent troops to help the colonials in the southern campaign.  George started banging his head on the palace wall going what the hell just happened here?  Twas even worse than that 7 Yrs' War thing!  The British couldn't possibly be fighting a war on 2 continents again & hope to win either one of em, & the Frenchies were a lot closer to London than the Americans were.  There was fighting in the West Indies & sieging in Gibraltar & those damned Americans just didn't fight fair & the bright red British coats made splendid targets for snipers & the Dutch stuck in their noses & war had to be declared upon them, too.

After the naval engagement in the Chesapeake, British troops were trounced splendidly at the battle of Yorktown.

Surrender of Cornwallis to Washington at Yorktown

Parliament was all OK THIS SHITE NEEDS TO STOP!  Twas mighty embarrassing to keep getting trounced every time the Brits turned round, esp by a passel of upstart Americans.  So after Yorktown they sighed & put together the Treaty of Paris & said pffft take your steenking independence, we're busy here.  George was so humiliated he thunk about mayhap abdicating the throne, but he wasn't fussed w/ young George Jr as a successor & so he didn't.

miniature of George, Prince of Wales

No sooner was all this mess mopped up then there was a revolution against the Frenchies.  Much messier than that whole American one b/c there was lots of OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! & 2 of the peeps who lost theirs were Louis XVI & his queen, Marie Antoinette.

Louis XVI, King of France

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France

So there had to be another Frenchie war posthaste.  It wasn't long b4 Napoleon Bonaparte was calling himself Emperor & trouncing European peeps left & right & soon there was just GB left to oppose what they called "the wily Corsican".

Napoleon on his Imperial throne

This is known as the Napoleonic Wars b/c there were lots of em.  The Americans got the Louisiana Territory for a song b/c Napoleon, like George, realized the impossibility of fighting so far away.  Napoleon was too busy trying to conquer Europe, Africa, & Asia to bother w/ colonial North America.  There were 11dy6 battles & alliances & Scarlet would be stuck on this subject alone until Christmas if she decided to do it justice, so she ain't LOL  The bestest battle for the British in this mess was the naval battle of Trafalgar.

Lord Nelson, hero of Trafalgar

British Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson, would get a nice square for his efforts at Trafalgar, despite his scandalous relationship w/ Emma Hamilton.

Emma, Lady Hamilton

Twas scandalous b/c not only were both of them married, Emma's DH, Sir William Hamilton, & her mum both lived w/ her & Lord Nelson until the naval hero's demise.  During this period Emma's daughter, Horatia Nelson, was born, w/ none of that trying to pass it off as DHs kid going on at all.

Napoleon was finally superbly trounced once & for all at the battle of Waterloo following his daring escape from imprisonment of the isle of Elba & the British peeps were all YA NO MORE WARS TODAY! when they found out.

Lord Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, hero of the battle of Waterloo

Alas, by this point in time, George didn't much care about such things.....