1 00:00:02,803 --> 00:00:06,003 Winter 1788. 2 00:00:06,003 --> 00:00:09,923 King George III is hallucinating, 3 00:00:09,923 --> 00:00:11,923 violent and abusive. 4 00:00:11,923 --> 00:00:13,323 Out of my sight! 5 00:00:15,203 --> 00:00:18,603 He's losing control of himself and the country. 6 00:00:19,643 --> 00:00:21,643 This is a crisis. 7 00:00:21,643 --> 00:00:24,683 Britain can't have a mentally ill king! 8 00:00:26,483 --> 00:00:32,603 As a last resort, a medical maverick who runs an asylum is summoned. 9 00:00:34,923 --> 00:00:37,683 Can he save the King? 10 00:00:43,483 --> 00:00:47,403 In this series, I'm reinvestigating some of the most dramatic 11 00:00:47,403 --> 00:00:50,323 and brutal chapters in British history. 12 00:00:51,923 --> 00:00:54,203 It wasn't just one generation. 13 00:00:54,203 --> 00:00:57,443 It was three generations losing their lives. 14 00:00:57,443 --> 00:00:58,963 Bam, bam, bam. 15 00:00:58,963 --> 00:01:02,163 These stories are part of our national mythology, 16 00:01:02,163 --> 00:01:07,163 harbouring mysteries that have intrigued us for centuries. 17 00:01:07,163 --> 00:01:10,643 It's chilling to think that this could actually be evidence 18 00:01:10,643 --> 00:01:13,283 in a murder investigation. 19 00:01:13,283 --> 00:01:17,363 But with the passage of time, we have new ways to unlock 20 00:01:17,363 --> 00:01:23,523 their secrets, using scientific advances and a modern perspective. 21 00:01:23,523 --> 00:01:28,363 It's a horrible psychosexual form of torture. Absolutely. 22 00:01:28,363 --> 00:01:31,643 I'm going to uncover forgotten witnesses, 23 00:01:31,643 --> 00:01:35,363 re-examine old evidence and follow new clues 24 00:01:35,363 --> 00:01:38,923 to get closer to the truth. 25 00:01:38,923 --> 00:01:42,603 It is one of the great British mysteries. 26 00:01:42,603 --> 00:01:44,963 It was one of those moments, I'm afraid, for historians, 27 00:01:44,963 --> 00:01:48,243 that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. 28 00:01:58,523 --> 00:01:59,723 Oh, wow. 29 00:01:59,723 --> 00:02:03,763 I find George III an intriguing king. 30 00:02:03,763 --> 00:02:08,283 He was conscientious and intellectually curious. 31 00:02:10,443 --> 00:02:14,643 He built this observatory to watch the transit of Venus 32 00:02:14,643 --> 00:02:16,963 across the sun in 1769. 33 00:02:18,283 --> 00:02:23,523 He ruled for 60 years, but he was plagued by bouts of mental illness, 34 00:02:23,523 --> 00:02:26,763 which were barely understood in his lifetime. 35 00:02:27,883 --> 00:02:32,443 The madness of George III has been raked over for centuries 36 00:02:32,443 --> 00:02:34,763 by medics and historians. 37 00:02:34,763 --> 00:02:38,923 But I want to look beyond the diagnosis at the man himself, 38 00:02:38,923 --> 00:02:44,043 and I want to use newly released papers to understand the pressures 39 00:02:44,043 --> 00:02:48,203 in his private and public lives that may have brought on his illness. 40 00:02:49,923 --> 00:02:54,603 How did Georgian Britain deal with having a mentally ill king? 41 00:02:55,723 --> 00:02:58,523 And how did his illness change Britain? 42 00:03:09,523 --> 00:03:12,603 I'd say I know a fair bit about George III, 43 00:03:12,603 --> 00:03:17,203 but I don't know nearly enough about his mental health. 44 00:03:17,203 --> 00:03:20,043 And now's the perfect time to take a look at it, 45 00:03:20,043 --> 00:03:22,603 because new evidence has come to light. 46 00:03:22,603 --> 00:03:27,403 Just a few years ago, the Royal Family granted unprecedented access 47 00:03:27,403 --> 00:03:30,163 to his personal papers. 48 00:03:30,163 --> 00:03:34,563 This treasure trove of documents is stored at Windsor Castle. 49 00:03:36,563 --> 00:03:41,083 So far, 225,000 documents, 50 00:03:41,083 --> 00:03:44,403 that's diaries, letters and medical notes, 51 00:03:44,403 --> 00:03:46,363 have been published online. 52 00:03:46,363 --> 00:03:50,723 But there are still more secrets to be revealed. 53 00:03:50,723 --> 00:03:55,043 I've been here to the Royal Archives before, but this is the first time 54 00:03:55,043 --> 00:03:59,203 I hope to get my hands on documents that will take me behind the scenes 55 00:03:59,203 --> 00:04:02,003 into 1788, when the King fell ill. 56 00:04:05,523 --> 00:04:11,523 I've asked the royal archivist to bring out a unique private diary. 57 00:04:11,523 --> 00:04:17,763 It's an eyewitness account of George III's illness as it escalated. 58 00:04:19,803 --> 00:04:21,683 There we are. Thank you so much. 59 00:04:21,683 --> 00:04:23,683 This is great, thanks. 60 00:04:25,723 --> 00:04:27,963 This is an amazing thing to get to see. 61 00:04:27,963 --> 00:04:31,723 It's the diary of Robert Greville. 62 00:04:31,723 --> 00:04:36,203 Journal of His Majesty's most serious and afflicting illness. 63 00:04:36,203 --> 00:04:39,003 He was one of the King's equerries, 64 00:04:39,003 --> 00:04:42,963 which means he spent a lot of time with the King. 65 00:04:42,963 --> 00:04:47,283 And on Sunday 9th November, he's writing about 66 00:04:47,283 --> 00:04:52,123 "great agitation and much incoherence 67 00:04:52,123 --> 00:04:55,723 "in thought and expressions". 68 00:04:55,723 --> 00:04:58,363 It's fascinating that he's actually with the King. 69 00:04:58,363 --> 00:05:02,083 This is like a front line report from the King's bedside. 70 00:05:05,283 --> 00:05:07,403 What else are we going to learn? 71 00:05:09,043 --> 00:05:15,003 Oh, "Finally he goes to sleep after having talked for 19 hours 72 00:05:15,003 --> 00:05:17,923 "without scarce any intermission." 73 00:05:19,283 --> 00:05:20,603 Poor man. 74 00:05:21,803 --> 00:05:26,443 So what's happening on November 24th? 75 00:05:26,443 --> 00:05:31,363 "We found the King violently agitated and very angry, 76 00:05:31,363 --> 00:05:34,923 "but more particularly with Dr Warren," 77 00:05:34,923 --> 00:05:38,563 one of the medical advisers. 78 00:05:38,563 --> 00:05:41,883 "The King advanced up to him and pushed him." 79 00:05:44,443 --> 00:05:47,243 So Greville's getting pretty upset, actually. 80 00:05:47,243 --> 00:05:50,683 He says that "the general conduct of the physicians has not 81 00:05:50,683 --> 00:05:53,083 "been decided or firm". 82 00:05:53,083 --> 00:05:55,403 They simply don't know what to do. 83 00:05:55,403 --> 00:05:59,083 "They appear to shrink from responsibility." 84 00:06:00,363 --> 00:06:03,563 Greville says here that "a report has been sent to Mr Pitt", 85 00:06:03,563 --> 00:06:06,803 the Prime Minister, stating that "His Majesty had passed 86 00:06:06,803 --> 00:06:10,603 "a quiet night, but that he was entirely deranged". 87 00:06:16,203 --> 00:06:19,083 George had at least five personal doctors, 88 00:06:19,083 --> 00:06:21,723 and they were all flummoxed. 89 00:06:23,643 --> 00:06:27,643 In the 1780s, the medical profession still clung 90 00:06:27,643 --> 00:06:31,323 to a centuries-old notion about mental illness. 91 00:06:32,803 --> 00:06:35,963 When George fell ill in 1788, 92 00:06:35,963 --> 00:06:38,643 his doctors at first still believed 93 00:06:38,643 --> 00:06:41,003 they needed to get this disease out of his body. 94 00:06:41,003 --> 00:06:43,563 They gave him drugs to make him vomit. 95 00:06:43,563 --> 00:06:47,483 They used blisters to draw out what they thought 96 00:06:47,483 --> 00:06:49,883 was bad blood from his body. 97 00:06:49,883 --> 00:06:53,883 And they used these little suckers... 98 00:06:53,883 --> 00:06:56,843 Got these off the internet. 99 00:06:56,843 --> 00:07:00,923 I love the way they're actually called Little Wrigglers. 100 00:07:00,923 --> 00:07:03,683 These are leeches. 101 00:07:03,683 --> 00:07:05,563 Look at them wiggle. 102 00:07:07,443 --> 00:07:09,883 They're just like tiny little monsters. 103 00:07:09,883 --> 00:07:11,803 Oh, he's sucking the side there. 104 00:07:11,803 --> 00:07:16,963 And the idea was that these would be applied to George's temples... 105 00:07:18,163 --> 00:07:22,363 ..and that they would suck the madness out of his brain. 106 00:07:25,643 --> 00:07:30,883 The King is bled, blistered and purged. 107 00:07:30,883 --> 00:07:33,203 Nothing works. 108 00:07:33,203 --> 00:07:36,523 But if he doesn't get better soon, his illness could trigger 109 00:07:36,523 --> 00:07:39,363 a constitutional crisis. 110 00:07:39,363 --> 00:07:44,283 In 1788, Europe is a tinderbox. 111 00:07:44,283 --> 00:07:49,083 Peter III of Russia has been murdered in a coup. 112 00:07:49,083 --> 00:07:52,883 And in France, the scent of revolution is in the air. 113 00:07:54,963 --> 00:07:59,443 It's a dangerous time to have a mentally ill king. 114 00:08:02,483 --> 00:08:06,963 Investigating the medical mystery of George's condition is not 115 00:08:06,963 --> 00:08:09,203 without potential pitfalls. 