GREAT BRITAIN’S UNION; OR, THE LITCHFIELD RACES. 1747.
[Page 114.
Strong Jacobite imputations are farther conveyed in the pictorial version of “Great Britain’s Union; or, the Litchfield Races, 1747.” Both Whig and Tory parties, not content with the legitimate and recognized contests of the hustings, and their ultimate goal, the senate, carried their partisan proclivities on to the racecourse, and ministerial and opposition stakes were alternately put into competition on the same turf. Thus, at Lichfield were held Tory race weeks, succeeded by similar gatherings on the part of their opponents. Some rather extraordinary doings occurred there, the general description of which is conveyed by the caricature; the two factions by some means came into collision, and his Grace of Bedford received a sound hiding with a horsewhip as an acknowledgment of his services to the House of Hanover and his antagonism to the Patriotic party, denounced as Jacobites by their Hanoverian rivals; Earl Gower, and his modish son, Lord Trentham, were also roughly handled. Various freaks of an extravagant nature were performed, ladies and gentlemen of the Patriotic faction appearing dressed in Scottish plaids. In the design this circumstance is specially embodied: a party of enthusiasts, assembled in a booth on the course, are toasting the Pretender, whose sun is seen in the distance, falsely depicted as in the ascendant. A despondent grenadier outside the Jacobite head-quarters, is grumbling, “We are rode by Germans;” a cradle, a Gallic cock, and a fleur-de-lis allude to the Chevalier and the French assistance lent to his pretensions; overhead several hands are seen clasped, with the suggestive legend, “A-greed.” A Frenchified person, pointing to a gamecock fighting his own shadow, is denouncing the Duke (of Bedford) in no measured terms; under his right arm is the whip with which the duke was castigated, and in the left hand of this valorous bravo is a paper, “We have courage.” As usual, the Devil is present, and this time he is flying off with “Information,” possibly to be laid before his dear friends in office. A sort of zany, seated beneath a flag marked, “And curse upon denial” (alluding to equivocation on the part of several), is giving the starting signal. The Scotch plaid-clad jockey riding for the Chevalier is beating the Hanoverian jockey on the traditional “White Horse.” This highly fanciful conception, the reverse of actual experience, is hailed with extravagant delight by the excited assembly; the occupants of the Grand Stand are described as “Don Juan and his friends at the place of Desert.” Various ballads and satirical productions were evoked upon the transaction related.
Lord Trentham, his father, Earl Gower, and their great relative, the Duke of Bedford, are, with various references to the late election for Westminster, introduced into several caricatures which followed, and notably in “Great Britain’s Union; or, Litchfield Races transposed,” “A Sight of the Banging Bout at Litchfield,” and “An Exact Representation” of the same occurrence. The circumstances to which these pictorial satires refer are traceable to the national ferment succeeding the suppression of the Rebellion, when, as recapitulated, various eccentricities were committed by those who favoured the Pretender’s cause; among others, certain Staffordshire sportsmen made themselves conspicuous. Smollett, in his “History of England,” describes these vagaries: the Stuart partisans—
“appeared in the Highland taste of variegated drapery, and, their zeal descending to a very extraordinary exhibition of practical ridicule, they hunted with hounds clothed in plaid, a fox dressed in red uniform. Even the females at their assembly and the gentlemen at the races affected to wear the chequered stuff by which the prince-pretender and his followers had been distinguished. Divers noblemen on the course were insulted as apostates; and one personage of high rank is said to have undergone a very disagreeable flagellation.”
The sequel of this adventure is related in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1748):—
“Before Mr. Justice Burnett, took place the trial of the information against Toll (a dancing-master) and others, for insulting and striking the Duke of Bedford, and other gentlemen, upon Whittington Heath, at the late Litchfield horse-races; when it was likewise proposed by the counsel for the defendants, that the several rioters, to the number of thirteen, should submit to be found guilty: if the counsel for the crown would consent to withdraw the information against several other persons concerned in that riot.”
The circumstances of the fracas are also alluded to in the “Letters of Junius” (xxii.):—
“Mr. Heston Humphrey, a country attorney, horsewhipped the duke with equal justice, severity, and perseverance on the course at Litchfield. Rigby and Lord Trentham were also cudgelled in a most exemplary manner.”
These incidents gave rise to various ballads as well as caricatures; a parody on “Chevy Chase” offers the liveliest version of the affair:—