This one is truly an anomaly. All the suggestions here so far are well placed and viable, and I can only add more logs to the fire.
As Fernando suggested, this hilt rings very 'espada ancha' to me, and does not correspond to any D guard Confederate bowie hilts I am familiar with. As Mark suggests, this blade more corresponds to the American style Bowie forms, but here is where the problems take hold.
As Norman has pointed out, the triple fuller pattern is consistent with Solingen made trade blades which included 'cutlass' and 'machete' types.
However, this blade, which as noted, may be reprofiled from a larger blade, the blade back seems to 'peak' away from the fuller pattern to correspond to an equally peaked edge to form a kind of widened 'falchion' type blade.
It would seem difficult to reprofile a blade to have these 'peaks' to achieve the 'Bowie' clipped point effect from a blade of the Solingen forms seen.
As far as I have known, the spurious GR or VR marks were never used by Solingen or any other production locations, quite honestly British blades did not have a particularly good reputation. Sheffield, on the other hand, was a private enterprise which did not furnish blades to the government, so would not have had these arsenal type marks.
As Mark has well noted this blade is hardly the work of Sheffield, and appears to be more 'blacksmith' character.
The Spanish colonial espada ancha, while used into the second quarter of 19th century, had mostly reduced in size to what closely resembled the large Bowie knives that had evolved after the Alamo (1836). They became known colloquially on the frontiers as 'frog stickers', along with the 'Arkansas Toothpick' and Bowies. What was unique about these Spanish colonial (now Mexican) espada/knives was the tip had an 'uptick', not the widened clipped point of Bowies.
So the big question is, why the VR and crown? (are there other markings?)
Could this blade have come from one of the 'pioneer' type blades used mid 19th century in the British army. Is the location of the mark on the blade consistent with that on these types of blades?
These are espada anchas; the one at top, and third from bottom have the mid 18th c. 'dragoon' blades. Note the differences from Bowie blades etc.
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