116 00:08:10,723 --> 00:08:14,803 George's illness wasn't just misunderstood in his own lifetime. 117 00:08:14,803 --> 00:08:19,803 In modern times, another suspect diagnosis has stuck. 118 00:08:19,803 --> 00:08:25,443 This essay was published in the British Medical Journal in 1966. 119 00:08:25,443 --> 00:08:29,043 It's by a couple of psychiatrists, MacAlpine and Hunter. 120 00:08:29,043 --> 00:08:32,683 They looked at George's medical records and argued 121 00:08:32,683 --> 00:08:38,563 that he had a rare genetic blood disorder called porphyria. 122 00:08:38,563 --> 00:08:43,803 This idea really stuck, notably in the stage play by Alan Bennett. 123 00:08:43,803 --> 00:08:46,443 When this was turned into a film, there was actually a caption 124 00:08:46,443 --> 00:08:50,323 on screen suggesting that George had porphyria. 125 00:08:50,323 --> 00:08:53,523 But historians have been divided about this, 126 00:08:53,523 --> 00:08:56,723 and now there's a rival diagnosis. 127 00:09:02,203 --> 00:09:06,163 I'm meeting an eminent psychiatrist who led a recent review 128 00:09:06,163 --> 00:09:09,483 of the Mental Health Act in England and Wales. 129 00:09:09,483 --> 00:09:14,603 He's also been examining the papers from the Royal Archives. 130 00:09:14,603 --> 00:09:18,363 Can the new evidence settle the question of what was wrong 131 00:09:18,363 --> 00:09:20,523 with George once and for all? 132 00:09:22,403 --> 00:09:25,923 Simon, how do you feel about diagnosing dead people? 133 00:09:25,923 --> 00:09:28,003 There are some concerns here, aren't there? 134 00:09:28,003 --> 00:09:30,843 Oh, yeah, very much so. In medicine in general and psychiatry, 135 00:09:30,843 --> 00:09:32,563 it's a very dangerous thing to do. 136 00:09:32,563 --> 00:09:34,843 The only reason that we can do this with George 137 00:09:34,843 --> 00:09:37,603 is because the documentation so extraordinary. 138 00:09:37,603 --> 00:09:41,803 Why do you think that porphyria was so warmly welcomed 139 00:09:41,803 --> 00:09:43,923 as a theory in the 1960s? 140 00:09:43,923 --> 00:09:46,923 MacAlpine and Hunter were, it now, turns out, 141 00:09:46,923 --> 00:09:50,243 ardent monarchists, and they wanted really to remove 142 00:09:50,243 --> 00:09:54,043 the taint and the stigma of mental illness from the Royal Family. 143 00:09:54,043 --> 00:09:57,163 And porphyria did run in the Royal Houses of Europe, by the way, 144 00:09:57,163 --> 00:09:58,923 it just didn't affect George. 145 00:09:58,923 --> 00:10:02,323 But they wanted to kind of help the Queen out by taking away 146 00:10:02,323 --> 00:10:04,603 the taint of mental illness. 147 00:10:04,603 --> 00:10:08,803 What was really the King's condition, do you think? 148 00:10:08,803 --> 00:10:11,723 The best evidence we have from George is the observations 149 00:10:11,723 --> 00:10:13,083 of his behaviour. 150 00:10:13,083 --> 00:10:15,883 We've had for some time now what we call diagnostic criteria, 151 00:10:15,883 --> 00:10:18,443 and in which you can fill in a computer program 152 00:10:18,443 --> 00:10:22,003 and that will then tell you what is the most likely diagnosis. 153 00:10:22,003 --> 00:10:25,603 So you have your computer program and you can put George 154 00:10:25,603 --> 00:10:27,163 into it and see what comes out? 155 00:10:27,163 --> 00:10:28,723 You can indeed. 156 00:10:28,723 --> 00:10:30,923 Employment? Employment, King. 157 00:10:30,923 --> 00:10:32,683 Residence, Windsor Castle. 158 00:10:32,683 --> 00:10:36,443 Grandiosity, a bit difficult in a king to diagnose that, actually. 159 00:10:36,443 --> 00:10:38,043 Excessive self reproach. 160 00:10:38,043 --> 00:10:40,083 He was a great one for beating himself up. 161 00:10:40,083 --> 00:10:42,523 Poor sleep - very, very common. 162 00:10:42,523 --> 00:10:45,243 Reduced need for sleep, reduced appetite. 163 00:10:45,243 --> 00:10:46,923 He's having hallucinations. 164 00:10:46,923 --> 00:10:49,363 Yes, he's having some hallucinations, which is common 165 00:10:49,363 --> 00:10:50,923 in very severe mania. 166 00:10:50,923 --> 00:10:53,683 At times when he had to be restrained, for example, 167 00:10:53,683 --> 00:10:56,563 there was also a lot of violence and things like that. 168 00:10:56,563 --> 00:10:59,923 And so now they've ticked what the diagnosis is. 169 00:10:59,923 --> 00:11:02,883 And it comes up as the most probable diagnosis is what we now 170 00:11:02,883 --> 00:11:04,483 call bipolar disorder. 171 00:11:05,963 --> 00:11:08,123 Not a concept they had... At the time. 172 00:11:08,123 --> 00:11:11,003 No, not at all. Any doctor reading that now, 173 00:11:11,003 --> 00:11:14,363 it would just shout bipolar at you, it really would. 174 00:11:14,363 --> 00:11:16,043 I'm convinced... 175 00:11:16,043 --> 00:11:20,203 ..but can you tell me what causes it? 176 00:11:20,203 --> 00:11:22,403 I wish I knew. I don't. 177 00:11:22,403 --> 00:11:26,723 Nobody knows. What we do know is there's very compelling evidence 178 00:11:26,723 --> 00:11:30,803 that what we call life events, so major traumas in your life, 179 00:11:30,803 --> 00:11:35,123 bereavement or being a victim of crime or, you know, 180 00:11:35,123 --> 00:11:36,803 divorce, something like that, 181 00:11:36,803 --> 00:11:39,883 it doesn't cause bipolar disorder, but what it does do, 182 00:11:39,883 --> 00:11:43,203 it will then trigger an episode and you'll have a full-blown illness. 183 00:11:43,203 --> 00:11:46,843 So it's sensitive to what's going on in our environment. 184 00:11:46,843 --> 00:11:50,803 Is there a particular life stage at which people generally start 185 00:11:50,803 --> 00:11:52,443 to experience it for the first time? 186 00:11:52,443 --> 00:11:55,163 Yes, it usually starts in younger people. 187 00:11:55,163 --> 00:11:57,963 So the peak age is somewhere between 20 and 30. 188 00:11:57,963 --> 00:12:03,123 So if George had it, we could expect perhaps to see some evidence 189 00:12:03,123 --> 00:12:04,963 of this in his 20s? 190 00:12:04,963 --> 00:12:07,083 He had an episode in 1765. 191 00:12:07,083 --> 00:12:09,083 It's unclear what it was. 192 00:12:09,083 --> 00:12:12,603 And the records, as I understand it, simply have never been found. 193 00:12:12,603 --> 00:12:14,123 Mm. 194 00:12:18,123 --> 00:12:24,203 This earlier episode in 1765 is intriguing. 195 00:12:24,203 --> 00:12:27,563 George was 50 when he had his first documented 196 00:12:27,563 --> 00:12:30,123 bout of illness in 1788. 197 00:12:30,123 --> 00:12:34,963 But if bipolar disorder usually strikes between 20 and 30, 198 00:12:34,963 --> 00:12:37,363 were there earlier signs? 199 00:12:41,483 --> 00:12:46,083 Here's George in his coronation robes in 1760. 200 00:12:46,083 --> 00:12:47,963 He was just 22. 201 00:12:47,963 --> 00:12:51,243 Doesn't he look young but full of confidence? 202 00:12:52,643 --> 00:12:55,963 It was only a few years after this, in 1765, 203 00:12:55,963 --> 00:12:59,443 that we get this mysterious incident of illness, 204 00:12:59,443 --> 00:13:03,243 when he disappeared from public life for a while. 205 00:13:03,243 --> 00:13:06,323 And there are now quite a few historians who are suggesting 206 00:13:06,323 --> 00:13:10,523 that this was perhaps his first experience of the mental illness 207 00:13:10,523 --> 00:13:14,563 that would come back with a vengeance in 1788. 208 00:13:18,123 --> 00:13:21,443 There were tantalising clues that the Royal Family 209 00:13:21,443 --> 00:13:23,323 was covering something up. 210 00:13:25,563 --> 00:13:27,683 The daughter of the King's hairdresser, 211 00:13:27,683 --> 00:13:29,883 Charlotte Papendiek, wrote later, 212 00:13:29,883 --> 00:13:34,363 "It was Her Majesty The Queen's wish to prevent the public 213 00:13:34,363 --> 00:13:37,763 "from discovering the nature of the King's illness." 214 00:13:39,603 --> 00:13:42,563 But this is all gossip, not fact. 215 00:13:42,563 --> 00:13:45,443 I can't find any doctor's notes in the Georgian papers, 216 00:13:45,443 --> 00:13:47,483 but there is this. 217 00:13:47,483 --> 00:13:51,323 Now, here's a really fascinating 218 00:13:51,323 --> 00:13:55,163 nugget of information from 1765. 219 00:13:55,163 --> 00:13:59,163 George has called in his ministers to a meeting 220 00:13:59,163 --> 00:14:03,963 and he tells them he wants to make plans for a regency. 221 00:14:03,963 --> 00:14:08,523 He wants to make provision for the administration of government 222 00:14:08,523 --> 00:14:13,123 in case of a minority which God prevent. 