Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T15:22:31.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Morality and Monarchy in the Queen Caroline Affair*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Tamara L. Hunt
Get access

Extract

The licentious career of Caroline of Brunswick, the most notorious queen in modern British history, was only exceeded by that of her husband, George IV, and the scandal that emerged when he attempted to obtain a divorce inspired one of the most unusual episodes of nineteenth-century British history. For six months the attention of the country was focused on the queen's trial; massive demonstrations in her support were familiar sights in London streets and news of the matter dominated the columns of the press. The popular outpouring of support for the queen often took the form of reviling the king and his ministers, and revolution seemed to be in the air, yet because no lasting political change resulted from this tumult, historians have tended to dismiss the affair as relatively unimportant. However, to view this interlude primarily in terms of party politics is to overlook the fact that the majority of the people who formed the massive crowds that so alarmed the government were neither radicals nor reformers, and many, if not most of them were unenfranchised. In order to better understand the implications of this unrest, it is important to identify those factors that inspired British men and women to openly denigrate their ruler and to heap opprobrium on the members of government in defense of a woman who, ironically, many believed to be guilty as charged. Such an examination makes it clear that this was an event of profound cultural significance and was in some respects the first wide-spread popular expression of the moral standards that have come to be labelled “Victorian.”

Any attempt to judge “public opinion” is fraught with difficulty. Most of the surviving journals, memoirs, and collections of letters from this period were written by members of the gentry and aristocracy; most of the middle and working-class people who actively demonstrated in support of the queen or who signed the numerous addresses sent to her have tended to remain silent and anonymous. Newspaper and other written accounts of the affair were often extremely partisan, for British society was sharply divided on this issue. Political caricatures, however, overcome some of these difficulties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , Winter 1991 , pp. 697 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Walter Arnstein, Caroline Hibbard, Ann Allen, and Scott Hughes Myerly for their comments and suggestions. An earlier version of this article appeared as chapter 7 in Tamara L. Hunt, “To Take for Truth the Test of Ridicule': Public Perceptions, Political Controversy, and English Political Caricature, 1815–1821” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1989).

References

1 Strikingly, despite the enormous crowds that marched in the streets in support of Queen Caroline and contemporary fears that the country hovered on the brink of revolution, the affair is not mentioned in Thomis, Malcolm I. and Holt's, PeterThreats of Revolution in Britain, 1789–1848 (Hamden, Conn., 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. E. P. Thompson initially dismissed the affair in less than two pages, calling it “humbug” (Making of the English Working Class [New York, 1966], p. 708Google ScholarPubMed), but has since modified that position (New Society, May 3, 1979, pp. 275–77Google ScholarPubMed). Mitchell's, AustinThe Whigs in Opposition, 1815–1830 (Oxford, 1967Google Scholar) analyzes the affair in terms of its impact on the fortunes of the Whig party, but he ultimately dismisses the tumult outside of Parliament, saying only that “though strongly voiced, [it] had hardly influenced the house” (p. 169). Two more recent studies have examined the Queen Caroline affair in the context of organized radical politics: Prothero's, I. J.Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London (Baton Rouge, 1979)Google Scholar and Hone's, J. AnnFor the Cause of Truth: Radicalism in London 1796–1821 (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar. Both works make it clear that a variety of motives led men and women to support the queen (Prothcro, p. 136 and Hone, pp. 307–08), but they come to different conclusions. Prothero declares that it was “an important episode in London working-class politics” which had, among other things, “restored freedom of political agitation” (pp. 154, 153), but Hone contends that “for all the radical's activity and the magnitude of the popular response, the Queen Caroline affair can be seen as leading nowhere” (p. 317). Perhaps the most penetrating analysis of the Queen Caroline affair to date is Laqueur's, Thomas article, “The Queen Caroline Affair: Politics as Art in the Reign of George IV,” Journal of Modern History 54 (September 1982): 417–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; although Laqueur's analysis clearly demonstrates the wide-ranging social and cultural appeal of this episode, he ultimately concludes that its serious political overtones were defused by the absurdity of the whole affair. See below, note 64. Only recently has the agitation surrounding the queen's case been viewed as an important social episode: see Davidoff, Leonore and Hall, Catherine, Family Fortunes (Chicago, 1987), pp. 149–55, 448Google Scholar. Despite the often festive atmosphere of the pro-queen agitation and the many manifestations of traditional culture (e.g., charivari, parades, and processions) this affair has been almost completely ignored by historians of popular culture: for example, Golby, J. M. and Purdue, A. W., The Civilization of the Crowd (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

