by
Oil on canvas. Private collection; Bowood House, Wiltshire, England.
Oil on canvas. Private collection; Bowood House, Wiltshire, England.
[King] George was unswervingly loyal to people he trusted and ideas he believed to be true; and he behaved in ways that a modern psychologist might interpret as obsessive. As a young man he would, for example, eat virtually the same dinner every day of his adult life (bread, soup, beets or turnips, and mutton — varying only on Sundays, when he allowed himself roast beef). The regularity of his tastes bespoke a deeper hunger for order.