223 00:14:13,123 --> 00:14:18,443 So that means should George die or become incapacitated, 224 00:14:18,443 --> 00:14:21,683 and if his children weren't old enough to take over, 225 00:14:21,683 --> 00:14:23,003 what would happen? 226 00:14:23,003 --> 00:14:27,803 He wanted his wife or his mother to step in as monarch. 227 00:14:27,803 --> 00:14:32,403 Now, this could be a complete coincidence, 228 00:14:32,403 --> 00:14:35,963 but the timing suggests to me otherwise. 229 00:14:35,963 --> 00:14:40,723 Perhaps this year George realised that there was something 230 00:14:40,723 --> 00:14:42,723 seriously wrong with him, 231 00:14:42,723 --> 00:14:46,363 something that might stop him from doing his job as king. 232 00:14:51,163 --> 00:14:55,843 If the trail runs cold here, let's leave the younger George 233 00:14:55,843 --> 00:14:58,563 and move forward to 1788 234 00:14:58,563 --> 00:15:01,843 and George's first official bout of illness. 235 00:15:01,843 --> 00:15:07,203 If episodes of bipolar disorder can be triggered by traumatic events 236 00:15:07,203 --> 00:15:10,363 or extreme stress, 237 00:15:10,363 --> 00:15:13,323 what was happening in George's personal life 238 00:15:13,323 --> 00:15:15,323 in the run-up to '88? 239 00:15:16,603 --> 00:15:20,123 There's something at the Royal Academy I want to see. 240 00:15:22,563 --> 00:15:26,523 By 1783, George had 15 children. 241 00:15:26,523 --> 00:15:30,083 The older ones, particularly the Prince of Wales, 242 00:15:30,083 --> 00:15:33,803 were causing him all sorts of trouble with their overspending 243 00:15:33,803 --> 00:15:35,363 and their womanising. 244 00:15:35,363 --> 00:15:39,203 But he really doted on the two littlest boys. 245 00:15:42,323 --> 00:15:47,683 Tragically, George's toddler, two-year-old Alfred, died suddenly. 246 00:15:49,483 --> 00:15:54,003 Then eight months later, four-year-old Octavius died too. 247 00:15:56,043 --> 00:15:58,323 Infant death was common, 248 00:15:58,323 --> 00:16:03,203 so you might think parents were used to dealing with this kind of loss. 249 00:16:10,923 --> 00:16:13,123 This is such a poignant image. 250 00:16:17,203 --> 00:16:22,283 It's an engraved copy of a painting George had done... 251 00:16:23,643 --> 00:16:26,963 ..to commemorate his two lost little boys. 252 00:16:26,963 --> 00:16:30,683 This is Prince Alfred, who died first. 253 00:16:30,683 --> 00:16:32,363 And he's in heaven already, 254 00:16:32,363 --> 00:16:37,123 and he's welcoming in his brother, Prince Octavius. 255 00:16:37,123 --> 00:16:39,043 Octavius dies. 256 00:16:39,043 --> 00:16:42,403 And there's angels here to look after them both. 257 00:16:42,403 --> 00:16:46,243 George had the original of this on the wall of his bedchamber, 258 00:16:46,243 --> 00:16:49,723 so that when he woke up in the morning, 259 00:16:49,723 --> 00:16:53,283 the first thing he'd see were his lost sons. 260 00:16:54,403 --> 00:16:56,643 That alone, I think, 261 00:16:56,643 --> 00:17:00,403 speaks volumes about what this loss meant to him. 262 00:17:15,363 --> 00:17:18,283 It seems to me that this could have been a trigger 263 00:17:18,283 --> 00:17:20,883 for his breakdown in 1788. 264 00:17:20,883 --> 00:17:25,523 But to prove it, I need a window into George's mind. 265 00:17:35,043 --> 00:17:37,483 You might think that's impossible. 266 00:17:37,483 --> 00:17:41,363 But I've come to Kew Gardens, the playground of Octavius 267 00:17:41,363 --> 00:17:45,323 and Alfred, to meet a professor who's doing something unique. 268 00:17:47,003 --> 00:17:52,163 He's examining George's hallucinations and delusions. 269 00:17:52,163 --> 00:17:55,003 How do you know what the King's delusions were? 270 00:17:55,003 --> 00:17:59,723 Well, we have very few direct records of what the King says, 271 00:17:59,723 --> 00:18:03,603 but we do have what the pages and attendants who are looking 272 00:18:03,603 --> 00:18:07,483 after the King when he was asleep or in the night, 273 00:18:07,483 --> 00:18:09,963 told the doctors the next morning. 274 00:18:09,963 --> 00:18:13,803 From those you get these often very brief references to things 275 00:18:13,803 --> 00:18:17,883 that he is said to have believed or imagined, but which, when you put 276 00:18:17,883 --> 00:18:20,803 them all together, it's quite a substantial body of material 277 00:18:20,803 --> 00:18:23,763 that just lets you see inside the King's mind, really. 278 00:18:23,763 --> 00:18:27,603 And do you think you can see evidence of specific trauma, 279 00:18:27,603 --> 00:18:30,243 bad things that happened to him in his life, that you see sort of 280 00:18:30,243 --> 00:18:32,523 being processed through these delusions? 281 00:18:32,523 --> 00:18:37,123 Well, there are particular incidents relating to his children. 282 00:18:37,123 --> 00:18:39,003 He was a very devoted father. 283 00:18:39,003 --> 00:18:43,283 And when they were lost at different phases of his life, 284 00:18:43,283 --> 00:18:47,523 they then reappear to him in his delusions, 285 00:18:47,523 --> 00:18:50,363 in really very moving ways, actually. 286 00:18:50,363 --> 00:18:53,163 What sort of delusions is he having about his lost children? 287 00:18:53,163 --> 00:18:55,763 There's a very particularly moving incident that takes place 288 00:18:55,763 --> 00:18:58,363 on Christmas Eve 1788. 289 00:18:58,363 --> 00:19:02,723 So this particular night, what the King recalled is 290 00:19:02,723 --> 00:19:07,083 thinking that the pillow of his bed is Octavius 291 00:19:07,083 --> 00:19:10,163 and he has come back... Oh! This is so awfully sad. 292 00:19:10,163 --> 00:19:12,963 It's all then described here. 293 00:19:12,963 --> 00:19:17,123 It says he had the pillow in the bed with him, which he called 294 00:19:17,123 --> 00:19:19,443 Prince Octavius, 295 00:19:19,443 --> 00:19:23,283 who he said was to be new born this day. 296 00:19:23,283 --> 00:19:26,603 The reason this is so upsetting is because you just have the image 297 00:19:26,603 --> 00:19:30,403 of him holding the pillow like it was the baby. 298 00:19:30,403 --> 00:19:33,443 Yeah, that's the recurring trope, actually, for the King, 299 00:19:33,443 --> 00:19:36,563 because when his daughter Amelia dies from TB, 300 00:19:36,563 --> 00:19:39,883 after she's dead, he begins to imagine having conversations 301 00:19:39,883 --> 00:19:45,083 with her, and that she's had holes drilled in her coffin 302 00:19:45,083 --> 00:19:48,763 and in fact survived burial and has come back to talk to him after that. 303 00:19:48,763 --> 00:19:52,403 That's a very strange delusion, which, again, 304 00:19:52,403 --> 00:19:55,203 echoes this earlier incident with Octavius. 305 00:19:55,203 --> 00:19:58,563 The fact that this comes up in his delusions, not only in this illness, 306 00:19:58,563 --> 00:20:02,963 but in his later illness too, suggest that that's the trigger. 307 00:20:02,963 --> 00:20:05,483 Arthur, do you feel that this research is giving you 308 00:20:05,483 --> 00:20:09,563 a really extraordinary insight into the mind of a king? 309 00:20:09,563 --> 00:20:12,923 There's a sense in which one of the things that's happening to him 310 00:20:12,923 --> 00:20:15,963 in his illness is he becomes disinhibited and will actually 311 00:20:15,963 --> 00:20:18,403 perhaps articulate things that he otherwise 312 00:20:18,403 --> 00:20:21,043 has been suppressing or repressing in his mind. 313 00:20:21,043 --> 00:20:24,363 And in a way, it's his illness, it's his so-called madness, 314 00:20:24,363 --> 00:20:26,283 that allows us to know him. Absolutely. 315 00:20:26,283 --> 00:20:29,483 We don't get to those bits of his mind otherwise. 316 00:20:37,203 --> 00:20:41,683 I've been left feeling really sad about what Arthur 317 00:20:41,683 --> 00:20:46,003 had to say about George's love for his children 318 00:20:46,003 --> 00:20:48,363 and his grief for their loss. 319 00:20:48,363 --> 00:20:51,803 It's easy to forget that he wasn't just a king, 320 00:20:51,803 --> 00:20:54,763 he was also a human being. 321 00:20:58,323 --> 00:21:03,523 The death of these children was not marked by formal court mourning. 322 00:21:03,523 --> 00:21:06,243 They were considered too young. 323 00:21:06,243 --> 00:21:10,243 So George doesn't have this as a way to help him process his loss. 324 00:21:11,763 --> 00:21:14,163 He represses his grief 325 00:21:14,163 --> 00:21:19,523 and it clearly festers, bursting out during episodes of mania. 326 00:21:26,163 --> 00:21:30,523 It's clear to me there's concrete evidence of personal trauma, 327 00:21:30,523 --> 00:21:33,163 which could have triggered a bipolar episode. 