0:00:03 > 0:00:07It was a summer afternoon in June 1727.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10The King's chief minister, Sir Robert Walpole,
0:00:10 > 0:00:12turned up unannounced at the country residence of
0:00:12 > 0:00:15George, Prince of Wales and his wife Caroline.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21He was out of breath and in a state of great panic.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23Walpole was the bearer of momentous news.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26King George I was dead.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28Sir Robert Walpole tried to get in
0:00:28 > 0:00:32to see the Prince and Princess of Wales but the lady-in-waiting said,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35"Stop! You can't go in. They're asleep."
0:00:35 > 0:00:37But Sir Robert Walpole insisted.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39He said, "I've got to go in with my news."
0:00:43 > 0:00:47And the poor old Prince of Wales was rather caught on the hop.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51At the moment when he learned that he'd become King George II
0:00:51 > 0:00:53of Great Britain and Ireland,
0:00:53 > 0:00:57he was probably still buttoning up his breeches.
0:00:57 > 0:00:59There was an element of farce about this
0:00:59 > 0:01:03and George as King would have to up his game.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05No more afternoon naps for him!
0:01:07 > 0:01:10Four months later, George was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13The coronation anthem Zadok The Priest
0:01:13 > 0:01:16was specially composed for the occasion by Handel.
0:01:16 > 0:01:22It accompanied George's transformation from Prince to King.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25MUSIC: "Zadok The Priest" by George Frideric Handel
0:01:29 > 0:01:32George II's reign would be long and turbulent.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36German born, he found himself ruling a Britain that was
0:01:36 > 0:01:39heading into the future at lightning speed.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45New money had forged a new middling sort of people in society
0:01:45 > 0:01:49who questioned the established order.
0:01:49 > 0:01:52Affairs of state were being discussed in taverns
0:01:52 > 0:01:53and coffee houses.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58And the royal family found themselves mocked in newspapers,
0:01:58 > 0:02:02in satirical prints and in the theatres.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07It would have been difficult for any dynasty
0:02:07 > 0:02:12but this lot were still new. They only had shallow roots.
0:02:12 > 0:02:17This was a very dangerous moment for the Hanoverian royal family.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20If any one of them were to make a mistake,
0:02:20 > 0:02:22it could break the monarchy.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28But this was the most dysfunctional royal family since the Tudors.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32Their feuding would shake the state to its foundations.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41The first Georgian kings have fascinated me for years.
0:02:43 > 0:02:44And for this series,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48I've been given access to pieces from the Royal Collection as they're
0:02:48 > 0:02:52prepared for an exhibition at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02These works of art, many of them commissioned or owned
0:03:02 > 0:03:04by the first Georgian kings,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07reveal how they had to adapt to a public
0:03:07 > 0:03:10who were no longer merely just subjects.
0:03:10 > 0:03:15And in doing this, the Hanoverians invented the modern monarchy.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28This is George II's bed.
0:03:28 > 0:03:32At first glance, it may look like any other grand Georgian bed.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36But actually, this is his travelling bed,
0:03:36 > 0:03:40which could be collapsed down into 54 separate pieces -
0:03:40 > 0:03:42the original flat-pack.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48The fact that George needed a special bed for travelling
0:03:48 > 0:03:49tells us something important.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51He was always, it seems,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54popping off back to Hanover.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58This was a real problem for his British subjects.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01It looked like George's heart still lay in his homeland.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05His absences reminded the British that he was alien -
0:04:05 > 0:04:09that he had another country to think about as well as Britain.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13To many of them, George became the King who wasn't there.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20And as well as the small matter of ruling both
0:04:20 > 0:04:23Hanover and Britain, much of the King's time
0:04:23 > 0:04:25was taken up by his mistresses,
0:04:25 > 0:04:28which was really quite annoying to his long-suffering,
0:04:28 > 0:04:30but loyal, German wife.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36Let me introduce you to Caroline. She is my favourite queen.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41As you can see from the bust, she's not exactly a fairy-tale princess.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43She's middle-aged, she's overweight,
0:04:43 > 0:04:45she's had eight children.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49But she had this wonderfully warm and witty personality.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54It made her very good at her job as Queen, welcoming people to court.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58But there was much more complexity and depth to her than that.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00You do get a sense that she was bored
0:05:00 > 0:05:03and sort of blunted by her royal duties.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06She would rather have been cracking jokes
0:05:06 > 0:05:08with her clever friends somewhere else.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11And I think that if you look at the corner of her mouth here,
0:05:11 > 0:05:15it's twitching, like she's about to start laughing.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25While the King was prickly and distant,
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Caroline was highly sociable.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30In her private apartments at Hampton Court,
0:05:30 > 0:05:36she gathered together a sparkling circle of intellectuals and wits.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43Caroline, at heart, was a warm and convivial person.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46She loved to eat and she loved to talk.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49The British courtiers really relished the way that she could
0:05:49 > 0:05:52remember little personal details about each of them.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54She'd say things like,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57"My Lord, how is your little girl? Is she better?"
0:05:57 > 0:05:59Or one of them remembered that,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02"The Queen was so interested in my print collection
0:06:02 > 0:06:03"that I had to go home
0:06:03 > 0:06:06"and get all of the rest of my books to show her."
