Abstract
The Bill of Rights (1689) had ordained that the monarch must be a Protestant. George III fulfilled this condition impeccably. In his first speech from the throne on 18 November 1760 he proclaimed the protection of the ‘Protestant Interest’ in Europe as a major British objective in the Seven Years’ War;1 he ended his reign as a champion of the Protestant constitution with his successful resistance to Catholic Emancipation. By the Act of Settlement (1701) George III was required to be a member of the Church of England. He was by law the head of the Church and of the wider Anglican communion. Article 37 of the Church’s Articles of Religion accorded to the King the ‘chief Government’ over ‘all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil’.
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Notes
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S. L. Ollard, Fasti Wyndesorienses. The Deans and Canons of Windsor (Windsor: Dean and Canons of St George’s Chapel, 1950), p. 52.
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© 2002 G. M. Ditchfield
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Ditchfield, G.M. (2002). The Religion of George III. In: George III. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230599437_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230599437_5
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