328 00:21:34,803 --> 00:21:39,003 But I also want to look at the political pressures on George, too. 329 00:21:39,003 --> 00:21:42,723 I know this was a tricky time to lead a country. 330 00:21:42,723 --> 00:21:47,043 George was staring down the barrel of a new world order. 331 00:21:48,483 --> 00:21:52,283 An account of the rise and progress of the late tumult. 332 00:21:53,763 --> 00:21:56,243 Dead bodies in the streets of London. 333 00:21:56,243 --> 00:21:58,283 This is serious stuff. 334 00:22:01,883 --> 00:22:07,003 Newspaper headlines from the 1780s reveal a time of huge turmoil. 335 00:22:11,483 --> 00:22:16,043 George decided to grant some new rights to Catholics. 336 00:22:16,043 --> 00:22:18,643 Seemed like a generous and liberal thing to do, 337 00:22:18,643 --> 00:22:21,323 but it went horribly wrong. 338 00:22:21,323 --> 00:22:26,563 There were anti-Catholic riots and sectarian violence on the street. 339 00:22:26,563 --> 00:22:31,843 This newspaper article here describes a Roman Catholic chapel 340 00:22:31,843 --> 00:22:37,403 being set fire to, what they call "the mob" are out on the streets. 341 00:22:37,403 --> 00:22:41,643 They're waving revolutionary flags, actually. 342 00:22:41,643 --> 00:22:44,843 Things are on the brink of enormous trouble. 343 00:22:45,923 --> 00:22:51,323 The 1780s weren't just an age of reason, but an age of revolution. 344 00:22:51,323 --> 00:22:54,243 And it wasn't just Britain that was on the brink. 345 00:22:54,243 --> 00:22:57,763 The King of France had faced an assassination attempt, 346 00:22:57,763 --> 00:23:02,163 and the American War of Independence was coming to a head. 347 00:23:02,163 --> 00:23:05,563 Here's Cornwallis, defeated at Yorktown, 348 00:23:05,563 --> 00:23:07,563 doing the walk of shame. 349 00:23:07,563 --> 00:23:10,203 They're taking down the British flag, 350 00:23:10,203 --> 00:23:13,883 and they're putting up the American flag in its place. 351 00:23:13,883 --> 00:23:19,163 So George would have hoped to have added to his empire, 352 00:23:19,163 --> 00:23:24,403 but instead, he must have felt that he had effectively lost America. 353 00:23:30,003 --> 00:23:35,083 These crises coincided with the start of the mass news era. 354 00:23:35,083 --> 00:23:38,643 George had nowhere to hide. He was exposed. 355 00:23:41,603 --> 00:23:43,843 And I found an extraordinary letter 356 00:23:43,843 --> 00:23:49,163 which suggests George was afraid he was failing. 357 00:23:49,163 --> 00:23:53,683 Now, this is just the most fascinating document 358 00:23:53,683 --> 00:23:56,323 from the Royal Archives of 1782. 359 00:23:57,403 --> 00:24:03,123 It's a letter that George III has drafted saying 360 00:24:03,123 --> 00:24:06,563 that he's going to hand in his resignation. 361 00:24:06,563 --> 00:24:12,563 "I am therefore resolved to resign my Crown." 362 00:24:14,043 --> 00:24:18,483 Extraordinary. No king had abdicated for 1,000 years. 363 00:24:18,483 --> 00:24:21,323 And just think of the huge stink that there was 364 00:24:21,323 --> 00:24:24,323 when Edward VIII abdicated in the 20th century, 365 00:24:24,323 --> 00:24:27,363 at a point when the monarchy was much less politically significant 366 00:24:27,363 --> 00:24:31,123 than it was here in the 18th century. 367 00:24:31,123 --> 00:24:35,123 George has clearly agonised over his decision. 368 00:24:35,123 --> 00:24:40,003 There's all sorts of crossings out and underlinings in his letter. 369 00:24:40,003 --> 00:24:45,083 And there's a real sense of alienation here 370 00:24:45,083 --> 00:24:47,083 and disillusionment. 371 00:24:47,083 --> 00:24:50,843 Now, he never actually sent his letter of resignation 372 00:24:50,843 --> 00:24:55,803 to Parliament, but it shows the mind of a king in turmoil. 373 00:25:04,363 --> 00:25:09,043 George is under extreme pressure to make monarchy work 374 00:25:09,043 --> 00:25:11,443 in this new era. 375 00:25:11,443 --> 00:25:14,003 He must evolve or perish. 376 00:25:16,603 --> 00:25:21,003 George styled himself as a new, slightly more accessible 377 00:25:21,003 --> 00:25:22,363 kind of a king. 378 00:25:22,363 --> 00:25:26,203 His line was that he was going to listen to people's grievances 379 00:25:26,203 --> 00:25:28,043 and respond to them. 380 00:25:28,043 --> 00:25:31,523 Now, ordinary working people didn't have the vote, 381 00:25:31,523 --> 00:25:36,163 but they could make political points through giving the King petitions. 382 00:25:36,163 --> 00:25:40,323 They were able to take their problems straight to the top. 383 00:25:41,963 --> 00:25:46,043 Crowds gathered at the gates of St James's Palace, 384 00:25:46,043 --> 00:25:49,723 waving their petitions, begging the King for help. 385 00:25:49,723 --> 00:25:54,163 And in August 1786, something happened 386 00:25:54,163 --> 00:25:56,963 that I think must have increased the pressure 387 00:25:56,963 --> 00:25:59,363 on his already vulnerable mind. 388 00:25:59,363 --> 00:26:02,203 As it says in the newspaper, 389 00:26:02,203 --> 00:26:06,283 "His Majesty was stepping out of his post chariot 390 00:26:06,283 --> 00:26:11,163 "at the garden entrance to St James's..." Just over there. 391 00:26:11,163 --> 00:26:14,563 "..when the attack was made upon his life. 392 00:26:14,563 --> 00:26:17,803 "The woman by whom the desperate attempt was made, 393 00:26:17,803 --> 00:26:21,883 "had been observed waiting for the King's arrival for some time." 394 00:26:31,323 --> 00:26:34,163 The woman advanced from the crowd 395 00:26:34,163 --> 00:26:37,603 and presented a paper folded in the form of... 396 00:26:37,603 --> 00:26:41,963 When the woman aimed a blow with a knife at His Majesty's breast... 397 00:26:41,963 --> 00:26:43,643 ..Concealed in a piece of paper. 398 00:26:43,643 --> 00:26:45,523 The knife cut the King's waistcoat. 399 00:26:45,523 --> 00:26:48,123 The knife was instantly wrestled from the woman. 400 00:26:48,123 --> 00:26:49,803 And he hastened into the palace. 401 00:26:49,803 --> 00:26:53,283 "The woman was immediately taken into custody 402 00:26:53,283 --> 00:26:57,483 "and on examination appears to be insane." 403 00:27:00,043 --> 00:27:04,403 I'm fascinated by this assassination attempt, 404 00:27:04,403 --> 00:27:08,723 when a mentally ill woman and a soon-to-be mentally ill king 405 00:27:08,723 --> 00:27:10,963 came face to face. 406 00:27:11,963 --> 00:27:15,403 Who was she and how did George react? 407 00:27:17,203 --> 00:27:19,403 This is a woman called Margaret Nicholson. 408 00:27:19,403 --> 00:27:22,563 She's a 36-year-old spinster 409 00:27:22,563 --> 00:27:24,603 and needle woman. 410 00:27:24,603 --> 00:27:28,123 And she felt that something needed to be done to improve her life, 411 00:27:28,123 --> 00:27:30,683 so she petitions the King. 412 00:27:30,683 --> 00:27:32,963 So she's writing him letters saying, 413 00:27:32,963 --> 00:27:36,443 "Dear King, I want you to do this for me." 414 00:27:36,443 --> 00:27:38,963 Yeah, well, you know, if only it was that clear. 415 00:27:38,963 --> 00:27:40,403 What sort of things? 416 00:27:40,403 --> 00:27:42,803 So here's one of Margaret's petitions. 417 00:27:42,803 --> 00:27:46,523 She thought she was due a property settlement of some sort. 418 00:27:46,523 --> 00:27:48,723 She thought she was due a decent marriage, 419 00:27:48,723 --> 00:27:50,523 possibly to the King himself, 420 00:27:50,523 --> 00:27:53,083 if only he'd rid himself of his ghastly foreign wife. 421 00:27:53,083 --> 00:27:55,083 Do you think that she was suffering from 422 00:27:55,083 --> 00:27:56,843 some sort of mental health issue? 423 00:27:56,843 --> 00:27:59,243 Well, that's an interesting question. 424 00:27:59,243 --> 00:28:02,683 She petitions the King something like 20 times 425 00:28:02,683 --> 00:28:07,843 just between April and August of 1786, by her own testimony. 426 00:28:07,843 --> 00:28:11,843 On 2nd August 1786, she's clearly had enough. 427 00:28:11,843 --> 00:28:13,523 So she turns up one more time. 428 00:28:13,523 --> 00:28:15,763 The King gets down out of his carriage, 429 00:28:15,763 --> 00:28:17,203 she's ushered towards the King. 430 00:28:17,203 --> 00:28:19,643 I expect they've all seen her before, they know who she is, 431 00:28:19,643 --> 00:28:22,163 and she's got her little piece of paper again. 