0:06:07 > 0:06:10Because of her husband's poor social skills,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13Caroline becomes the user-friendly public face
0:06:13 > 0:06:15of the Hanoverian monarchy.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18She was its likeable and approachable ambassador.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Caroline wielded enormous power and influence,
0:06:24 > 0:06:26especially over her husband.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29This made her an indispensable ally
0:06:29 > 0:06:33to the King's leading minister, Sir Robert Walpole.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38As Prince of Wales, George had been wary of Walpole,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41calling him a rogue and a rascal.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45But Caroline persuaded George as King to keep Walpole on.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50It proved to be a smart move. Walpole could get things done.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Walpole was the ultimate fixer.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57He spent a lot of time whispering into people's ears.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00"What about job X for person Y?"
0:07:00 > 0:07:03If you wanted your son to be a captain in the Army, for example,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06Walpole was your man.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09His power was cemented when the King gave him
0:07:09 > 0:07:11this house in Downing Street.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14He accepted it not as an individual but on behalf of his office,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18which was First Lord of the Treasury,
0:07:18 > 0:07:20as it still says on the front door.
0:07:22 > 0:07:26This job title is better known to us today as Prime Minister.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32Downing Street was Walpole's reward for his ability to provide
0:07:32 > 0:07:36a stable government and a lavish budget for the King's court.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40A year into his reign,
0:07:40 > 0:07:46George began making preparations for his first trip to Hanover as King.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48Now, who was going to rule Britain?
0:07:48 > 0:07:50Well, Parliament passed the Regency Act,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53putting Queen Caroline in charge.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56And this confirmed what a lot of people already thought -
0:07:56 > 0:07:59that Caroline was the one who wore the trousers.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01As the popular poem had it...
0:08:18 > 0:08:23Caroline worked hard to strengthen the Georgian dynasty.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25And one way she did it was by publicly encouraging
0:08:25 > 0:08:29the intellectual upheaval, generally called the Enlightenment.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38As Princess of Wales, Caroline had brought about a breakthrough
0:08:38 > 0:08:41in the fight against smallpox.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44The disease was attacking the population, people said,
0:08:44 > 0:08:46like a destroying angel.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50Professor of medicine Gareth Williams
0:08:50 > 0:08:52is going to show me the grim details.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57What we've got here are the three key stages of the smallpox rash.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01So we've got the early vesicles here. Here are the pustules,
0:09:01 > 0:09:03getting quite nicely developed.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06And over there is the stage of the confluent rash.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09This is where all the pustules are full of pus
0:09:09 > 0:09:12and there are so many of them that you're left with something like that.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16- My goodness! - It was one of the great killers.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Smallpox actually killed one person in 12.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22What happens in the early 18th century? There's a change, is there?
0:09:22 > 0:09:28Well, they got reports from Turkey of a way of preventing smallpox,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31reported by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
0:09:31 > 0:09:36who was a bit of a girl, and she was the wife of the ambassador to Turkey.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38She heard about an extraordinary practice,
0:09:38 > 0:09:42which was giving a healthy child smallpox deliberately.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46And it sounds completely counterintuitive but, in fact,
0:09:46 > 0:09:47it was actually one of the safest
0:09:47 > 0:09:50and one of the most effective medical procedures of the day.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53How did Caroline, who was then the Princess of Wales,
0:09:53 > 0:09:55- get to hear about it? - Well, it was through Lady Mary.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58She became a good personal friend of Princess Caroline,
0:09:58 > 0:09:59the Princess of Wales.
0:09:59 > 0:10:03Caroline said, "Well, OK, let's see the evidence."
0:10:03 > 0:10:05So the evidence was quite bold, actually.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10Lady Mary had her daughter inoculated with smallpox the following spring -
0:10:10 > 0:10:12this was in 1721 -
0:10:12 > 0:10:15and it was a really good time to do this experiment because smallpox
0:10:15 > 0:10:19had broken out in London and people were running scared again.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22So Caroline is convinced that this really works
0:10:22 > 0:10:25and it seems to me that the most important thing that she does
0:10:25 > 0:10:27is to inoculate her own children.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29Exactly right. But the broader issue is, yes,
0:10:29 > 0:10:31you've got a royal who's engaged,
0:10:31 > 0:10:33you've got a royal who's phenomenally bright
0:10:33 > 0:10:38and actually interested in not just the people and their problems
0:10:38 > 0:10:41but in scientific and medical solutions for those problems.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47It was this scientific approach
0:10:47 > 0:10:49that separated Caroline and the Hanoverians
0:10:49 > 0:10:51from their Stuart predecessors.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57The Stuarts had often laid their hands upon the sick,
0:10:57 > 0:11:02believing they had semi-divine powers of healing.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05But Caroline placed her trust in medicine, not magic.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11The French philosopher Voltaire commented on smallpox
0:11:11 > 0:11:14in his book Letters On England.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17He said that Europe thought the British crazy
0:11:17 > 0:11:20for this business of making a well child sick.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25Voltaire tells us that inoculation really caught on.
0:11:25 > 0:11:28"England followed her example," he says,
0:11:28 > 0:11:33"and since then at least 10,000 children
0:11:33 > 0:11:38"owe their lives to the Queen and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42"And as many girls are indebted to them for their beauty."
0:11:45 > 0:11:48Voltaire's book also highlighted other great changes
0:11:48 > 0:11:49under way in Britain.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54He noted how commerce had enriched the citizens,
0:11:54 > 0:11:56helping to make them freer.
0:11:57 > 0:11:59This freedom had, in turn,
0:11:59 > 0:12:03made greater entrepreneurship possible, widening wealth overall.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15And nowhere was this more true than in London.
