71
America Gets Rid of Her King
Did you know that we once had a king?
His name was George.
No, George Washington wasn’t a king.
This was another George.
You remember the Stuarts in England—James, Charles, and the rest of the family who ruled England for a hundred years from 1600 to 1700. Well about 1700 England ran out of Stuarts—there were no more Stuart children.
As England had to have another king, they asked a distant relative of the royal family over from one of the German states to rule England. Yes, from Germany to rule England. His name was George, and the English called him George I. George couldn’t even speak English. He was German and loved his own country much better than England, but he had agreed to come and rule over England, and he did so. You can imagine what sort of a king he was. His son, George II ruled after him, although he, too, was more German than English. But when the grandson, George III, came to the throne he was a born and bred Englishman. It was in this grandson’s reign, in the reign of George III, that our own country, the United States, was born.
When a wheel turns over we call it a revolution, which is a big name for a little thing.