432 00:28:22,163 --> 00:28:25,243 But the piece of paper this time conceals a dagger. Yeah. 433 00:28:25,243 --> 00:28:28,643 And then immediately, and this is the interesting thing, I think, 434 00:28:28,643 --> 00:28:31,003 he immediately says, 435 00:28:31,003 --> 00:28:35,123 "The poor woman is mad, do not hurt her." 436 00:28:35,123 --> 00:28:37,883 And we know he said that straight away 437 00:28:37,883 --> 00:28:41,003 because just about two hours later, 438 00:28:41,003 --> 00:28:45,283 one of the young pages who'd been attending the King testifies 439 00:28:45,283 --> 00:28:47,683 these were the words the King used. 440 00:28:47,683 --> 00:28:52,083 Do you think that when he gave this compassionate reaction 441 00:28:52,083 --> 00:28:55,043 towards Margaret Nicholson, "don't hurt her", 442 00:28:55,043 --> 00:28:57,563 do you think that he saw a fellow sufferer? 443 00:28:57,563 --> 00:28:59,843 He immediately identifies what's wrong with her. 444 00:28:59,843 --> 00:29:03,803 So even, whether or not, yeah, it's a little bit close to home 445 00:29:03,803 --> 00:29:07,003 for him, or he recognises a fellow sufferer, 446 00:29:07,003 --> 00:29:11,363 the incident provoked a huge public conversation in the newspaper press 447 00:29:11,363 --> 00:29:15,323 and elsewhere about whether or not Margaret Nicholson was mad, 448 00:29:15,323 --> 00:29:19,083 because if she's going to be put before a law court, 449 00:29:19,083 --> 00:29:21,843 it's going to have to be on a charge of high treason. 450 00:29:25,643 --> 00:29:31,403 George's words "do not hurt her" became iconic. 451 00:29:31,403 --> 00:29:37,203 They were in newspapers, in print, it was wonderful PR for the King. 452 00:29:37,203 --> 00:29:39,963 His compassion towards Margaret 453 00:29:39,963 --> 00:29:45,563 brought mental illness into the open, but what happened to her? 454 00:29:45,563 --> 00:29:49,323 Was she treated kindly, as he'd asked? 455 00:29:49,323 --> 00:29:53,883 There's no evidence of a public trial, but there is a folder 456 00:29:53,883 --> 00:29:57,403 in the National Archives with her name on it. 457 00:29:57,403 --> 00:30:00,323 Margaret's case went right to the top. 458 00:30:00,323 --> 00:30:05,403 It was the Privy Council, the King's advisers, who decided her fate. 459 00:30:06,483 --> 00:30:07,883 Oh, yes! 460 00:30:11,163 --> 00:30:12,523 Look at all of this! 461 00:30:13,563 --> 00:30:17,003 So, it's clear that they've done a pretty thorough job. 462 00:30:17,003 --> 00:30:21,763 They've examined Margaret herself. She has... 463 00:30:23,443 --> 00:30:27,803 Oh, she's said here that she never meant to kill the King, 464 00:30:27,803 --> 00:30:30,483 but just wanted to get his attention. 465 00:30:32,763 --> 00:30:36,563 And they've also talked to her brother. 466 00:30:36,563 --> 00:30:39,883 He says that she came to London 20 years ago 467 00:30:39,883 --> 00:30:43,923 and that she'd worked as a housemaid. 468 00:30:46,403 --> 00:30:52,123 But she'd been sacked from that job and she had been ill. 469 00:30:52,123 --> 00:30:54,083 He says that she's been 470 00:30:54,083 --> 00:30:59,163 "breaking out into fits of laughter in the night". 471 00:30:59,163 --> 00:31:02,603 And the brother also says this, it's extraordinary. 472 00:31:02,603 --> 00:31:07,443 He says that "reading Milton's Paradise Lost 473 00:31:07,443 --> 00:31:14,403 "and such high-style books had contributed to turn her brain". 474 00:31:14,403 --> 00:31:17,083 That's such an 18th-century thing, isn't it? 475 00:31:17,083 --> 00:31:22,083 To imagine that reading fancy books can make a woman mad. 476 00:31:24,803 --> 00:31:26,963 So, what are the Privy Council going to do? 477 00:31:26,963 --> 00:31:32,283 What she'd done, an assassination attempt, was treason. 478 00:31:32,283 --> 00:31:34,523 She could have faced the death penalty. 479 00:31:34,523 --> 00:31:37,083 But they didn't go down that route. 480 00:31:37,083 --> 00:31:42,123 So, instead, they turned to the Vagrancy Act and they used that 481 00:31:42,123 --> 00:31:48,643 to have her shut up in Bethlem, better known as Bedlam. 482 00:31:48,643 --> 00:31:53,203 This is Georgian England's most notorious madhouse. 483 00:31:53,203 --> 00:31:58,763 They get her assessed by one of the doctors from Bedlam, 484 00:31:58,763 --> 00:32:01,643 this is Dr John Monro, 485 00:32:01,643 --> 00:32:04,763 and he says that never in his life had 486 00:32:04,763 --> 00:32:08,683 he seen a person more disordered. 487 00:32:08,683 --> 00:32:11,123 That's really quite a strong statement, isn't it, 488 00:32:11,123 --> 00:32:13,843 from the man who runs England's most notorious madhouse, 489 00:32:13,843 --> 00:32:17,323 that he's never seen a madder person than Margaret. 490 00:32:17,323 --> 00:32:20,843 It makes you wonder if he's overstating the case, 491 00:32:20,843 --> 00:32:23,643 so that they can all, with good conscience, lock her up. 492 00:32:29,723 --> 00:32:32,683 And she's not the only one. 493 00:32:35,123 --> 00:32:40,243 In November 1788, George succumbs to all the political 494 00:32:40,243 --> 00:32:43,443 and personal pressure and becomes seriously ill. 495 00:32:45,723 --> 00:32:47,843 After weeks of failed treatment, 496 00:32:47,843 --> 00:32:53,603 his doctors take an unprecedented step and lock him up. 497 00:32:53,603 --> 00:32:57,203 Not in Beldam, of course, but in Kew Palace. 498 00:32:59,763 --> 00:33:05,443 The King's eldest son senses an opportunity to seize power. 499 00:33:05,443 --> 00:33:09,243 He tells everyone his father is unfit to rule 500 00:33:09,243 --> 00:33:11,683 and calls for a regency. 501 00:33:13,003 --> 00:33:16,243 Daily bulletins are tied to the gates of Kew Palace, 502 00:33:16,243 --> 00:33:18,643 but they are heavily censored 503 00:33:18,643 --> 00:33:25,123 and don't explicitly mention madness. Speculation runs rife. 504 00:33:28,803 --> 00:33:33,923 So, here we have two infamous so-called mad people, 505 00:33:33,923 --> 00:33:35,843 a seamstress and a king, 506 00:33:35,843 --> 00:33:39,363 tied together by this assassination attempt. 507 00:33:39,363 --> 00:33:43,643 I'm so intrigued! And it was the same with the public back then. 508 00:33:43,643 --> 00:33:46,403 They couldn't get enough of the story. 509 00:33:46,403 --> 00:33:52,323 These are just a small snapshot of the many, many different images that 510 00:33:52,323 --> 00:33:56,043 were being produced. A lot of the facts were few and far between 511 00:33:56,043 --> 00:34:00,443 and a lot of embellishment was going on. So, here we have Margaret 512 00:34:00,443 --> 00:34:03,283 in Bethlem... Oh, my goodness! Is that her there? 513 00:34:03,283 --> 00:34:07,003 That's supposed to be her... Oh, wow! ..and this image is kind of 514 00:34:07,003 --> 00:34:11,683 extraordinary. It shows this violent, strange, terrifying figure. 515 00:34:11,683 --> 00:34:14,763 She's clutching straw. Straw is used as bedding 516 00:34:14,763 --> 00:34:18,403 in asylums. Ah! She's kind of involved with these two figures, 517 00:34:18,403 --> 00:34:20,923 two of the leading revolutionaries of the day. 518 00:34:20,923 --> 00:34:23,283 So, here we've got rational masculinity... Mm! 519 00:34:23,283 --> 00:34:25,403 ..and here she is, looking... 520 00:34:25,403 --> 00:34:28,483 Well, this is the archetype of the mad woman, having crazy hair. 521 00:34:28,483 --> 00:34:30,243 Exactly. Kind of Medusa-style. 522 00:34:30,243 --> 00:34:35,003 Yeah. Clearly, people are making money out of Margaret Nicholson. 523 00:34:35,003 --> 00:34:38,443 Was there a real market for this? Absolutely. 524 00:34:38,443 --> 00:34:41,883 Waxworks were being made, people would pay to see waxworks 525 00:34:41,883 --> 00:34:44,923 and her lodgings were described as being besieged. 526 00:34:44,923 --> 00:34:47,523 One I always find particularly fascinating is 527 00:34:47,523 --> 00:34:50,283 the obsession around the knife. 528 00:34:50,283 --> 00:34:55,443 Very quickly, it became common for enterprising innkeepers to 529 00:34:55,443 --> 00:34:59,403 announce that they had the original knife and some of them 530 00:34:59,403 --> 00:35:02,563 didn't have the knife, but they had a fork, which was the partner... 531 00:35:02,563 --> 00:35:04,923 I particularly love the idea of, come to my pub, 532 00:35:04,923 --> 00:35:08,003 where you will see the fork that went with the knife that might 533 00:35:08,003 --> 00:35:11,443 have belonged to Margaret Nicholson. Absolutely! Absolutely. 534 00:35:11,443 --> 00:35:14,123 When the King himself became ill, 535 00:35:14,123 --> 00:35:19,203 how was he treated by this sort of media of the 18th century? 536 00:35:19,203 --> 00:35:22,243 I think one of the really striking 537 00:35:22,243 --> 00:35:26,483 and surprising things is that there was very little cultural 538 00:35:26,483 --> 00:35:30,403 treatment of the King, so one of the very few images 539 00:35:30,403 --> 00:35:34,843 we have of the King when he went mad is this one, Filial Piety, 540 00:35:34,843 --> 00:35:38,683 and it shows the King looking perhaps ill, 541 00:35:38,683 --> 00:35:41,723 but none of the kind of typical iconography around madness 542 00:35:41,723 --> 00:35:43,363 is being applied to him. 543 00:35:43,363 --> 00:35:44,963 On the left-hand side, 544 00:35:44,963 --> 00:35:48,483 we have the Prince of Wales, who's sort of obviously drunk. 