Modern historians are much more likely to treat George III favourably or sympathetically than their nineteenth and early twentieth century predecessors. Whereas Victorian Whig/Liberal historians viewed George as a reactionary aspiring tyrant, Lewis Namier's pioneering work on eighteenth century politics overturned this orthodoxy.

Starting with his revolutionary The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929), Namier analysed the politics of the 1760s and concluded that the traditional Whig account was a myth. George III was no more powerful than George II and he was not plotting to extend his powers. Fellow historian John Brooke went further in his excellent biography of George, claiming that his constitutional ideas were built upon a veneration for the Whig settlement of 1689 rather than on an absolutist model. George's appointment of Lord Bute Brooke viewed as part of the British monarch's traditional prerogative of choosing his own ministers, not an attempt by George (as previous historians viewed it) to extend the power of the crown.

Whereas the first two Georges ruled explicitly on favouring one of the two parties in the state (the Whigs), George III attempted to abolish party distinctions and rule as a 'patriot king' in the national interest. Linda Colley's work on an emerging British national identity saw George as a popular monarch who by the end of his reign was being seen as the father of his people.

George III is now seen much more in the context of his age, leading to a revised view that portrays him neither as a constitutional innovator trying to acquire absolute power but as a king who in times of crisis such as the American war or the debate over Catholic emancipation, was in tune with the wishes of his people.

Sources: Herbert Butterfield, George III and the Historians (London: Collins, 1957), Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).