7. The King of England once kept a human being as a pet, or so some claim
In 1725 a wild boy was discovered in the Hanoverian woods by a hunting party led by King George I. The boy could not speak, moved about only by crawling on hands and knees, and had survived by eating woodland vegetation. The Princess of Wales, the King’s daughter-in-law, ordered the child sent to England, where he stayed for a time at Kensington Palace. For the next several months he was a national sensation, the subject of essays by Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe (Swift’s was particularly scathing) and efforts were made to teach the boy to speak, read, and write. All failed. An early proponent of evolution, James Burnett, later cited the boy as an example of the process from nature.
While often reported that George I kept Peter as a pet, such tales are exaggerations. By 1726 he was in the care of Dr. Arbuthnot, under the direction of Catherine, Princess of Wales. He was later sent to various caretakers, each time with a pension to offset the cost of his care. Peter lived in the care of different supporters for the rest of his life, never learning to speak beyond the words “King George” and “Peter”. James Burnett reported that he could hum what appeared to be music, but the tune was unrecognized. Peter died in 1785 – during the reign of George III – at an estimated age of about 70, and was buried at St. Mary’s Church in Northchurch.