David Dundas and the Regency Crisis of 1789

In January, 1789, after several months without communication, David Dundas wrote a letter to his brother. He offered a remarkable, if spare, retrospective on his work as a London apothecary during a winter of intense political intrigue. "When I look back upon the last three months I can scarcely bring myself to believe that it is real - I fancy it a dream a delusion - it is so unnatural to see that Person who I was accustomed to approach with awe respect & deference in the situation He now is." Although he never states it directly, "that Person" was King George III. Dundas's time had been consumed by "going every other day to Windsor, sitting up all night," tending to the King's delirium.

George III's "madness"- diagnosed in the 1960s as the hereditary disease porphyria - lasted from November 1788 to February 1789. It was one of four major outbreaks he suffered before becoming permanently disabled in 1811. Accompanied by a "Regency Crisis" that nearly cost him the throne, the 1788-1789 mental episode has long been considered one of the most significant events of the King's sixty year reign.

Many historians have written about the life of George III, several devoting entire books to his madness. None, however, reference this document, which recently surfaced in a review of a collection of 61 letters written by David Dundas and his wife, Isabella. Although Dundas occasionally appears in published accounts of the Regency Crisis, a lack of evidence has left his experience on the periphery. But circumstantial evidence suggests that Dundas had a significant presence during the winter of 1788-1789; in one of George's most famous delusions, the apothecary served as the King's intermediary in an untoward relationship with Lady Pembroke. This letter confirms his place at George's bedside, offering a dramatic view into the uncertain, politically charged environment sparked by the illness.

Rumors about George III's condition appeared in the British press immediately after he began to exhibit odd behavior. He was kept in private, prattling nonsensically and shouting obscenities, complaining of pain in his limbs, and suffering delusions. Dundas alludes to the effort to control public knowledge of the King's condition, noting "that from the beginning of my attendance at Windsor I thought it would be improper in me to give any information even to you." Like others treating the King, the condition clearly baffled Dundas, who remarked ironically: "I sometimes question whither I am in my senses & if it is not a varnum insomnium." Months of symptom fluctuations and false hope left him to conclude: "How soon it will terminate God knows."

The persistence of the condition led to the Regency Crisis, an effort led by Charles Fox, a leader in Parliament's Whig party, to transfer power to the Prince of Wales. Prime Minister William Pitt, who feared losing his position if the King were replaced, stood in opposition. The debate hinged on the King's prognosis; if recovery appeared unlikely, a regency would become necessary. When the royal physicians could not administer a cure, they became unwilling to predict recovery. This prompted the Queen and Pitt to turn to Francis Willis, a former clergyman who treated the insane. Willis took over the King's treatment a few days after "the arrival of the family at Kew" on November 29, which corresponded to the reduction in Dundas's rotations to "every fourth day."

Willis insisted he could cure the King and implemented a series of infamously cruel treatments that included straight jacketing and inducing blisters. The royal physicians did not view Willis as an equal and issued conflicting accounts of George's status. Willis claimed, for example, that Christmas 1788 had been uneventful, but the physicians reported that on the holiday Dundas witnessed the King treat his pillow as if it was his long-dead infant son Octavius. Dundas alludes to the controversy through his worry over pay, suggesting that "some of [the doctors] from the strange political turn that things have taken can never be recompensed for the abuse they have sustained." Unbeknownst to Dundas when he penned this letter in late January, George was on the mend. Regardless of the King's improving state, the Regency Bill continued through Parliament, passing the House of Commons with the Prince of Wales agreeing to some power restrictions. George's recovery, however, forced Parliament to drop the bill prior to its final adoption in February. As his first official act after recovery, the King discontinued the Physicians' Report. Willis won praise for his treatment, which in retrospect appears to have played no role in George's diminishing symptoms.

Despite the well-documented fact that George III despised doctors, Dundas remained a fixture in his life. Attesting to Dundas' role as a caregiver during the Regency Crisis -- and by extension, the significance of this newly discovered letter -- the King appointed him Sergeant Surgeon in 1791. When Dundas again wrote his brother to announce the promotion, he proudly reported that "He never could forget my attention & attachment to Him during His illness" (see GLC02549.50). In making the appointment, the King bypassed more experienced and well-known doctors, for the first time vaulting an apothecary to the pinnacle of the British medical profession.

Robert Lee
Manuscript Cataloger

GLC 02549.44 David Dundas to James Dundas, Richmond (London), England, 24 January1789.

For more information or to obtain copies, contact Ana Ramirez-Luhrs at reference@gilderlehrman.com or call (212) 787-6616 ext. 209.

Chenevix, Charles T. The Royal Malady. London: Longmans, 1964.

Guttmacher, Manfred S. America's Last King: An Interpretation of the Madness of
George III. New York: Scribner, 1941.

Hibbert Christopher. George III: A Personal History. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

Macalpine, Ida. George III and the Mad-Business. London: Pimlico, 1991.