545 00:35:48,483 --> 00:35:51,483 We've got the kind of political backdrop of the regency crisis 546 00:35:51,483 --> 00:35:52,603 in 1788. 547 00:35:52,603 --> 00:35:55,643 I suppose, here, what's really going on is that they're using 548 00:35:55,643 --> 00:35:59,083 the situation to make the Prince of Wales look bad. Exactly. 549 00:35:59,083 --> 00:36:01,923 The madness of the King is being downplayed. 550 00:36:01,923 --> 00:36:04,843 I think it's a bit of a no-go area. 551 00:36:04,843 --> 00:36:09,563 A mentally ill king is simply unmentionable, 552 00:36:09,563 --> 00:36:13,163 so the press feeds the frenzy with Margaret instead. 553 00:36:15,763 --> 00:36:19,843 She even becomes the star attraction at Bethlem, where the 554 00:36:19,843 --> 00:36:24,723 upper classes come to ogle at the mentally ill. 555 00:36:24,723 --> 00:36:29,123 A mad king is extraordinary, but if I want to understand 556 00:36:29,123 --> 00:36:31,443 mental illness at the time, 557 00:36:31,443 --> 00:36:34,283 I need to investigate Margaret's story, too. 558 00:36:46,443 --> 00:36:50,123 These two statues are the very last surviving 559 00:36:50,123 --> 00:36:55,043 bits of the Bethlem Hospital, where Margaret was incarcerated. 560 00:36:55,043 --> 00:36:57,083 It was demolished in 1815. 561 00:36:58,083 --> 00:37:02,283 They represent the different types of madness that people 562 00:37:02,283 --> 00:37:05,123 believed existed in the 18th century. 563 00:37:05,123 --> 00:37:10,763 This one is melancholy madness, he's calm and still, 564 00:37:10,763 --> 00:37:16,643 and this one is raving madness, he's trying to burst out of his chains. 565 00:37:19,483 --> 00:37:23,483 These two were over the entrance when Margaret arrived. 566 00:37:23,483 --> 00:37:26,323 Not exactly a warm welcome. 567 00:37:28,203 --> 00:37:32,123 In the 1780s, doctors still thought they could treat people with 568 00:37:32,123 --> 00:37:35,763 mental illness by purging it from the body. 569 00:37:35,763 --> 00:37:38,443 I'm hoping that Bethlem's archivist can help me 570 00:37:38,443 --> 00:37:42,083 uncover the details of Margaret's treatment. 571 00:37:42,083 --> 00:37:44,603 We actually have her admission record here, 572 00:37:44,603 --> 00:37:47,923 which would have been created when she first came in to the hospital. 573 00:37:49,523 --> 00:37:54,003 And we can see Margaret's name... Margaret Nicholson. There she is. 574 00:37:54,003 --> 00:37:56,883 Do you know how they would have diagnosed her, 575 00:37:56,883 --> 00:37:59,803 what sort of an illness they thought she had? 576 00:37:59,803 --> 00:38:03,723 The hospital would have been split into male and female wings 577 00:38:03,723 --> 00:38:05,843 and it would have been split into 578 00:38:05,843 --> 00:38:10,403 melancholics and ravers. And where do you think...she fitted into that? 579 00:38:10,403 --> 00:38:14,043 I mean, I think, generally, she's described as quite a quiet, 580 00:38:14,043 --> 00:38:18,123 withdrawn patient, I think, a lot of the time, so I would be surprised 581 00:38:18,123 --> 00:38:22,723 if she was moved apart from the melancholy patients. 582 00:38:22,723 --> 00:38:25,923 These categories are not super subtle, are they? 583 00:38:25,923 --> 00:38:27,483 No, they really aren't. 584 00:38:27,483 --> 00:38:30,243 And what were the conditions like in the hospital? 585 00:38:30,243 --> 00:38:34,003 They were probably not very good. So, people were bled, 586 00:38:34,003 --> 00:38:37,603 people were given medication that would make them vomit 587 00:38:37,603 --> 00:38:40,203 or purge themselves in other ways. 588 00:38:40,203 --> 00:38:43,883 Mm. It was known round about this sort of time, 589 00:38:43,883 --> 00:38:47,683 there's a new strain of thought that's saying this isn't working, 590 00:38:47,683 --> 00:38:50,203 but Bethlem is still persisting in this. 591 00:38:50,203 --> 00:38:54,403 So, is there some information about what happened next to Margaret? 592 00:38:54,403 --> 00:38:56,043 Does she appear again? 593 00:38:56,043 --> 00:38:58,563 Yes, so, we will see her again 594 00:38:58,563 --> 00:39:01,123 in the Incurable Admissions Register, 595 00:39:01,123 --> 00:39:04,723 so the Incurable Ward would have been the long-stay 596 00:39:04,723 --> 00:39:07,723 section of Bethlem. You say that, but the name... 597 00:39:07,723 --> 00:39:13,283 It's a very depressing thought. It is, yes! These are people who are... 598 00:39:13,283 --> 00:39:17,203 Long stay. ..probably lifers... Mm. ..by this point. 599 00:39:17,203 --> 00:39:20,083 It says, "A motion was made that Margaret Nicholson be no 600 00:39:20,083 --> 00:39:25,003 "longer confined in her cell by a chain." Oh! 601 00:39:25,003 --> 00:39:28,083 So... So, what year is... What year is this? 602 00:39:28,083 --> 00:39:30,283 1791, so this is four years. 603 00:39:30,283 --> 00:39:33,563 So, she's been in chains for four years. 604 00:39:33,563 --> 00:39:36,763 She's regularly clapped in irons. Yes. Goodness me! 605 00:39:36,763 --> 00:39:38,403 I'm thinking what this means. 606 00:39:38,403 --> 00:39:41,123 Does this mean that the hospital committee have decided that 607 00:39:41,123 --> 00:39:42,483 she's so peaceful 608 00:39:42,483 --> 00:39:45,683 and not hurting herself that they don't need to bother doing that? 609 00:39:45,683 --> 00:39:50,883 Yes. But what is also interesting in this is the implication that she 610 00:39:50,883 --> 00:39:53,603 is well enough to be unchained, 611 00:39:53,603 --> 00:39:56,603 but she is still in the Incurable Wing. 612 00:39:56,603 --> 00:40:00,243 And that might be because she's this special patient, 613 00:40:00,243 --> 00:40:04,523 what she did received national attention, therefore 614 00:40:04,523 --> 00:40:08,323 the bar for her recovery is higher than it is for anybody else. 615 00:40:08,323 --> 00:40:12,203 It also perhaps implies that the hospital has been told not to 616 00:40:12,203 --> 00:40:16,323 release her... Not to release her. ..in any circumstance. Oof! 617 00:40:16,323 --> 00:40:20,803 Mm. She has been, if you like, disposed of by the state. 618 00:40:31,243 --> 00:40:33,403 It's pretty clear that at Bethlem, 619 00:40:33,403 --> 00:40:36,163 they were still committed to doing things the old way. 620 00:40:36,163 --> 00:40:39,203 Patients in cells, chains. 621 00:40:39,203 --> 00:40:44,043 And it's rather devastating to think of Margaret being written off, 622 00:40:44,043 --> 00:40:47,243 almost, with that word "incurable". 623 00:40:53,123 --> 00:40:56,803 I found these old lantern slides in the archives. 624 00:40:56,803 --> 00:41:00,403 This one is of Dr Thomas Monro. 625 00:41:00,403 --> 00:41:03,563 It was his father who incarcerated Margaret 626 00:41:03,563 --> 00:41:07,923 and Thomas takes over Bethlem from 1792. 627 00:41:07,923 --> 00:41:12,083 Asylums like his were a law unto themselves. 628 00:41:12,083 --> 00:41:16,723 Bethlem hadn't updated its treatment plan in 100 years. 629 00:41:16,723 --> 00:41:21,203 But there was a new school of thought that mental illness 630 00:41:21,203 --> 00:41:23,243 was an illness of the brain 631 00:41:23,243 --> 00:41:26,683 that needed to be treated in its own way. 632 00:41:26,683 --> 00:41:31,203 Some of these new ideas were to be found in this book. 633 00:41:31,203 --> 00:41:36,723 It's the first proper book about madness as a mental illness. 634 00:41:36,723 --> 00:41:42,283 It's called A Treatise On Madness by Dr William Battie. 635 00:41:42,283 --> 00:41:46,723 This was really radical stuff, 636 00:41:46,723 --> 00:41:52,043 and he suggested that it was wrong to chain up mentally ill people, 637 00:41:52,043 --> 00:41:55,523 nor was he in favour of shock treatments, 638 00:41:55,523 --> 00:41:57,763 things like making people vomit. 639 00:41:57,763 --> 00:42:03,443 Instead, he proposed quiet and fresh air and exercise, 640 00:42:03,443 --> 00:42:07,203 which sounds extraordinarily modern, doesn't it? 641 00:42:07,203 --> 00:42:10,843 That's what people are still recommended to do to this day. 642 00:42:10,843 --> 00:42:13,643 Battie's book was published in 1758, 643 00:42:13,643 --> 00:42:17,723 so that's 30 years before the King got ill. 644 00:42:17,723 --> 00:42:20,083 But it was George's illness 645 00:42:20,083 --> 00:42:23,723 and Margaret's too that raised the profile of his work. 646 00:42:23,723 --> 00:42:28,923 It went mainstream and people started to implement it. 647 00:42:30,243 --> 00:42:33,843 So, while Margaret was written off as incurable, 648 00:42:33,843 --> 00:42:36,243 did these new ideas reach George? 