No. 223. Blood on Thunder.
Gillray caricatured the heir to the throne with bitterness, perhaps because his dissipation and extravagance rendered him a fair subject of ridicule, and because he associated himself with Fox’s party in politics; but his hostility to the king is ascribed in part to personal feelings. A large and very remarkable print by our artist, though his name was not attached to it, and one which displays in a special manner the great characteristics of Gillray’s style, appeared on the 21st of April, 1786, just after an application had been made to the House of Commons for a large sum of money to pay off the king’s debts, which were very great, in spite of the enormous income then attached to the crown. George was known as a careful and even a parsimonious man, and the queen was looked upon generally as a mean and very avaricious woman, and people were at a loss to account for this extraordinary expenditure, and they tried to explain it in various ways which were not to the credit of the royal pair. It was said that immense sums were spent in secret corruption to pave the way to the establishment of arbitrary power; that the king was making large savings, and hoarding up treasures at Hanover; and that, instead of spending money on his family, he allowed his eldest son to run into serious difficulties through the smallness of his allowance, and thus to become an object of pity to his French friend, the wealthy duc d’Orleans, who had offered him relief. The caricature just mentioned, which is extremely severe, is entitled “A new way to pay the National Debt.” It represents the entrance to the treasury, from which king George and his queen, with their band of pensioners, are issuing, their pockets, and the queen’s apron, so full of money, that the coins are rolling out and scattering about the ground. Nevertheless, Pitt, whose pockets also are full, adds to the royal treasures large bags of the national revenue, which are received with smiles of satisfaction. To the left, a crippled soldier sits on the ground, and asks in vain for relief; while the wall above is covered with torn placards, on some of which may be read, “God save the King;” “Charity, a romance;” “From Germany, just arrived a large and royal assortment...;” and “Last dying speech of fifty-four malefactors executed for robbing a hen-roost.” The latter is a satirical allusion to the notorious severity with which the most trifling depredators on the king’s private farm were prosecuted. In the background, on the right hand side of the picture, the prince appears in ragged garments, and in want of charity no less than the cripple, and near him is the duke of Orleans, who offers him a draft for £200,000. On the placards on the walls here we read such announcements as “Economy, an old song;” “British property, a farce;” and “Just published, for the benefit of posterity, the dying groans of Liberty;” and one, immediately over the prince’s head, bears the prince’s feathers, with the motto, “Ich starve.” Altogether this is one of the most remarkable of Gillray’s caricatures.
No. 224. Farmer George and his Wife.
The parsimoniousness of the king and queen was the subject of caricatures and songs in abundance, in which these illustrious personages appeared haggling with their tradesmen, and making bargains in person, rejoicing in having thus saved a small sum of money. It was said that George kept a farm at Windsor, not for his amusement, but to draw a small profit from it. By Peter Pindar he is described as rejoicing over the skill he has shown in purchasing his live stock as bargains. Gillray seized greedily all these points of ridicule, and, as early as 1786, he published a print of “Farmer George and his Wife” (see our cut No. 224), in which the two royal personages are represented in the very familiar manner in which they were accustomed to walk about Windsor and its neighbourhood. This picture appears to have been very popular; and years afterwards, in a caricature on a scene in “The School for Scandal,” where, in the sale of the young profligate’s effects, the auctioneer puts up a family portrait, for which a broker offers five shillings, and Careless, the auctioneer, says, “Going for no more than one crown,” the family piece is the well-known picture of “Farmer George and his Wife,” and the ruined prodigal is the prince of Wales, who exclaims, “Careless, knock down the farmer.”
Many caricatures against the undignified meanness of the royal household appeared during the years 1791 and 1792, when the king passed much of his time at his favourite watering-place, Weymouth; and there his domestic habits had become more and more an object of remark. It was said that, under the pretence of Weymouth being an expensive place, and taking advantage of the obligations of the royal mail to carry parcels for the king free, he had his provisions brought to him by that conveyance from his farm at Windsor. On the 28th of November, 1791, Gillray published a caricature on the homeliness of the royal household, in two compartments, in one of which the king is represented, in a dress which is anything but that of royalty, toasting his muffins for breakfast; and in the other, queen Charlotte, in no less homely dress, though her pocket is overflowing with money, toasting sprats for supper. In another of Gillray’s prints, entitled “Anti-saccharites,” the king and queen are teaching their daughters economy in taking their tea without sugar; as the young princesses show some dislike to the experiment, the queen admonishes them, concluding with the remark, “Above all, remember how much expense it will save your poor papa!”
No. 225. A Flemish Proclamation.
According to a story which seems to be authentic, Gillray’s dislike of the king was embittered at this time by an incident somewhat similar to that by which George II. had provoked the anger of Hogarth. Gillray had visited France, Flanders, and Holland, and he had made sketches, a few of which he engraved. Our cut No. 225 represents a group from one of these sketches, which explains itself, and is a fair example of Gillray’s manner of drawing such subjects. He accompanied the painter Loutherbourg, who had left his native city of Strasburg to settle in England, and become the king’s favourite artist, to assist him in making sketches for his great painting of “The Siege of Valenciennes,” Gillray sketching groups of figures while Loutherbourg drew the landscape and buildings. After their return, the king expressed a desire to see their sketches, and they were placed before him. Loutherbourg’s landscapes and buildings were plain drawings, and easy to understand, and the king expressed himself greatly pleased with them. But the king’s mind was already prejudiced against Gillray for his satirical prints, and when he saw his hasty and rough, though spirited sketches, of the French soldiers, he threw them aside contemptuously, with the remark, “I don’t understand these caricatures.” Perhaps the very word he used was intended as a sneer upon Gillray, who, we are told, felt the affront deeply, and he proceeded to retort by a caricature, which struck at once at one of the king’s vanities, and at his political prejudices. George III. imagined himself a great connoisseur in the fine arts, and the caricature was entitled “A Connoisseur examining a Cooper.” It represented the king looking at the celebrated miniature of Oliver Cromwell, by the English painter, Samuel Cooper. When Gillray had completed this print, he is said to have exclaimed, “I wonder if the royal connoisseur will understand this!” It was published on the 18th of June, 1792, and cannot have failed to produce a sensation at that period of revolutions. The king is made to exhibit a strange mixture of alarm with astonishment in contemplating the features of this great overthrower of kingly power, at a moment when all kingly power was threatened. It will be remarked, too, that the satirist has not overlooked the royal character for domestic economy, for, as will be seen in our cut No. 226, the king is looking at the picture by the light of a candle-end stuck on a “save-all.”
