The Republican Attack
In 1795 the war against France was not going well. Taxes were onerous, food was in short supply. There was suspicion of the motives and activities of those like Fox who were friendly to France. May and June had been occupied with a debate over suspending the right of habeas corpus.
Then, as reported in the St. James Chronicle for October 29th–31st, the King's state carriage was attacked on its way from St. James's Palace to the House of Lords.
In his way to the House, particularly in Parliament-street, his Majesty was assailed by hootings and hissings, which came from groupes, evidently stationed at certain distances for the purpose, who were uniform in their cry of "No war, No Pitt." Some were unruly; a few appear to have been mischievously inclined as several stones and other articles were flung, nine of which were perceived to reach the King's carriage, in which two of the glass pannels were broke; one supposed from a marble or leaden shot from the window of a house in or near Margaret-street; which made a hole and shivered the plate glass but did not go through . . .
© Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University
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The King and Lord Westmoreland speaking for the ministry were of the opinion that the gun was shot " with a view to assassinate him." The Tomahawk or Censor General of October 31st, saw a conspiracy on the part of the opposition.
The hired rabble, by which the sacred person of the King was beset. . . was, no doubt, an adjourned meeting of the London Corresponding Society. The act is not merely an outrage of the most atrocious nature on the King. It is an attack on the PEOPLE, who cannot but feel themselves immediately insulted by any violence offered to their sovereign.
But the Marquis of Landsdowne, speaking on the opposition side, believed it was more likely "a scheme planned and executed by [the] Ministers themselves for the purpose of continuing their own power, a power which drew the Constitution into their own hands." And indeed, the attack certainly paved the way for the passage of the Seditious Meetings Act and the Treasonable and Seditious Practices Act which many considered a blow to British liberty
As he often did, Gillray found cause enough in the event to satirize both sides. The attackers are all notable and easily identifiable Whigs, including Landsdowne (aka Shelburne) with the blunderbuss, Fox and Sheridan with clubs, and Lauderdale, Stanhope, and Grafton doing their best to slow the carriage. All betray their French sympathies in their bonnet rouges, tricolors, or their lack of coulottes (breeches). And the pro-French crowd hurling rocks, eggs, clubs, and whatever else came to hand, flies a tricolor flag with "Peace and Bread" inscribed on it.
The state carriage is, of course, driven by Pitt in the King's livery with other notable Tories as coachmen, including the Lord Chancellor, Loughborough, Grenville, Dundas, and Pepper Arden, according to Dorothy George. She does not identify the two figures in the coach with the King, but according to the St. James Chronicle, they were Lord Onslow and the Earl of Westmoreland.
But while the Whigs come in for most of the satire here, the Tories do not escape whipping. For in his haste to elude the the pro-French sympathizers, the frantic coach driver, Pitt, tramples upon Britannia herself with broken spear and flattened shield.
Like so much of the print, this detail may have also been suggested by the same newspaper account. For after the King exited the coach at Westminster, the empty coach was again attacked, when "a dreadful accident happened in consequence of the turbulence of the crowd;"
a Groom, who was employed as one of the leaders of the horses for the day, was beaten down when the heavy carriage went over him. . . He was carried on a litter to his apartments in the Mews with little hopes of recovery.
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on The Republican Attack
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #132
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