2 The artist's fee was often the heaviest part of the cost. Clarke, William, Monthly Magazine, February 1833, p. 141Google Scholar, quoted in Wardroper, John, The Caricatures of George Cruikshank (London, 1977), p. 14Google Scholar, claims that by 1813, the Cruikshank brothers received three guineas per plate, but a handwritten note on the back of British Library print no. 12881, “Bailiffs Smoking out the Copper Captain,” published May 9, 1817, artist De Berenger, states that the price of this plate was six guineas. Further, it seems that caricatures rarely were subsidized by outside parties. Artist James Gillray had a government pension in the 1790s, but by his death in 1815, the government ended such payments as they had not stopped Gillray from attacking the Ministry through his art (see B.L., Add. MSS 27,337 [Gillray Papers], ff. 21–22). Throughout the remainder of this paper, prints from various collections will be identified as follows: B.L. — from the British Library; H.E..H. — from the Henry E. Huntington Library; TS — from the Treasury Solicitor's papers.

3 See Gombrich, E. H., “The Cartoonist's Armoury,” in Meditations on a Hobby Horse (4th ed.; London, 1985): 127–42Google Scholar.

4 More caricatures appeared in 1820–21 than in the following five years combined. George, Dorothy, The Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 11 vols. (London, 1952), 10: xxGoogle Scholar.

5 P.R.O., HO 41/5/3.

6 It was anticipated in several prints; see “Paving the Way for a Royal Divorce,” which was published October 1, 1816 by Johnston (B.L., 12808). In 1820 this question was brought up again in the first caricature on the new reign: “Reflection: To Be or not to be,” published February 11, 1820 (B.L., 13661). As the title implies, this print raises the question whether the new king will acknowledge his wife as queen.

7 Quoted in Holme, Thea, Caroline (New York, 1980), p. 46Google Scholar.

8 Reports of the queen's often bizarre behavior on the Continent had circulated independently in England since at least 1816. See “A Trip from Wales to Barbary — or the Bashaw with Three Tails Smoaking [sic] an Easy Pipe,” B.L., 12810, published 1816, which implies that the princess had an affair with the Dey of Tunis during her visit there in 1816. Although this was certainly untrue, her visit to his seraglio was one of the acts of imprudence for which she was famous. This implication resurfaced in 1820 in the print, “The Measure of Happiness, or a Royal Visit to the Dey of Tunis or the Great Plenipo —” published July 20, 1820 by S. W. Fores (B.L., 13767). In 1817, her liaison with Bergami — which formed the basis for the case against her in 1820 — was so widely rumored that two caricatures implied her adultery: “A R-y-1 Visit to a Foreign Capital or The Ambassador not at Home!!” (B.L., 12889), and “Royal Condescension — or a Foreign Minister Astonished!” (B.L., 12890), both published September 15, 1817 by S. W. Fores.

9 Greville, Charles, The Greville Memoirs, ed. Reeve, Henry, 3 vols. (5th ed.; London, 1875), 1: 36Google Scholar.

10 Hazlitt, William, “Common Places,” in The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, ed. Howe, P. P., 24 vols. (London, 1934), 20: 136Google Scholar.

11 Rush, B., Memorandum of a Residence at Court of London from 1817 to 1825, p. 311Google Scholar, as quoted in George, , Catalogue, 10: xiGoogle Scholar.

12 P.R.O., HO 40/15, f. 65; Annual Register (London, 1822) p. 60Google ScholarPubMed.

13 Lieven, Princess Dorothea, The Private Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich, 1820–1826, ed. Quennel, Peter (London, 1948), pp. 51–52Google Scholar.

14 Lyttelton, , quoted in Holme, , Caroline, p. 196Google Scholar; Frcmantle to the Duke of Buckingham, in Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Memoirs of the Court of England During the Regency, 1811–1820, 2 vols. (London, 1856), 1: 51Google Scholar.

15 Smith, E. A., Whig Principles and Party Politics: Earl Fitzwilliam and the Whig Party, 1748–1833 (Manchester, 1977), p. 359Google Scholar; Mitchell, , The Whigs in Opposition, p. 146Google Scholar.