649 00:42:42,723 --> 00:42:47,883 In winter 1788, George is delusional, aggressive, 650 00:42:47,883 --> 00:42:50,883 sleepless, and time is running out. 651 00:42:52,083 --> 00:42:55,163 A Regency Bill has been prepared. 652 00:42:55,163 --> 00:42:59,963 If the King is not better in three months, his son will take over. 653 00:43:06,883 --> 00:43:11,683 In December 1788, the Royal Family make a bold decision. 654 00:43:11,683 --> 00:43:14,283 They summon a man called Francis Willis, 655 00:43:14,283 --> 00:43:19,203 who runs a madhouse in rural Lincolnshire, to come here to Kew. 656 00:43:22,203 --> 00:43:27,123 Private madhouses begin to spring up from the 1750s onwards, 657 00:43:27,123 --> 00:43:29,563 as new treatments are pioneered. 658 00:43:29,563 --> 00:43:33,563 Willis is one of a band of so-called "mad doctors", 659 00:43:33,563 --> 00:43:37,883 or, to you and me, early psychiatrists. 660 00:43:37,883 --> 00:43:44,603 Let me introduce you to Dr Francis Willis. I'm calling him Dr Willis, 661 00:43:44,603 --> 00:43:48,443 but I do know that his contemporaries might not have 662 00:43:48,443 --> 00:43:49,963 agreed with me in doing that 663 00:43:49,963 --> 00:43:55,003 because they didn't yet have the idea of a doctor of the mind. 664 00:43:55,003 --> 00:43:58,563 Members of the Royal College of Physicians, for example, 665 00:43:58,563 --> 00:44:01,363 would have said, "No, he's just the keeper of a madhouse. 666 00:44:01,363 --> 00:44:03,923 "We don't count him as one of us." 667 00:44:03,923 --> 00:44:07,963 So, I think it's quite an exciting decision that the Royal Family 668 00:44:07,963 --> 00:44:13,483 have called him in. It's a sign of how desperate they were, I think. 669 00:44:13,483 --> 00:44:15,363 He's a maverick. 670 00:44:23,323 --> 00:44:30,083 This is a make-or-break moment for him and his nascent profession. 671 00:44:30,083 --> 00:44:34,163 There's no higher-profile patient than this. 672 00:44:34,163 --> 00:44:36,883 What on earth is he going to do?! 673 00:44:42,963 --> 00:44:47,323 George was treated by Willis here at Kew. 674 00:44:47,323 --> 00:44:50,443 The King's tin bath still survives. 675 00:44:51,963 --> 00:44:55,403 This source is key to what happened to him. 676 00:44:55,403 --> 00:44:59,923 It's a diary by Francis Willis and his son, and they start off 677 00:44:59,923 --> 00:45:03,883 explaining what the previous doctors had given the King. 678 00:45:03,883 --> 00:45:07,923 The answer is really powerful sedatives. 679 00:45:07,923 --> 00:45:12,643 Here, he's been prescribed "30 drops of laudanum". 680 00:45:12,643 --> 00:45:16,043 Now, that is opium dissolved in alcohol. 681 00:45:16,043 --> 00:45:20,163 It's not a sustainable strategy. It's not going to make him better. 682 00:45:20,163 --> 00:45:23,163 It might even get him addicted. 683 00:45:23,163 --> 00:45:26,243 It's kind of like prescribing the King heroin. 684 00:45:31,203 --> 00:45:37,483 Willis decides to put a stop to this and he radically reduces the dosage. 685 00:45:37,483 --> 00:45:43,483 He also makes a bold decision to treat George just as he would 686 00:45:43,483 --> 00:45:49,003 any other patient in his asylum, and bend the King to his will. 687 00:45:54,523 --> 00:45:56,603 Oh, wow! 688 00:45:56,603 --> 00:46:00,043 I've got a straightjacket for you. My goodness! 689 00:46:00,043 --> 00:46:02,563 What... It keeps on giving. 690 00:46:02,563 --> 00:46:05,923 What is with these arms?! They're so long! 691 00:46:05,923 --> 00:46:08,563 How does it work? Here's the back. 692 00:46:08,563 --> 00:46:11,883 It buttons up the back, so you put your arms in like that... Yeah. 693 00:46:11,883 --> 00:46:15,643 ..and it's done up. And why are the sleeves so immensely long? 694 00:46:15,643 --> 00:46:20,203 So you put your arms in there... Yes. ..and then you hug yourself 695 00:46:20,203 --> 00:46:22,683 and then you get tied round the back. 696 00:46:22,683 --> 00:46:27,403 Oh! So it forces you to go like this, to give yourself a hug. 697 00:46:27,403 --> 00:46:31,963 Yes. Once you've no longer got the use of your hands, your flight 698 00:46:31,963 --> 00:46:34,883 and fight mode is turned off, 699 00:46:34,883 --> 00:46:39,723 so that it could then support you to calm yourself down. 700 00:46:39,723 --> 00:46:42,803 I was expecting something...barbaric, 701 00:46:42,803 --> 00:46:45,443 something that was to do with restraint. 702 00:46:45,443 --> 00:46:49,203 Compared to the manacles, which was what people were using before, 703 00:46:49,203 --> 00:46:52,843 this is really soft. Oh! This is a big step forward. 704 00:46:52,843 --> 00:46:54,963 Certainly, when I first looked at this, 705 00:46:54,963 --> 00:46:58,643 I had the same feelings as yourself, it's like really scary 706 00:46:58,643 --> 00:47:02,523 and the idea of being, you know, tied up, really. 707 00:47:02,523 --> 00:47:06,603 But this is a treatment and most illnesses, you know, 708 00:47:06,603 --> 00:47:08,683 most treatments are scary. 709 00:47:08,683 --> 00:47:12,803 Let me show you some of the ways in which Dr Willis used 710 00:47:12,803 --> 00:47:14,243 the straightjacket. 711 00:47:14,243 --> 00:47:17,043 Well, he doesn't actually call it a straightjacket. 712 00:47:17,043 --> 00:47:22,363 "The strait waistcoat was taken off from His Majesty at morning 713 00:47:22,363 --> 00:47:27,523 "yesterday, but was put on again soon after two o'clock 714 00:47:27,523 --> 00:47:31,523 "and was not taken off till nine this morning." 715 00:47:31,523 --> 00:47:32,843 Goodness me! 716 00:47:32,843 --> 00:47:36,563 So, he was kept in his strait waistcoat for the whole 717 00:47:36,563 --> 00:47:38,243 of this particular night. Nowadays, 718 00:47:38,243 --> 00:47:42,403 we use drugs and it's a chemical restraint. Yeah. 719 00:47:42,403 --> 00:47:45,563 But sometimes, that's not appropriate either, 720 00:47:45,563 --> 00:47:47,883 cos it's just treating the symptom, 721 00:47:47,883 --> 00:47:51,763 it's not allowing your brain to rebalance and sort itself out. 722 00:47:51,763 --> 00:47:54,123 That's really interesting that you're using the word 723 00:47:54,123 --> 00:47:56,363 "rebalance the brain". 724 00:47:56,363 --> 00:48:01,923 That's the language that Francis Willis used in the 18th century. 725 00:48:01,923 --> 00:48:06,643 Now, even if Francis Willis had the best intentions 726 00:48:06,643 --> 00:48:10,603 in the world, I do feel sorry for the poor King 727 00:48:10,603 --> 00:48:15,003 because it says here "they beat me like a madman". 728 00:48:20,723 --> 00:48:25,323 The King doesn't escape the brutal remedies of purges 729 00:48:25,323 --> 00:48:31,043 and ice-cold baths, but there were also new ideas at play. 730 00:48:31,043 --> 00:48:34,523 Willis is clearly picking up on the progressive 731 00:48:34,523 --> 00:48:36,603 approach of William Battie. 732 00:48:36,603 --> 00:48:41,283 While Margaret in Bethlem is chained and left to rot, 733 00:48:41,283 --> 00:48:46,323 Willis is encouraging George at Kew to take the air. 734 00:48:48,283 --> 00:48:52,563 And even though George does try to scale the giant pagoda, 735 00:48:52,563 --> 00:48:54,043 a 50-metre structure, 736 00:48:54,043 --> 00:48:57,843 Willis is confident his strategy is having some success. 737 00:49:01,483 --> 00:49:03,243 If you leave it untreated, 738 00:49:03,243 --> 00:49:07,163 an episode of mania can last between days or months, 739 00:49:07,163 --> 00:49:11,763 and to this day, doctors don't really know why they come to an end. 740 00:49:11,763 --> 00:49:15,123 But on 26th February 1789, 741 00:49:15,123 --> 00:49:18,643 a bulletin appeared on the gates of Kew Palace. 742 00:49:18,643 --> 00:49:22,403 Three months after he'd arrived, Dr Willis was able to announce 743 00:49:22,403 --> 00:49:26,643 the entire cessation of His Majesty's illness. 744 00:49:31,723 --> 00:49:37,163 It could be that the King's bipolar episode has simply run its course. 745 00:49:37,163 --> 00:49:40,843 But it does appear that the King's been restored to 746 00:49:40,843 --> 00:49:43,643 health by Dr Willis, 747 00:49:43,643 --> 00:49:50,163 and not a moment too soon. The Regency Bill is only days away. 748 00:49:50,163 --> 00:49:53,523 After months of political uncertainty, 749 00:49:53,523 --> 00:49:57,323 George is ready once again to be king. 750 00:50:07,683 --> 00:50:13,003 On St George's Day, there was a huge celebration of the King's 751 00:50:13,003 --> 00:50:17,923 recovery here at St Paul's Cathedral. 