0:12:15 > 0:12:20Here, economic changes were creating a new kind of behaviour.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27There was lots of new money in Georgian Britain -
0:12:27 > 0:12:31a lot of it in the hands of a new rank of people in society.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34They weren't aristocrats and they weren't the workers, either.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36They were what was called the middling sort.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38Some of them were professionals,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41like doctors and lawyers and clergymen.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43Others ran shops or they were in trade,
0:12:43 > 0:12:47particularly in the new products of sugar and cotton.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49And like all these people here at the market,
0:12:49 > 0:12:53they had money to burn on things that they didn't really need,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55like vases for their houses
0:12:55 > 0:12:57or trips to the pleasure gardens
0:12:57 > 0:13:01or really expensive cups of coffee.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10This emerging middling sort differentiated Britain
0:13:10 > 0:13:11from its continental neighbours,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14where the aristocracy still held sway.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20And with this new social class came new spending power.
0:13:25 > 0:13:31In 1720, a Yorkshireman called Charles Clay came to London,
0:13:31 > 0:13:33hoping that some of this new money would come his way.
0:13:36 > 0:13:38His particular wheeze was to construct
0:13:38 > 0:13:40miraculously elaborate clocks,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43which he then displayed to the public for a fee.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Rufus Bird is going to show me one of Clay's craziest creations.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53It was originally called The Temple And Oracle Of Apollo.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57It is an organ clock which, curiously,
0:13:57 > 0:13:59has this magnificent 17th-century
0:13:59 > 0:14:03Augsburg casket resting on top of it.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05And then in the pedestal,
0:14:05 > 0:14:10you have this organ which plays ten different tunes arranged by Handel.
0:14:10 > 0:14:11How does it actually work?
0:14:11 > 0:14:17If we open this door here, you can see inside there is the weights
0:14:17 > 0:14:21and the pulley and then the barrel organ itself. I can play a tune.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23- Shall we play one? - Yes, let's hear it.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYS
0:14:33 > 0:14:36And who was he making it for? What was the point of it?
0:14:36 > 0:14:38It was a commercial enterprise.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43We know that through the advertisement which his widow placed
0:14:43 > 0:14:50in a newspaper in 1743. And I've got a copy of it just here.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Mrs Clay describes this work of art as being,
0:14:54 > 0:14:58"The whole exceeding by many degrees anything ever exhibited
0:14:58 > 0:15:01"to public view in any nation or by any artist whatsoever."
0:15:01 > 0:15:04- Amazing! And it's yours for a shilling.- That's right.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09You can see this, and hear it, for one shilling.
0:15:09 > 0:15:1250 years earlier, Charles Clay would have been making
0:15:12 > 0:15:17a specialised item like this for a royal patron.
0:15:17 > 0:15:18But in this new Georgian age,
0:15:18 > 0:15:22Clay could use his clocks to make a living from very different patrons -
0:15:22 > 0:15:25paying customers.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37This early Georgian period was fast becoming
0:15:37 > 0:15:39the age of the self-made man.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45There was one individual who epitomised this - Alexander Pope.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51Pope was a satirist with legendary bite,
0:15:51 > 0:15:53who coined classic phrases like,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
0:15:57 > 0:16:01But Pope is remembered as much for his business nous
0:16:01 > 0:16:03as his heroic couplets.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08He showed that a writer could earn a fortune
0:16:08 > 0:16:11by selling his work directly to the public.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And his success allowed him to live in some style.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20Although his grand villa in Twickenham no longer stands,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24one intriguing part of it has survived - a grotto.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33This is not just an exciting underground grotto,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36it's also a museum of mineralogy.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Look at this crystal set into the walls there. It's winking at me.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43And originally there were little fragments of mirror
0:16:43 > 0:16:47stuck in amongst the stones so when you came down here with a lamp
0:16:47 > 0:16:51and you turned it on, suddenly rays were shooting everywhere
0:16:51 > 0:16:53and the whole thing was glittering. Ooh!
0:16:53 > 0:16:57Now, I think that is a piece of the Giant's Causeway.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00You can see the six sides of the basalt there.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02And there is a picture
0:17:02 > 0:17:05that shows Alexander Pope doing some writing down here.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08But you'd think it was a bit dark for that.
0:17:11 > 0:17:16Now, how did he pay for all of this? The answer is this book.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20This is the pocket version of his famous translation
0:17:20 > 0:17:22of the Iliad by Homer.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26And he made money out of his work like a modern author would.
0:17:26 > 0:17:31He didn't have a single rich patron funding his lifestyle.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35He sold individual copies to a broad range of people.
0:17:35 > 0:17:37If you look at the first deluxe edition of the book,
0:17:37 > 0:17:42you'll see the list of subscribers - headed by Caroline.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45So she was acting here as a new type of patron.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48She's just buying the book, giving him some money,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51but - more importantly - offering him her moral support
0:17:51 > 0:17:55so that other people would buy the book, too. And they did.
0:17:55 > 0:18:00It made him the equivalent in today's money of £400,000 -
0:18:00 > 0:18:03what he needed to buy his villa and to build his grotto.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09Pope was very proud of the way he'd achieved all of this independently.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12He said, "I live and I thrive
0:18:12 > 0:18:16"not indebted to any prince or peer alive."
0:18:24 > 0:18:27However, Alexander Pope was only 4'6",
0:18:27 > 0:18:31suffered from curvature of the spine and was a Catholic, too.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34He was always an outsider.
0:18:35 > 0:18:40When he said he was in no-one's debt, he really did mean it.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46Pope decided to write his own version of Homer's Iliad.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48But his was going to be in English
0:18:48 > 0:18:50and it was going to be a great big spoof.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53The poem was called the Dunciad.
