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

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GEORGINA ABREU
gled out and exposed: the King, ‘vicious beyond parallel, calls upon the
other branches of the legislature to assist him in destroying his wife’ (R, vol.
iv: 377*); [7] the ‘boroughmongers’, a ‘tormenting, persecuting, villainous
worm that is eating out the heart of the nation’ (PR, vol. xxxvii: 160); Parliament
is referred to as a polluted channel (R, vol. iii: 363). Giving names
to the political enemies was a distinctive radical strategy. It was publicity
with a powerful mobilising force, practised abundantly in the periodicals
and also in satires, such as Benbow’s ‘Peep at the Peers’, James Wade’s ‘Black
Book’, or Hone’s ‘Th e Political Showman – at Home!’. [8]
Th ese were the crucial elements for the publicity of the radical agenda
of parliamentary reform before an increased audience. However, the
impressive mobilisation of public opinion enabled Regency radicals to
introduce less directly political subjects. Th e Queen Caroline aff air represented
an opportunity to go beyond a program of strict political change
and encompass the social and economic problems faced by the working
people, including women. When the radical journalists denounced doublestandards
of morality and sexuality they were discussing issues relating the
private sphere of domesticity: private morality and marital responsibility.
Th is strategy was new within radical discourse, especially as it prompted
the participation of women.
Carlile made some fi erce incursions into the subject: ‘What a pretty
Green Bag would the conduct of the King make if the true particulars of
his life were fi lled with it!’ (R, vol. iii: 365). Cobbett used the discussion of
‘morality’ to defend the principle of equal responsibility: ‘If it be necessary
to unqueen a Queen for the preservation of morals, why not unking a king
with the same object in view?’ (PR, vol. xxxvii: 376-7).
In the discussion of gender relations, Carlile was clearly ahead of his
time [9] – and of the other radical journalists – in openly admitting that the
Queen ‘would be strictly justifi able’ in having had an intimate relationship
during her stay on the Continent. If her husband had ‘bestowed his aff ections
on other women’, and ‘if the Queen had actually bestowed her aff ections
on any other man she would have been not a jot less virtuous than any
7 Paging of this volume of the Republican is erratic, which makes it diffi cult to spot references
to quotations. To minimize the diffi culty, an asterisk (*) aft er a page number indicates that it is
the second of a duplicated number. Th e diffi culty originates in the fact that at page 390 paging
begins again at 290 and repeats the numbers in between.
8 Th ese are striking examples of a strategy that has followers today, especially in the publication of
the names of the benefi ciaries of multiple pensions and salaries in public service.
9 For a discussion of the evolution of Carlile’s philosophy of sex and even of his radicalism during
the 1820s, see Bush (2002-3).
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 166 05-01-2012 09:38:28