16 Consequently, the radicals argued, “People therefore are doing no more than protecting their own liberties when they oppose themselves to an attack of this illegal and unjust nature against the Queen” (The Examiner, July 20, 1820)Google ScholarPubMed.

17 See, for example, the verse-satire “The Political Queen that Jack Loves,” published February 1820 by Roach & Co. (B.L., 13662–13674).

18 B.L., 13742, published c. July 1820 by John Fairburn.

19 B.L., 13729, published June 8. 1820 by S. W. Fores.

20 H.E.H., Pr. Box 212.12/65, published June 1820 by J. Johnston (B.L., 13737). Reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

21 The Times, July 5, 1820.

22 H.E.H., Pr. Box 212.7/44, published July 20, 1820 by S. W. Fores (B.L., 13766). Reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

23 For the long-standing xenophobia exhibited in caricature, see Duffy, Michael, The Englishman and the Foreigner (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar.

24 Byron to John Murray, September 23, 1820, in Lord George Byron, Byron's Letters and Journals, ed. Marchand, Leslie A., 7 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 7: 180Google Scholar.

25 This pamphlet went through at least 26 editions and is reprinted in Radical Squibs and Loyal Ripostes, selected and annotated by Rickword, Edgell (London, 1971), pp. 193–208Google Scholar.

26 London Packet, August 4–7, 1820.

27 Ibid., June 12–14, 1820.

28 Christian Observer 19 (1820)Google Scholar, as quoted in Davidoff, and Hall, , Family Fortunes, p. 150Google Scholar.

29 Quoted in Smith, , Whig Principles, p. 359Google Scholar.

30 H.E.H., Pr. Box 212.8/115, published September, 1820 by John Fairburn (not in B.L.). Reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

31 Hendrix, Richard, “Popular Culture and the Black Dwarf,” Journal of British Studies 16 (Fall 1976): 118–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although there are numerous instances of charivari against local officials, it was exceedingly rare for the monarch to be the subject of such mockery. I have found only one mention of a charivari held against a reigning monarch: in 1717, George I was the royal victim (Ingram, Martin, “Ridings, Rough Music, and ‘Reform of Popular Culture’ in Early Modern England,” Past and Present 105 [1984]: 100–01CrossRefGoogle Scholar). There are several possible explanations for this lack of charivari against the monarchs of England which are explored further in Hunt, “‘To Take for Truth,’” pp. 152–59.

32 Laqueur, , “Politics as Art,” p. 454Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., pp. 425–26.

34 Ibid., p. 454.

35 See Malcomson, Robert W., Popular Recreations in English Society, 1700–1850 (New York, 1979), p. 64Google Scholar; Storch, Robert D., “‘Please to Remember the Fifth of November’: Conflict, Solidarity and Public Order in Southern England, 1815–1900,” in Popular Culture and Custom in Nineteenth-Century England, ed. Storch, Robert D. (London, 1982), p. 73Google Scholar.

36 Based on the British Library's collection of prints, between June and December there were on average 8 attacks on the king published for every print that defended the queen.

37 Most instances of charivari or rough music focussed on men and women who had violated sexual or marital standards of the community; however, it was the “impudence” of the participants that determined if a charivari would take place (Thompson, E. P, “Rough Music: Le charivari Anglais,” Annales 27 [1972]: 289CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

38 H.E.H., Pr. Box 212.7/45, published October 11, 1820 by S. W. Fores (B.L., 13892). Reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

39 H.E.H., Pr. Box 211.18/21, published c. September 1820 by J. L. Marks (B.L., 13850). Reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

40 “The Kettle Calling the Pot Ugly Names,” published August 12, 1820 by John Marshall (B.L., 13788), was one of a half-dozen prints that implied that neither the king nor the queen was in a position to make accusations.

41 Haydon, Benjamin Robert, The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon ed. Pope, Willard Bissell, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 2: 296–97Google Scholar; Knight, Charles, Passages of a Working Life during Haifa Century, 2 vols. (London, 1864), 1: 252Google Scholar.

42 Byron to Augusta Leigh, October (18?), 1820 in Byron, , Letters and Journals, 7: 208Google Scholar.

43 Although no government prosecutions were instituted against artists or publishers in London over the queen's business, 94 caricatures found their way into the Treasury Solicitor's office (TS 11/115/326), and at least one of them bore the typical mark of material to be considered for prosecution for libel.

44 TS, 11/115/326. No. 16 (not in B.L.), published August 12, 1802 [sic]. The date on this print may simply be a mistake by the artist, or it might actually indicate an earlier print that was republished during the Caroline agitation.