0:18:53 > 0:18:58From the very start of the Dunciad, it was clear that not even
0:18:58 > 0:19:02the royal family are safe from Pope's poisonous pen.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06"You by whose care, in vain decry'd and curst,
0:19:06 > 0:19:11"Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first."
0:19:11 > 0:19:14Who do you think that he meant by that?
0:19:15 > 0:19:18This blatant reference to George II
0:19:18 > 0:19:23kicks off a depiction of a society dominated by dimwits,
0:19:23 > 0:19:25and ruled by a king of the dunces.
0:19:25 > 0:19:31He was under the thumb of a female character called Dullness.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34She was very dreary and rather fat, too,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37and by this, Pope meant Caroline.
0:19:39 > 0:19:44"Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,
0:19:44 > 0:19:48"She rul'd, in native Anarchy, the mind."
0:19:49 > 0:19:53She'd been his big supporter as Princess of Wales
0:19:53 > 0:19:57but when she became Queen, she had other fish to fry.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Pope felt that he'd been neglected so he turned against her,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04using his very wounding weapons of words.
0:20:04 > 0:20:06He basically says in the Dunciad
0:20:06 > 0:20:09that she's a bit of a porker and rather boring.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15But just as Pope's relations with Caroline turned sour,
0:20:15 > 0:20:19another member of the royal family was ready to take advantage.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24Prince Frederick, Caroline's son and heir to the throne,
0:20:24 > 0:20:26befriended the poet in her place.
0:20:26 > 0:20:27He was even painted
0:20:27 > 0:20:31with a copy of Pope's translation of Homer in his hand.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35Caroline now had a rival in her patronage of the arts.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Frederick was a genuine music lover.
0:20:57 > 0:21:02Sometimes he'd give a concert by an open window as the evening fell,
0:21:02 > 0:21:04playing his cello.
0:21:04 > 0:21:06And all the court servants
0:21:06 > 0:21:09would creep out into the courtyard to listen.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Frederick's parents felt that this was undignified behaviour - vulgar.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16Entertaining the masses?!
0:21:21 > 0:21:22You could forgive Frederick
0:21:22 > 0:21:25for thinking that his parents had abandoned him.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29When he was seven, they left him behind in Hanover
0:21:29 > 0:21:33when George and Caroline came over to London in 1714.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36There were good political reasons for this -
0:21:36 > 0:21:39Frederick was going to be the family's representative in Hanover
0:21:39 > 0:21:42so that the people there wouldn't think they'd been
0:21:42 > 0:21:43entirely forgotten about.
0:21:43 > 0:21:45The problems emerged years later
0:21:45 > 0:21:49when Frederick came over to London himself, now a grown-up.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52It wasn't just that he'd lost touch with his parents
0:21:52 > 0:21:54and needed to rebuild the relationship,
0:21:54 > 0:21:56it was worse than that -
0:21:56 > 0:22:00It turned out that he and his parents couldn't stand the sight
0:22:00 > 0:22:01of each other.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05And it was this hostility
0:22:05 > 0:22:08that would pose the greatest threat to the Georgian monarchy.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17Frederick's openness and his social nature were in marked contrast
0:22:17 > 0:22:21to his grumpy father George II.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25The Prince of Wales's common touch would be perfectly captured
0:22:25 > 0:22:28in a painting by the artist Joseph Nicholls.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33This is St James's Park on a summer evening
0:22:33 > 0:22:36and everybody's out for a walk.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39A French visitor tells us that sometimes the park was so packed
0:22:39 > 0:22:42that you couldn't help touching your neighbour.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46He says that some people came to see, others to be seen -
0:22:46 > 0:22:49all on the lookout for adventures.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52He says that there were many priestesses of Venus
0:22:52 > 0:22:53about in the park.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55And the brilliant thing about this painting is that
0:22:55 > 0:22:59it's like a snapshot of the whole of Georgian society.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02We have lowlife characters here,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05like these ladies feeding their babies.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07Here is kissing going on.
0:23:07 > 0:23:08Here is a man taking a leak.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10We also have commerce -
0:23:10 > 0:23:13these ladies are selling cups of milk to the gentry.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17Over here, we have high society.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19This lady is taking snuff.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24This foppish gentleman is doing a very fancy French sort of bow.
0:23:25 > 0:23:29And right at the centre of all this is Frederick, the Prince of Wales.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32And that's what makes it such a British scene.
0:23:32 > 0:23:36In France, the King was stuck out at Versailles.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39He was aloof and remote from his people.
0:23:39 > 0:23:44But Frederick thinks of himself as the people's prince.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47He's got the popular touch. He's on a royal walkabout.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49You can see people turning to watch him.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52And this is very typical of Frederick.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56He doesn't position himself above the crowd but right at its centre.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09The royal court was no longer setting the rules
0:24:09 > 0:24:10for fashionable life.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14And Frederick responded by joining in the contemporary craze
0:24:14 > 0:24:19for refined but informal gatherings.