752 00:50:17,923 --> 00:50:21,603 Now, the Archbishop of Canterbury recommended that 753 00:50:21,603 --> 00:50:24,483 George himself shouldn't attend. 754 00:50:24,483 --> 00:50:27,883 He thought the excitement might bring on a relapse. 755 00:50:27,883 --> 00:50:31,443 But George had other ideas. He said, "No, I'm going. 756 00:50:31,443 --> 00:50:34,843 "My Lord," he said to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 757 00:50:34,843 --> 00:50:39,883 "I have twice read over the evidence of the physicians on my case, 758 00:50:39,883 --> 00:50:43,003 "and if I can stand that, I can stand anything." 759 00:50:44,003 --> 00:50:46,603 Thousands lined the route to St Paul's, 760 00:50:46,603 --> 00:50:50,283 and medals were struck to commemorate the occasion. 761 00:50:51,563 --> 00:50:54,403 And here is one of them. 762 00:50:54,403 --> 00:50:58,563 They're not actually that hard to find, cos so many of them were made. 763 00:50:58,563 --> 00:51:00,643 This one came off eBay. 764 00:51:00,643 --> 00:51:04,683 And on one side, we've got George's little face. There he is, 765 00:51:04,683 --> 00:51:07,043 looking alive and well, 766 00:51:07,043 --> 00:51:12,483 and on the back, the exciting story of what's happened. 767 00:51:12,483 --> 00:51:19,323 It says, "Lost to Britannia's hope, but to her prayers restored." 768 00:51:20,483 --> 00:51:24,683 Having a mentally fragile king appears not to have 769 00:51:24,683 --> 00:51:27,043 destabilised the nation. 770 00:51:27,043 --> 00:51:32,683 If anything, it humanised him in the eyes of his people. 771 00:51:32,683 --> 00:51:37,723 The irony is that King George III was virtually the only 772 00:51:37,723 --> 00:51:42,763 monarch left standing in Europe by the end of the 18th century. 773 00:51:42,763 --> 00:51:47,563 But the story doesn't end there. There's another medal. 774 00:51:50,083 --> 00:51:55,923 Dr Willis had his own medals struck. He paid for these himself. 775 00:51:55,923 --> 00:52:00,763 They're different grades. This is the cheaper copper version. 776 00:52:00,763 --> 00:52:05,603 And this is the deluxe shiny tin model. 777 00:52:05,603 --> 00:52:10,883 We've got a picture of Dr Willis on the front and on the back, it says, 778 00:52:10,883 --> 00:52:15,203 "Britons rejoice, your King's restored." 779 00:52:15,203 --> 00:52:19,323 The message is, "I'm Dr Willis, I restored him." 780 00:52:19,323 --> 00:52:22,563 It's the most fantastic bit of self-promotion. 781 00:52:22,563 --> 00:52:24,683 A bit like an advert, really, 782 00:52:24,683 --> 00:52:28,523 for this man you might almost call a psychiatrist. 783 00:52:28,523 --> 00:52:34,083 And I think the significance is that this profession 784 00:52:34,083 --> 00:52:39,363 of psychiatry is coming out of the shadows, it's getting respectable. 785 00:52:39,363 --> 00:52:42,763 This is its moment of triumph, if you like, 786 00:52:42,763 --> 00:52:44,163 captured in tin. 787 00:52:49,043 --> 00:52:55,483 George may be restored to health, but Margaret gets no medal 788 00:52:55,483 --> 00:52:57,883 and no redemption. 789 00:52:59,163 --> 00:53:03,443 It would be 25 years before the government started to concern 790 00:53:03,443 --> 00:53:09,323 itself with the horrific conditions inside public asylums. 791 00:53:09,323 --> 00:53:15,563 During that time, the King did relapse in 1801 and 1804. 792 00:53:15,563 --> 00:53:19,283 He convalesced for a while in the home of a friend, 793 00:53:19,283 --> 00:53:22,883 an MP named George Rose. 794 00:53:24,083 --> 00:53:29,243 Witnessing George's illness helped galvanise Rose and, in 1815, 795 00:53:29,243 --> 00:53:34,643 he led a select committee, charged with investigating Bethlem. 796 00:53:36,483 --> 00:53:40,643 These are the minutes of this parliamentary committee 797 00:53:40,643 --> 00:53:45,683 that's looking into the "better regulation of madhouses in England". 798 00:53:45,683 --> 00:53:50,163 They're calling all sorts of witnesses to give evidence 799 00:53:50,163 --> 00:53:54,403 and a very dark picture is being painted 800 00:53:54,403 --> 00:53:56,083 of existing conditions. 801 00:53:57,443 --> 00:54:00,043 This part's really distressing. 802 00:54:00,043 --> 00:54:04,283 We've got a witness who's seen "unfortunate women locked 803 00:54:04,283 --> 00:54:10,443 "up in their cells, naked and chained, on straw, 804 00:54:10,443 --> 00:54:15,203 "with just one blanket for a covering". 805 00:54:15,203 --> 00:54:18,523 Now, George Rose clearly suspects that there have been 806 00:54:18,523 --> 00:54:22,643 male keepers looking after female patients, which is 807 00:54:22,643 --> 00:54:25,603 inappropriate, power could have been abused here. 808 00:54:25,603 --> 00:54:29,003 And he's really going after Dr Monro, 809 00:54:29,003 --> 00:54:31,203 who's in charge of the Bethlem Hospital. 810 00:54:31,203 --> 00:54:35,203 Dr Monro says, "In Bethlem, the restraint is by chains. 811 00:54:35,203 --> 00:54:40,243 "There is no such thing as chains in my private mental hospital." 812 00:54:40,243 --> 00:54:44,443 And he's asked about this. Why the difference in standard? 813 00:54:44,443 --> 00:54:46,283 And Dr Monro says, 814 00:54:46,283 --> 00:54:52,203 "Well, it's because chains are fit only for pauper lunatics." 815 00:54:52,203 --> 00:54:54,363 Isn't that shocking? 816 00:54:54,363 --> 00:54:58,723 He says, "If a gentleman was put in irons, he would not like it." 817 00:54:58,723 --> 00:55:00,203 Too right! 818 00:55:00,203 --> 00:55:03,163 I don't think Dr Monro realised how much 819 00:55:03,163 --> 00:55:07,163 he was going to damn himself by this statement. It caused a scandal. 820 00:55:07,163 --> 00:55:09,763 People were offended by this idea of a double standard 821 00:55:09,763 --> 00:55:11,443 for rich and for poor. 822 00:55:11,443 --> 00:55:16,003 The fallout of this was so bad that Dr Monro had to resign. 823 00:55:19,123 --> 00:55:23,043 This committee exposed the sexual abuse 824 00:55:23,043 --> 00:55:27,163 and excessive restraint that had been rife for decades. 825 00:55:27,163 --> 00:55:32,963 It was a watershed moment, a process of reform had begun. 826 00:55:32,963 --> 00:55:35,203 Fearing further censure, 827 00:55:35,203 --> 00:55:39,403 Bethlem started keeping individual patient notes. 828 00:55:42,003 --> 00:55:45,763 Now, these books are from after 1815, 829 00:55:45,763 --> 00:55:49,723 when they had to keep fuller records. 830 00:55:49,723 --> 00:55:55,243 So I'm really hoping these might shed some more light on Margaret. 831 00:55:59,443 --> 00:56:04,243 Because of the King's illness, and the reform that followed, 832 00:56:04,243 --> 00:56:08,923 I can now at least find her in the records. 833 00:56:11,603 --> 00:56:13,563 Oh, look at this! 834 00:56:13,563 --> 00:56:15,923 It's progress reports, 835 00:56:15,923 --> 00:56:17,963 in 1816, 836 00:56:17,963 --> 00:56:21,163 1817, 1819... 837 00:56:21,163 --> 00:56:27,163 By this time, she's been in the hospital for nearly 30 years. 838 00:56:28,403 --> 00:56:35,363 It says here she's now in "an advanced stage of her life 839 00:56:35,363 --> 00:56:37,843 "and is perfectly deaf. 840 00:56:37,843 --> 00:56:43,923 "She's decent in her appearance and quiet and civil in her demeanour." 841 00:56:45,403 --> 00:56:47,483 It sounds to me like she's better. 842 00:56:50,043 --> 00:56:52,003 And then the records stop. 843 00:56:53,763 --> 00:56:57,283 It's really fantastic to get a glimpse of a real person here. 844 00:56:59,043 --> 00:57:01,283 And she doesn't seem like 845 00:57:01,283 --> 00:57:07,763 either a criminal or a patient any more. She's just a quiet old lady. 846 00:57:07,763 --> 00:57:11,283 Do you know what? I've got a little tear in my eye. 847 00:57:20,403 --> 00:57:24,763 Reform really came too late for Margaret Nicholson. 848 00:57:24,763 --> 00:57:28,763 She was incarcerated in Bethlem for 42 years 849 00:57:28,763 --> 00:57:32,803 and died on 14th May 1828. 850 00:57:34,323 --> 00:57:38,163 George III was suffering from chronic mania and dementia 851 00:57:38,163 --> 00:57:43,523 when he died on 29th January 1820. 852 00:57:43,523 --> 00:57:47,963 This encounter between George and Margaret 853 00:57:47,963 --> 00:57:49,723 happened at... 854 00:57:49,723 --> 00:57:55,523 In fact, it fed into this key moment of change for the science 855 00:57:55,523 --> 00:57:57,043 of psychiatry 856 00:57:57,043 --> 00:58:01,363 and for the reform of psychiatric asylums. 857 00:58:01,363 --> 00:58:05,603 There's still so much more to learn about the complexities 858 00:58:05,603 --> 00:58:10,043 of mental illness, but this was the starting point.