Attorney-General's Charges Against The Late Queen, The

London: G. Humphrey, [1821]. Queen Caroline Sliced And Diced By Satirists' Blade
Fifty Devastating Hand-Colored Caricatures Directed Against the British Monarchy

CRUIKSHANK, George, illustrator. CRUIKSHANK, I.R., illustrator. LANE, Theodore, illustrator.
The Attorney-General's Charges Against The Late Queen, brought forward in the House of Peers, on Saturday,
August 19, 1820. Illustrated with Fifty Coloured Engravings. London: G. Humphrey, [1821].

First edition. Folio (18 13/16 x 13 inches; 478 x 330 mm.). [2, title, imprint on verso]. 20 pp. by Robert Gifford, Attorney-General. Hand colored frontispiece and forty-nine hand colored etched plates, the majority being by Theodore Lane. Six of the plates are by George Cruikshank; one is after George Cruikshank; two are by Isaac Robert Cruikshank and one is by George & Isaac Cruikshank. All plates with interleaves. The text & plates are watermarked "J. Whatman 1821"

Handsomely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe ca. 1960 in three-quarter dark blue morocco over marbled boards ruled in gilt. Spine with five raised bands elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.

A fine well margined copy, of this series of devastating caricatures directed against the British monarchy, including the republication of the charges brought by the Attorney-General, Robert, Baron Gifford (1779-1826), against Queen Caroline and in support of the Pains and Penalties Bill of 1820 by which George IV, who had only just inherited the throne in 1820 and who hated his wife sought to remove her title and dissolve their marriage. The volume begins with a view of Humphrey's shop-window where 42 of these prints are on view. The focus of these caricatures is Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821) and her alleged affair with Bartolommeo Bergami. She renamed him Pergami (as being more aristocratic) and appointed him Grand Master of the Order of St Caroline. Queen Caroline, on the whole, elicited a great deal of public support and as a result the Bill had to be subsequently abandoned. However, the following year, in July 1821, Caroline was barred from the coronation, fell ill, and died three weeks later.

After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, George Cruikshank's attention was largely turned towards highlighting the decadence of Britain's Regency monarchy which was epitomised by George IV while still the Prince Regent. In this collection six of the plates are by George or Isaac Robert Cruikshank or both, the remainder are by Theodore Lane (1800-1828), a painter and engraver who frequently worked on sporting material, especially in partnership with Pierce Egan. It was after this period that George Cruikshank became progressively more sober and serious.

This scarce collection of caricatures sharply lampooning Queen Caroline to delightfully deadly effect is not found in the British Museum. Indeed, BM Satires refers to the copy at the Bibliothéque National France, one of only six copies in institutional holdings worldwide.

Theodore Lane (1800-1828) was a political lampoonist and in 1820 created a series of satirical images of Queen Caroline at the time of her return to England to claim her rights as consort to George IV. Lane caricatured the queen as a grotesque, overdressed and overweight, accompanied by her Italian lover, Bartolomeo Pergami and the then Lord Mayor of London, Matthew Wood.

The Plates:
1. Design for a New Coat of Arms (Frontispiece)
2. Humphrey Printseller & Publisher.
3. Bergami's Little Darling.
4. A Pas de Deux or Love at First Sight.
5. The Choice of Hercules.
6. An Arm-Full of Love
7. The Como-cal Hobby.
8. Winding up to a pitch the Automaton Scaramouch, or Harlequin Courier's Delight
9. The Long & the Short of the Tale, - or, the whole of the concern...
10. Modesty!
11. The Modern Genius of History at her Toilet...
12. National Love!
13. Dignity!
14. A gentle jog into Jerusalem.
15. The Saint!
16. Tent-ation.
17. Installation of a Knight Companion of the Bath.
18. Travelling Tete à Tete!!
19. A R_Y_L Visit to a Foreign Capital or The Ambassador not at home!! (George Cruikshank, Cohn 1934)
20. R_y_l Condescension - or a Foreign Minister Astonished! (George Cruikshank, Cohn 1914)
21. Bat, Cat and Mat.
22. A parting Hug at St. Omer!
23. A Wooden Substitute, or Any Port in a Storm.
24. A late Arrival at Mother Wood's. (George Cruikshank, Cohn 1307)
25. Mother Wood, the Popular Procuress! (Robert Cruikshank, Cohn 1763)
26. Mother Cole.
27. Grand Entrance to Bamboozl 'Em.
28. Steward's Court of the Manor of Torre Devon.
29. The Time Piece! & Canning Jack o' both sides. (Robert Cruikshank)
30. The Radical Ladder. (After George Cruikshank)
31. The C-R-L-E Column.
32. Delicious Dreams!
33. The Effusions of a Troubled Brain.
34. Caroline Fair, or Mat Pudding and his Mountebank
35. The Mother Red-Cap Public House, in opposition to the King's Head. (George Cruikshank, Cohn 1761)
36. Carrying Coals to Newcastle!!
37. Moments of Pleasure.
38. The Man of the Woods & the Cat-o'-mountain.
39. The Q-n's Ass in a Band-box.
40. An Old Friend with a New Face or the Baron in Disguise.
41. Meditations at Brandyburgh; or an address to the Sun.
42. Dido in Despair.
43. The whole Truth, or John Bull with his eyes opened.
44. A Going! A Going! the last time, A Going!______Down!!! (George Cruikshank, Cohn 876)
45. Returning Justice lifts aloft her Scale.
46. Lucifera's Procession. Fairy Queen.
47. The Royal Extinguisher, or the King of Brobdingnag & the Lilliputians. (I.R. & George Cruikshank, Cohn 1919)
48. The Grand Coronation of Her Most Graceless Majesty C-R-L-E Columbina the first Queen of all the Radicals...
49. A Coronation Stool.
50. The Armorial Bearings of the White Cat. (cut and mounted).

Bobins IV, 1329; BM Satires 14206, note.