0:24:19 > 0:24:24This was reflected in a new kind of painting - the conversation piece.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29Rather than formal group portraits, conversation pieces showed people
0:24:29 > 0:24:33actually enjoying each other's company.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36Here's a lively dinner party
0:24:36 > 0:24:39with the host dishing out lots of drinks,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43guests fumbling with each other
0:24:43 > 0:24:47and a fat clergyman looking on with worldly satisfaction.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56Even the royal family were depicted in this new style of painting.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02This is an oil sketch for a conversation piece
0:25:02 > 0:25:03of the royal family.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06It was done by the artist William Hogarth on spec.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10His hope was that the King would really like it and that he'd buy it.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12It's got all the hallmarks of a conversation piece.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15It's a family scene -
0:25:15 > 0:25:18mother, father, the children all talking to each other.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21But there are three very good reasons that George II
0:25:21 > 0:25:23was never going to buy this picture.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27Firstly, William Hogarth wasn't an artist in favour at court.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30There, the work was dominated by his rival,
0:25:30 > 0:25:33Queen Caroline's favourite artist William Kent.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36Secondly, the very idea that George II would buy
0:25:36 > 0:25:38a piece of avant-garde art is ridiculous.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41He didn't like art at all.
0:25:41 > 0:25:45And thirdly, it's a bit of a farce cos it looks like a happy family
0:25:45 > 0:25:47but, in fact, this lot hated each other.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50There were terrible rivalries and tensions
0:25:50 > 0:25:52between these parents and these children.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59Fortunately for Hogarth,
0:25:59 > 0:26:03he didn't actually need royal patronage to be successful.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07Like Alexander Pope, Hogarth was a freelancer
0:26:07 > 0:26:10with an entrepreneurial streak.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13This is his very nice pad in Chiswick.
0:26:15 > 0:26:16That he could afford it
0:26:16 > 0:26:19shows how well he understood what his customers wanted.
0:26:21 > 0:26:23And what they wanted was prints -
0:26:23 > 0:26:26the original affordable art.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32Britain went wild for these characters and these images
0:26:32 > 0:26:37but what most people were seeing wasn't Hogarth's own work.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40To keep things exclusive, he'd only produce enough prints
0:26:40 > 0:26:44to go to his list of just over 1,000 subscribers.
0:26:44 > 0:26:45But almost instantly,
0:26:45 > 0:26:50his rivals and copycats started to produce cheap knock-offs.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53The speed with which they did this was incredible.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56It was almost before the ink had dried on the originals.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01A set of Hogarth prints - and of these knock-off copies too -
0:27:01 > 0:27:03can be found in the Royal Collection.
0:27:03 > 0:27:08I'm meeting senior curator Kate Heard to see how they differed
0:27:08 > 0:27:11and what, if anything, the artist could do about it.
0:27:11 > 0:27:13So I'm a subscriber.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16I've paid my money to Mr Hogarth and the print is going to come out.
0:27:16 > 0:27:17What am I going to get?
0:27:17 > 0:27:20You're going to get six prints, of which this is the first one,
0:27:20 > 0:27:22showing the harlot,
0:27:22 > 0:27:24of The Harlot's Progress, arriving in London.
0:27:24 > 0:27:26- Oh, dear! She's a fresh young girl. - Absolutely.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28We know that it's going to be bad.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32Hogarth made 1,240 of them and refused to make any more.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35One of his great selling points was that it's an exclusive thing.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37You subscribe, you pay upfront,
0:27:37 > 0:27:38you're one of the club that can have them.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41What did you do if you weren't a subscriber, then,
0:27:41 > 0:27:42but you wanted to own these images?
0:27:42 > 0:27:47Well, you could actually get hold of slightly different copies -
0:27:47 > 0:27:49not the real thing, but pirated copies,
0:27:49 > 0:27:53which were rushed out by the print sellers within a few weeks.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55It's reversed, as well, isn't it?
0:27:55 > 0:27:57Yes, that's because they're copying the original print.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59So somebody's drawing it - here it is -
0:27:59 > 0:28:02and then he puts the ink on and he turns it over.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04And turns it back to front on the sheet of paper.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09They're not bad prints, considering how quickly they were made.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12And how did Hogarth respond to this? What action did he take?
0:28:12 > 0:28:16He was furious. He'd had his initiative taken away from him
0:28:16 > 0:28:19and he got together with a group of fellow printmakers
0:28:19 > 0:28:22and they petitioned Parliament which, in 1735,
0:28:22 > 0:28:26published a Copyright Act, which allowed people like Hogarth,
0:28:26 > 0:28:29for 14 years, to have copyright over their images, over their prints.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32And if you copied the prints, you would be punished?
0:28:32 > 0:28:35- You would be fined.- And that law stood all the way until 1911.
0:28:35 > 0:28:38It was a very impressive piece of legislation.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41- Was it known as Hogarth's?- It's known as Hogarth's Act. Absolutely.
0:28:41 > 0:28:47If prints were popular, newspapers were even more so.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55During the course of the 18th century, newspaper production
0:28:55 > 0:28:58would rise from one million to just over 14 million a year.
0:29:01 > 0:29:04You didn't even need to purchase a copy yourself.
0:29:04 > 0:29:06Newspapers were available for browsing
0:29:06 > 0:29:08in your neighbourhood coffee house.
0:29:10 > 0:29:15What's really surprising is just how well informed people were.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22Imagine that you and I are reasonably well-off,
0:29:22 > 0:29:25reasonably intelligent Georgian chaps.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Before spending the afternoon at the pleasure garden or the theatre,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32perhaps we're going to pop into the coffee house
0:29:32 > 0:29:34to have a read of the newspapers.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36What sort of information is available to us
0:29:36 > 0:29:40in the London Journal of 1732?
0:29:40 > 0:29:42Well, an enormous range.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45Page one tells us about foreign affairs.
0:29:45 > 0:29:47We've got a report from Paris.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50Page two gives us a report from Hanover,
0:29:50 > 0:29:52where the King is this week.
