Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

QUEEN CAROLINE AND THE PRINT CULTURE OF REGENCY RADICALISM
had married a wife to pay his debts, and aft er abandoning her and sending
her into a foreign country
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A fanciful thought came into his head that he should like to make the
world believe that he was a cuckold. [...] Th e story fi rst made the people laugh;
then they said he was mad, and ought to be taken care of. However, nothing
could remove his determination. He was bent on being a cuckold (BD, vol. v:
455).
In contrast, the Queen was presented as a heroine, even a radical heroine.
Her refusal of an increased income to remain on the Continent, and
her demand for an open and fair trial, instead of a parliamentary inquiry
decided by a Secret Committee, were interpreted as an example of courage
and determination. Referring to ‘Th e Queen’s Letter to the King’ (Hone,
1820a) of 7 August, Wooler wrote in the BD: ‘She demands her accusers in
the front of the battle, that she may know whom to accuse in her turn; and
the public seem prepared to support her in her demand, to its fullest extent’
(BD, vol. v: 77).
Th e purpose was to capitalize politically on the Aff air. Cobbett was
most vehement in that commitment: ‘[she] will have opened the eyes of
hundreds of thousands who were blind before her arrival, and, therefore,
all the oppressed part of the nation ought to feel great gratitude towards
her’ (PR, vol. xxxvi: 902-3). Hence, he appealed to the popular support of
the Queen, based on the defence of individual liberties: ‘I beg the public to
bear in mind that every one of us is liable to the same mode of proceeding,
which is now adopted against her Majesty. Her cause is, therefore, our
cause as far, at least, as relates to this mode of proceeding’ (PR, vol. xxxvii:
143). All reformers should take up the Queen’s cause as part of their struggle.
Carlile would even forsake his republican ideals and condescend to the
royal institution. In December, he stated in ‘A Letter to the Queen’: ‘I am
certain that the sense of the nation, if fairly expressed by its representatives,
would desire nothing better than to have you at its head’ (R, vol. iv: 506).
In the eyes of the radicals, the Queen was as excluded as they were.
Cobbett presented her as an outcast, when he reminded his audience that
the Queen had never ‘participated in the smallest degree’ in the ‘manifold
miseries of the nation’ (PR, vol. xxxvii: 213). Th e Queen could thus be presented
as the inspirational heroine for the cause of parliamentary reform,
‘a friend, a prop, a support, a foundation of hope of better days’, (PR, vol.
xxxvii: 503). As all heroines, the Queen had fi erce enemies. Th ese are sin-
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 165 05-01-2012 09:38:28