George Washington and King George III were on opposite sides in the Revolutionary War, with Washington leading the Continental Army to victory over King George’s Britain. Thus, America’s independence in 1783.
What’s seldom taught in classrooms, however — and what has not been previously well understood — is how much the two leaders had in common.
A major new Library exhibition, “The Two Georges: Parallel Lives in an Age of Revolution,” uses original documents such as letters, diaries, maps, newspapers, cartoons, to shed light on striking likenesses between the two. All of these are on display online, in an exhibit in the Jefferson Building and in a companion book. You’ll see stunning items such as Washington’s copy of the Declaration of Independence, his notes on a draft of the U.S. Constitution as it was being composed by the Constitutional Convention and an abdication speech King George drafted (but never delivered) following Britain’s defeat by American forces.
The approach allows viewers, both online and in person, to “hear the Georges speaking in their own voices and get to know them on their own terms,” said Julie Miller, the Manuscript Division’s historian of early America, who curated the exhibit.
The show originated about ten years ago, when the Library partnered with the Royal Archives and several other institutions on the Georgian Papers Programme, a project to digitize George III’s papers. Washington’s papers had been digitized by the Library’s American Memory project in the 1990s. Conversations between historians of the era began to flow.
“It became clear from the start that the Georges were similar in certain surprising ways that I don’t think anyone had ever thought about,” said Miller.
The show brings together Washington’s papers from the Library and George III’s papers from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives in England. Objects and images from London’s Science Museum, the Maine Historical Society, the Museums at Washington and Lee University, Washington’s Mount Vernon and other repositories are also included.
The exhibit traces the two men’s stories from birth to death, mixing original documents and artifacts with large-scale graphics and decorative elements. It’s also a study in, of all things, documents written in 18th-century cursive.
“Small handwriting is difficult to read,” said John Powell, the exhibit’s director. “It’s helpful to have blow-ups, and we wanted to make the exhibit visually pop as well.”
A three-minute introductory film explores popular conceptions of the Georges — the myth about Washington and the cherry tree, for example, and beliefs about King George’s madness. From there, visitors encounter a more complex story, including that Washington, born in 1732, spent the first half of his life as a model British gentleman and a committed subject of the British Empire. When he was 27, an invoice shows him ordering volumes of goods for his Mount Vernon plantation like a man to the manor born: handkerchiefs, green tea, a large Cheshire cheese and a hogshead (or cask) of “best Porter,” all from London merchant Robert Cary. This was hardly the lifestyle of a dangerous revolutionary.
As a planter, Washington immersed himself in agriculture, as did George III. Both had a deep fascination for new methods of farming, gardening and landscape design developed in 18th-century Britain. The two read many of the same books, including a lavishly illustrated 1754 volume of natural history that is included in the exhibit.
Even after Washington became president, Miller said, “he’s writing home to his farm manager and talking about the trees he wants planted a certain way.”
Across the Atlantic, George III was much the same. A 1786 cartoon shows a casually dressed King George with his spouse, Queen Charlotte, feeding chickens and pigs in a farmyard. “George III liked to dress up in ordinary clothes and go out and see how the pigs were doing,” Miller said.
Both Georges were devoted family men and homebodies, with shared values such as constancy, accountability, restraint and frugality. This led them to act as paternal, benevolent leaders, Miller says, but only up to a point. Neither man had time for abolitionists, and Washington used slave labor to help make him wealthy.
“Neither recognized the idea that people did not in fact own the right to own other people,” Miller said.
A 1761 ad in the Maryland Gazette shows Washington seeking to recover four enslaved men who escaped from Mount Vernon. A 1799 document lists people enslaved on his plantation.
Other historical items include Washington’s commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, a codebook that American spies used during the Revolution to outwit the British (Washington’s numerical code name was 711) and a plan for a failed scheme to kidnap George III’s 16-year-old son, Prince William, while he served in the Royal Navy in New York City during the war.
Also included are a 1782 letter from King George to his prime minister accusing the Americans of “knavery” and a 1789 teacup and saucer inscribed with “Huzza, The King is well.” It celebrates the king’s recovery from a major episode of the still-undefined illness that earned him the moniker “The Mad King.”
At the exhibit’s end, a striking 1820 painting by Samuel William Reynolds shows King George close to death. Unlike images of the younger George, bewigged and fashionably dressed, Reynolds depicts an elderly man with long gray hair and beard gazing into the distance.
“The Two Georges” kicks off the Library’s America 250 celebration, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The exhibit will be on view in the Jefferson Building southwest exhibition gallery for the next 12 months; after that, the Science Museum will mount a companion exhibit in London.
Subscribe to the blog— it’s free!