0:29:52 > 0:29:56We've got a very detailed account of what he's up to there.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59On page three, we've got a brand-new fruit
0:29:59 > 0:30:01that's just been presented to Queen Caroline.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05It's ripe and in a state of utmost perfection
0:30:05 > 0:30:08and it is a pineapple, a complete novelty.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11Now, you and I are not members of the court.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14We're members of the public and this is an enormous
0:30:14 > 0:30:16range of information that we've got access to.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20Our kings and queens aren't just faces on a coin -
0:30:20 > 0:30:22they're real characters in our minds.
0:30:22 > 0:30:24This isn't just a newspaper -
0:30:24 > 0:30:26it's an information superhighway.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29And now the world and his dog
0:30:29 > 0:30:32can have a well-informed opinion on current affairs.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41What's more, the world and his dog
0:30:41 > 0:30:44weren't going to keep their opinions to themselves.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51Georgian coffee houses were called the "penny universities".
0:30:51 > 0:30:57Pretty much blind to social status, they often hosted debating clubs.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59There was more to this than just passing the time.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02The Georgians had this new belief that you could refashion yourself
0:31:02 > 0:31:07into a person of taste by soaking up the right kind of books and ideas.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13To discuss all this, I'm meeting up with Lucy Inglis,
0:31:13 > 0:31:15creator of the blog Georgian London.
0:31:19 > 0:31:20Is this about self-improvement?
0:31:20 > 0:31:24Is this about Georgian people wanting to learn from each other?
0:31:24 > 0:31:25Yes, very much about self-improvement.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28The new concept of the rising middle classes
0:31:28 > 0:31:32and what it was to educate yourself and improve yourself.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35And there was also this idea that there was
0:31:35 > 0:31:38only so much knowledge in the world and it could be known and mastered
0:31:38 > 0:31:40if you were only willing to apply yourself.
0:31:40 > 0:31:41That's a brilliant idea -
0:31:41 > 0:31:44you could read every single book that existed if you tried hard.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48- Pretty much, yeah, yeah.- What's this you've got here on your computer?
0:31:48 > 0:31:51This here is some information that I've gathered
0:31:51 > 0:31:54about one society in particular, the Robin Hood Society.
0:31:54 > 0:31:56They met every Monday evening.
0:31:56 > 0:31:58And what did they get up to in these meetings?
0:31:58 > 0:31:59Well, they said, first of all,
0:31:59 > 0:32:03that even though they would enjoy a Welsh rarebit and a pot of beer,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06it was not a drinking club - it was a disputing one.
0:32:06 > 0:32:07At those places, men feed their bodies
0:32:07 > 0:32:10but at this one, they feed their mind.
0:32:10 > 0:32:11And what sort of people attended?
0:32:11 > 0:32:15Well, we have a list of members of the club here -
0:32:15 > 0:32:19a baker, a doctor, a governor of the plantations, a soldier,
0:32:19 > 0:32:22an author, a comedian, a house painter, a genius...
0:32:22 > 0:32:23- A genius?- A genius, yes.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25So he's put that down as his profession - a genius.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29- He was a genius. A noted bug doctor and a highwayman.- No way!
0:32:29 > 0:32:31- A highwayman attended the club? - Yeah, absolutely!
0:32:31 > 0:32:33A professional highwayman?
0:32:33 > 0:32:35- Yeah, he was thought to be one of the best debaters but he...- I bet!
0:32:35 > 0:32:37Did he use his gun?
0:32:37 > 0:32:39Yeah, he couldn't stay off the roads
0:32:39 > 0:32:43- and he sadly met a sticky end at the end of a rope at Tyburn.- Oh, dear!
0:32:43 > 0:32:46- I know.- A loss to the club, I would think.- Yes.
0:32:46 > 0:32:48So here we have a network of people
0:32:48 > 0:32:52who have only been brought together by the club itself.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55- They're from different ranks in society.- Yes.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59And that is one of the key points of all these clubs -
0:32:59 > 0:33:03that they were deliberately bringing people together from all levels.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05What did the King and the government think about these clubs?
0:33:05 > 0:33:07Sometimes they were debating questions like,
0:33:07 > 0:33:09"Is the Prime Minister any good?"
0:33:09 > 0:33:11- This is quite dangerous.- Absolutely. Very dangerous.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15The Robin Hood Society tried to get around this by publishing
0:33:15 > 0:33:18their set of rules and things they weren't going to discuss,
0:33:18 > 0:33:20which was politics and God.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24- However, they did discuss both. - Oh, that was just for show, then?
0:33:24 > 0:33:27- "We're not going to discuss this, but really we are."- Exactly,
0:33:27 > 0:33:30which is why the members were supposed to be known to each other,
0:33:30 > 0:33:33so that you knew if you had a spy in the camp.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39This culture of debate meant that the decisions of King and Parliament
0:33:39 > 0:33:41were held to public scrutiny.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53In 1733, Sir Robert Walpole introduced an Excise Bill
0:33:53 > 0:33:57to Parliament, imposing a tax on popular commodities
0:33:57 > 0:34:00like wine and tobacco.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02Now, nobody likes a new tax,
0:34:02 > 0:34:06especially not the self-confident new London trading classes.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10There were riots outside Parliament
0:34:10 > 0:34:13and Queen Caroline and Robert Walpole were burned in effigy.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19Crucially, though, the King stood by his minister.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21He let it be known that
0:34:21 > 0:34:25to oppose his government was to oppose the King himself.
0:34:25 > 0:34:28If you went against Walpole, then you were a traitor.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34One of Walpole's opponents in Parliament was Lord Cobham.
