Kings, Lords and Wicked Libellers - Satire and Protest 1760-1837

The reigns of George III and his two sons who succeeded him gave rise to a wealth of political satire and caricature. Here for the first time is a detailed and lively account of the bawdy, bitter, passionate work of balladeers, lampoonists, newsmen and caricaturists (men such as Junius, Gillray, Cruikshank and Peter Pindar) from the accession of George III to the coming of Victoria. Nowhere else in Europe did kings, courtiers and ministers have to face such free-spoken polemicists and satirists. Sometimes these `impudent' men were jailed, sometimes they were bought over buy Treasury money, but the vast trade in prints and broadsheets could never be suppressed. They wrote and drew for pleasure and for money, but above all to curb the excesses of men in high places. They combatted the proud arguments, and quite often the lies, of kings and ministers. Through their eyes history takes on a different light...