The Madness of King George - The Reluctant Psychoanalyst Observes Executive Function

I watched this film when it was released in theaters in 1994 and what I remember of it is that one of the friends that I watched it with, the chief psychiatry resident at the hospital where I worked, was able to remember that the obscure skin disease diagnosis that the film offers, porphyria, for King George’s madness was something that he somehow managed to remember from medical school based on its key identifying symptom – porphyria turns the patient’s urine blue – a symptom that King George manifested.  Now, many decades later, when the reluctant wife suggested that we watch it, I was intrigued, hoping that it would provide information about how King George’s madness was tied to our own revolution from the king, something that I had new interest in partly based on the musical Hamilton. 

Well, as a potentially historical film, this was a disappointment.  The events chronicled were at best loosely tied to historical moments.  This is a psychological study of a man – a character – who is perhaps the first of the kings whose job was less to govern than to reign – to serve as a figurehead who has a constitutional role, but a limited one.  This would become an art by the time Elizabeth II would ascend the throne.  But George (played by Nigel Hawthorne) was, unwittingly at times, creating the role of a non-interventionist but essential component of the governing structure of England – and his madness was a component of that.  The emphasis of the title clarifies that this is primarily a film about madness and only secondarily about History.

Madness is an interesting thing.  We are, and this is well portrayed in the film, not able to regulate ourselves when we are mad.  Antonio Damasio, in The Strange Order of Things, proposes that evolution has selected us to be able to regulate ourselves homeostatically.  From this perspective, our emotions are intended to give us information about internal and/or external states being out of whack.  When we are no longer able to use our feelings to exert the kind of controls that we would ordinarily assert – when, instead, those feelings propel us into being unbalanced, we are mad.  Thus, in this film, the king of England is suddenly taking his attendants – in their sleeping garments – for romps in meadows and, once assembled there, this deeply monogamous king is assaulting his wife’s lady in waiting openly trying to have sex with her with multiple onlookers present and in the light of day.

But madness, as portrayed by the author of the play the film is based on (Alan Bennett), does not divorce us from our essence.  As the king is returning to his senses his aid says, “Your Majesty seems more yourself.” And he responds, “Do I? Yes, I do. I've always been myself, even when I was ill. Only now I seem myself. And that's the important thing. I have remembered how to seem.”  This seeming – this appearing – is an important part of our “healthy” functioning.  We “appear” to be civilized – and in control – when actually there are all kinds of primitive and powerful thoughts and emotions roiling just under the surface of that seeming control.  When we are kings – or, in the current day and age, empowered in whatever way we may be, we may allow (or fail to control) our bestial selves – our uncontrolled and chaotic selves – to reign, imposing chaos on the world around us.

The remarkable thing about being king, then, is that we do exert control – that we function in the role of king on behalf of those we govern – that we don’t exert our will in selfish and immature ways but in ways that are in the better interests of those we are governing.  The subjects of a monarchy don’t choose who will govern them – the governors are born not elected.  So the Prince of Wales (also named George, played by Rupert Everett), the man next in line to be king, chooses to step in – he attempts to assert himself as regent – to take over for the unbalanced king.  He has a coterie of supporters who would emulate the United States and move further away from the rule of a king and move towards having those who are elected have greater power.  King George and his henchmen buy off the current representatives with titles and favors, ensuring their ability to exert monarchical rule in a nominal democracy.  Presumably his supporters see the younger George as more sympathetic to their cause – though they don’t seem to see that he has self-interest very much in mind and might become even more despotic than his father.

The prince states that “to be Prince of Wales is not a position - it is a predicament.”  Like the party that is not in power in our two party system – and like the Vice President – who is essentially a president in waiting without any true power in most administrations, the prince is simply waiting for the death of the king.  But this prince is not just making a comment on the position, but on his relationship with his father and his father’s consistent efforts to foil his activity – as if his father fears that his foppish and un-self-governed son would act madly if given the opportunity.  So it is with some trepidation that we see the son feeling that he must step in to restrain his father when his father is running amok – this becomes a family matter rather than a matter of government, he maintains.   The question that he raises is a very current one – both for those who are mentally disordered and for those who are governing in ways that others see as unbridled- is the man fit for office and if he is not, should he be removed?

OK, spoiler alert, in the film, King George, due to the cyclic nature of his disorder, returns, as referenced above, to “seeming” himself – and when he does this, there is no grounds for installing his son as regent.  Historically, this occurred a number of times, suggesting to me that the hypothesis that George suffered from Bipolar disorder in addition to or instead of porphyria.  Some have surmised that his blue urine may have been caused by some of the herbs that he was treated with rather than being a symptom.

In addition to the threat to his monarchy that comes from his son, King George has to confront Francis Willis (Ian Holm), who is called in to treat his madness.  This man, a former clergyman who knows nothing of Shakespeare or, apparently, the soul, runs a farm where the mad are treated.  He knows how to use punishment – strapping the King into a chair when he won’t control himself – as a temporary means of reinstating the King's ability to exert some authority over himself.  Dr. Willis states, “If the King refuses food, He will be restrained. If He claims to have no appetite, He will be restrained. If He swears and indulges in MEANINGLESS DISCOURSE... He will be restrained. If He throws off his bed-clothes, tears away His bandages, scratches at His sores, and if He does not strive EVERY day and ALWAYS towards His OWN RECOVERY... then He must be restrained.”  To which, George responds, “I am the King of England.” And Willis rebuts, “NO, sir. You are the PATIENT.”  Eli Zaretsky, a historian of psychology, cites Willis and his treatment of George as an example of the enlightenment approach to treatment - based in Lockean principles of associationism, it is an attempt to appeal to the little rational part of the mind that is still present.

While Willis' approach affords some nominal level of control, it is the King’s wife, Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren) who, despite being kept from him by Dr. Willis during the latter stages of his madness, maintains a sense of who the King is – not just what he seems but who she essentially knows him to be – someone whom she loves – despite his flaws – and someone she supports.  And when he is returned to “health” and is confronting his son, it is she who is able to guide the King through the homeostatic process of forgiveness and working from a position of love – helping to guide emotions that are now more clearly shakily in the King’s control – the way that all of us exert rather shaky control over our feelings when we are functioning at our best.

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