0:34:34 > 0:34:38He had been a great supporter of the Hanoverian monarchy.
0:34:38 > 0:34:40But, for his disloyalty,
0:34:40 > 0:34:43the King ejected Cobham from the House of Lords.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50Cobham retreated to his country house at Stowe.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52Here, he planted his revenge
0:34:52 > 0:34:56in the form of Stowe's magnificent landscape garden.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10In Georgian Britain, even gardening was political.
0:35:10 > 0:35:15The landscape garden was supposed to embody British liberty.
0:35:16 > 0:35:21A place where, as one Georgian put it, "The eye can roam free."
0:35:27 > 0:35:31But Stowe also delivered a more pointed message.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35Cobham hid within it a series of secret meanings
0:35:35 > 0:35:39or metaphors for contemporary politics and morality.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42Now, you weren't expected to work out
0:35:42 > 0:35:45all of these hidden secret meanings all by yourself.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47You could buy a guidebook to the gardens,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50like this original Georgian version.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54And it tells me that at this spot here, I have a decision to make.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58I can either turn up that way, which is the path of virtue.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01Up there we have temples dedicated to virtue
0:36:01 > 0:36:03and the heroes of history.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05Or I can go down that way.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07That's the route of vice.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10Down there the book promises me lustful monks,
0:36:10 > 0:36:14women out of control, group sex and voyeurism.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22The garden at Stowe certainly drew in the crowds.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26And Lord Cobham had thoughtfully built this inn on the outskirts
0:36:26 > 0:36:28to accommodate them all.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35The tourists who chose the path of virtue crossed a series of bridges
0:36:35 > 0:36:39to illustrate that a virtuous life is never without its obstacles.
0:36:41 > 0:36:43But I'm on the path of vice,
0:36:43 > 0:36:47where visitors get titillation alongside moral instruction.
0:36:48 > 0:36:52One of the stopping-off points is the Temple Of Venus.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55The book tells me that the paintings in here
0:36:55 > 0:36:58tell the story of this lady, who runs away from
0:36:58 > 0:37:01her disagreeable husband and goes instead
0:37:01 > 0:37:04to revel with a beastly herd of satyrs,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07these famously lascivious creatures.
0:37:07 > 0:37:10So it's basically a temple to naughty women.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13But we're still in the vice area of the garden, don't forget,
0:37:13 > 0:37:16so we know not to follow their example.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19Let's go on improving our characters somewhere else.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23But Cobham intended his garden
0:37:23 > 0:37:26to offer something more than just moral instruction.
0:37:28 > 0:37:30Stowe also reads like a political pamphlet,
0:37:30 > 0:37:33Cobham's own State Of The Nation address.
0:37:35 > 0:37:37And some of these messages seem to be aimed directly
0:37:37 > 0:37:40at Frederick, Prince of Wales.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44Cobham and his group of opposition politicians had identified
0:37:44 > 0:37:47the Prince as a potential leader for their cause.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53At the heart of the garden is the Temple Of British Worthies.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58Here I'm meeting Richard Wheeler to find out how
0:37:58 > 0:38:02this pantheon of British heroes is actually an attack on George II.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06Obviously, there's politics going on here.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09He's chosen some characters but not others.
0:38:09 > 0:38:10What was he trying to express?
0:38:10 > 0:38:13Well, there's a subtext going on here, because he'd just broken
0:38:13 > 0:38:15from Sir Robert Walpole's Whig Party
0:38:15 > 0:38:18to form his own internal Whig opposition, the Whig Patriots.
0:38:18 > 0:38:24So we have King Alfred, the mildest, justest, most beneficent of kings -
0:38:24 > 0:38:26everything that King George II the second was not.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29And beside him Edward, the Black Prince, the terror of Europe,
0:38:29 > 0:38:31the delight of England -
0:38:31 > 0:38:34everything to which Prince Frederick aspired.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37And, of course, Prince Frederick was the titular leader
0:38:37 > 0:38:40of the Whig opposition to Sir Robert Walpole.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42Why was Cobham so much against Sir Robert Walpole?
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Because he was our first Prime Minister
0:38:45 > 0:38:48and the idea of a Prime Minister was deeply objectionable -
0:38:48 > 0:38:51that one person should rule was dictatorial, absolutist
0:38:51 > 0:38:53and everything that was wrong.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57So, according to the guidebook, King Alfred's been picked out because
0:38:57 > 0:39:00he guarded liberty and he was the founder of the English Constitution.
0:39:00 > 0:39:02This is all significant, isn't it?
0:39:02 > 0:39:05English Constitution is probably the most significant,
0:39:05 > 0:39:07because if anything works at Stowe
0:39:07 > 0:39:12it's the idea of our old Gothic Constitution deriving from
0:39:12 > 0:39:15the Witan, the parliament of the Saxons.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18So we have Alfred here, the greatest of the Saxon kings.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22And on the hill behind, you've got the Saxon Temple,
0:39:22 > 0:39:25which is otherwise known as the Temple Of Liberty.
0:39:25 > 0:39:30So it's all anti-autocracy and the main point of which was that
0:39:30 > 0:39:34Parliament chose the King, as it did in Saxon times.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37I think a lot of this is instruction for Prince Frederick,
0:39:37 > 0:39:40telling him how to behave if he's going to be a patriot king.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43One has to remember that Lord Cobham and all his compatriots
0:39:43 > 0:39:45were the ones who brought the Hanoverians over.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48But they've got to remain under control.
