‘Here she comes by God! ram away Doctor if one Bolus won’t do put in three’ – the Queen Caroline affair in satirical prints

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present essay examines a sample of satirical prints and broadsides illustrating the main stages of the Queen Caroline affair (QCA). It claims that caricaturists and satirists used the vocabularies of melodrama and farce to transform a divorce scandal into an innovative political and cultural intervention in the public sphere. These popular literary and sub-literary traditions interwove the personal and the political elements of the case and created an innovative political language within a new print culture. This new print culture combined elements of ‘high’ and ‘low’ literature and culture thereby challenging cultural hegemony. Against the backdrop of the political protest that followed the end of the Wars in 1815, the satirical representation of the QCA questioned cultural stratification and gloried exploiting ‘unrespectability’ towards those in power. It was the triumph of laughter. Albeit for a brief period, this type of popular print culture undermined the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling class and became the most innovative attempt to build a more inclusive public sphere in the early nineteenth century.