In his recent and excellent book, “The Last King of America,” award-winning author Andrew Roberts offers up a revisionist view of King George III, whose reign ran from 1760 to 1811 and included the American Revolution and England’s loss of its 13 North American colonies.

Roberts posits that George III was not the arch-villain Jefferson conjured up—for rhetorical and propaganda purposes, according to Roberts—in the Declaration of Independence. To the contrary, George III was cognizant of the limitations that the British Constitution imposed on the monarchy. Roberts contends, in fact, that the American Revolution—inspired purportedly by George III’s tyrannical tendencies—succeeded in large measure because of the king’s refusal to resort to tyrannical measures to put down the rebellion.