45 London Packet, September 29–October 2, 1820Google ScholarPubMed. In reality, however, the queen's much-publicized affection for her daughter seemed tepid at best, and her quarrels with her husband over Princess Charlotte were in the nature of public relations campaigns (see Hibbert, Christopher, George IV: Regent and King, 1811–1830 [New York, 1973], pp. 39–40Google Scholar).

46 Knight, , Passages, 1: 245–46Google Scholar.

47 Ouoted in Fulford, Roger, The Trial of Queen Caroline (New York, 1968), p. 52Google Scholar.

48 Quoted in the London Packet, Sept. 18–20, 1820.

49 Quoted in ibid., Sept. 13–15, 1820.

50 London Packet, July 26–28 and September 11–15. Even if the newspaper accounts exaggerate, the indication is that very large numbers of women publicly expressed pro-queen sentiments. Women were also said to have outnumbered the men in several public meetings (ibid., September 6–8).

51 Laqueur, , “Politics as Art,” p. 444Google Scholar.

52 Davidoff, and Hall, , Family Fortunes, pp. 155, 151Google Scholar.

53 Ouoted in the London Packet, September 25–27, 1820. Cf. the words of Lord Ashley in the 1830s: “all that is best, all that is lasting in the character of a man, he has learnt at his mother's knees” (quoted in The Past Speaks, ed. Arnstein, Walter L. [Lexington, Mass., 1981], p. 194Google Scholar).

54 See, for example, “The Q — -n's Ass in a Band-Box,” published January 22, 1821 by G. Humphrey (B.L., 14110), or “A Reposo — Temptation in the Wilderness,” published February 1821 (B.L., 14121). A series of prints that were published throughout 1821 were collected and bound in a work entitled The Attorney-General's Charges against the Late Queen…Illustrated with 50 Coloured Engravings (London, 1821)Google Scholar.

55 B.L., 6918, published February 24, 1786 by S. W. Fores; B.L., 6947, published April 29, 1786 by S. W. Fores.

56 “The Apotheosis of George III: Loyalty, Royalty, and the British Nation, 1760–1820,” Past and Present 102 (1984): 104Google Scholar.

57 See Ellis, Sarah Stickney, The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits, cited in Arnstein, , The Past Speaks, p. 186Google Scholar.

58 See Hunt, “To Take for Truth,” ch. 4.

59 One caricature that clearly demonstrates this is “Royal Congratulations” (TS 11/115/326 [not in B.L.] No. 43), published October 1820 by T. Dolby. A two-part design meant to be a comparison, this print shows a dignified Queen Caroline on one side, receiving addresses from a number of well-dressed men and women. These people carry banners to indicate the origins of their addresses — London, Westminster, Scotland. Ireland, and “British ladies.” In the other scene, a debauched king and his mistress, isolated from the public onboard the Royal Yacht, are blown out to sea by the wind of “Public Execration.” In marked contrast to the respectability of the queen's supporters, those of the king are an exciseman and a gravedigger.

60 H.E.H., Pr. Box 212.8/3, published 1821 (not in B.L.). Reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

61 This grant to the queen was equivalent to approximately $5,000,000 per year in adjusted amounts. She had earlier rejected a similar offer, and The Times accused the ministry of hypocrisy for expressing sorrow at offending the “moral feeling” of the country: “Ministers, no doubt, had a sweet idea of ‘moral feeling’ when, having in their possession this charge that the Queen was living abroad in adultery with a person described as a menial servant, they offered her £50,000 a year, provided she assented to continue so living ‘in comfort’ and abroad; and, for any thing they cared, with that servant” (The Times, July 5, 1820).

62 Quoted in Guedalla, Philip, Wellington, (New York, 1931), p. 322Google Scholar.

63 Such an interpretation is offered by Hone, Cause of Truth, ch. 6 and Prothero, Artisans & Politics, ch. 7. Laqueur denies that the eventual outcome of the Queen Caroline affair was “a failure of radicalism to capitalize correctly on a political opportunity,” yet he asserts that “the making of Caroline as a radical cause…was rendered harmless by being transformed into melodrama, farce, and romance” (“Politics as Art,” pp. 466, 418).

64 Laqueur, , “Politics as Art,” p. 439Google Scholar.

65 Knight, , Passages, 1: 259Google Scholar.