0:39:48 > 0:39:50So it's the Whig oligarchy who are actually running the country
0:39:50 > 0:39:53and the King as a constitutional monarch.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56So the idea of the constitution - really important.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00And the King really doing what he was told.
0:40:00 > 0:40:02And guess what? There's no Germans here at all.
0:40:02 > 0:40:04No, they're all over in the other side in the garden of vice.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06I don't quite know why but there it is.
0:40:09 > 0:40:13None of this was lost on Frederick, who would commission an opera
0:40:13 > 0:40:16in honour of Alfred, the great patriot king.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19OPERA SINGING
0:40:26 > 0:40:30Frederick was emerging as the leader of the opposition.
0:40:30 > 0:40:35So his parents tried to rein him in by suppressing his allowance.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44The simplest way for a prince to up his income was to get married.
0:40:44 > 0:40:47But George and Caroline had deliberately put off
0:40:47 > 0:40:49finding their son a wife.
0:40:49 > 0:40:54Poor Fred was left on the shelf until he was almost 30.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58In April 1736, his parents finally relented.
0:40:58 > 0:41:04The German princess, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha became Frederick's wife.
0:41:04 > 0:41:06Luckily for Augusta,
0:41:06 > 0:41:09Frederick liked his princess bride and got his pay rise.
0:41:09 > 0:41:12But he was disappointed when it turned out to be
0:41:12 > 0:41:16only £50,000 a year, half of what he had been expecting.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20Now there was open conflict between the prince and his parents.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23This was the beginning of an annus horribilis
0:41:23 > 0:41:25for the Georgian monarchy.
0:41:27 > 0:41:30And when the King left for Germany yet again,
0:41:30 > 0:41:33his courtiers felt the force of public opinion.
0:41:33 > 0:41:38People got so fed up with George constantly going off to Hanover,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41that a mysterious spoof notice appeared,
0:41:41 > 0:41:44stuck to the gates of St James's Palace.
0:41:44 > 0:41:49It read, "Lost or strayed out of this house,
0:41:49 > 0:41:53"a man who has abandoned a wife and six children."
0:41:53 > 0:41:57A reward was offered for information of four shillings and sixpence,
0:41:57 > 0:41:59but you weren't to expect any more money than that.
0:41:59 > 0:42:04"Nobody judging him to deserve a crown."
0:42:06 > 0:42:12Prince Frederick's camp were furious that he hadn't been made regent.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14Caroline was once again running the show,
0:42:14 > 0:42:19and she was back in full social reformer mode.
0:42:19 > 0:42:21Once her target had been smallpox.
0:42:21 > 0:42:26But she now wanted to clamp down on a new blight sweeping London,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29the craze for gin.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32Londoners thought that if beer came by the pint,
0:42:32 > 0:42:35so too should this new drink called gin.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38By the 1730s, they were addicted to gin.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42They were drinking two pints per head per week.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46His Majesty's government decided to reduce gin consumption
0:42:46 > 0:42:50by increasing the price. They put a big new tax on gin.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53This went down very badly with Londoners.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56There were riots about the gin tax.
0:42:56 > 0:43:00Liquor shops were draped in black to mourn the death of gin drinking.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04And there was an ominous new chant amongst the crowds on the street.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09They went, "No gin, no king. No gin, no king."
0:43:09 > 0:43:13What did Prince Frederick do to calm down the situation?
0:43:13 > 0:43:17Well, nothing at all. In fact, he inflamed it.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21He was seen going to a tavern and drinking a glass of gin.
0:43:21 > 0:43:23And by doing this he was saying,
0:43:23 > 0:43:27"I'm just like you. I like gin and I don't like the king."
0:43:30 > 0:43:34Frederick's ingratiating ways incensed Caroline.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38"My God," she said, "popularity always makes me sick,
0:43:38 > 0:43:43"but Fred's popularity makes me vomit."
0:43:44 > 0:43:46A storm was brewing.
0:43:49 > 0:43:54In December 1736, King George was returning from Hanover
0:43:54 > 0:43:57when his ship was caught in a violent gale.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03Rumours reached London that he'd been lost at sea.
0:44:08 > 0:44:12Caroline was distraught and also disgusted at Prince Frederick,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16who was clearly relishing the prospect of becoming King himself.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19For a week, the country held its breath.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22Many were wishing that the King had drowned.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26But finally, news arrived that he was safe and well.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33Back in London, George II now had to deal with his upstart son
0:44:33 > 0:44:36and mounting political opposition.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42One of the best mouthpieces for dissident voices was the theatre,
0:44:42 > 0:44:47perhaps the most subversive art form in Georgian Britain.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49Not surprisingly, Prince Frederick
0:44:49 > 0:44:53had already associated himself with the stage.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57He had written his own comedy, The Modish Couple.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02Here at the Bristol Old Vic, an original Georgian theatre,
0:45:02 > 0:45:07its artistic director, Tom Morris, can explain how the stage
0:45:07 > 0:45:10provided a platform for mocking the ruling order.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14We're standing on a stage here.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17It's not the way people think of a modern theatre.
0:45:17 > 0:45:21We're not kind of shut away from the audience somewhere up there.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23We're surrounded by them.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27And what's more, it's manifest in the architecture of the building
0:45:27 > 0:45:30that different members of the audience
0:45:30 > 0:45:32will have a different point of view.
0:45:32 > 0:45:35Someone sitting over there will necessarily have
0:45:35 > 0:45:37a different point of view of this conversation
0:45:37 > 0:45:40than someone sitting over there. It's like a reverse shot.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44If, as an actor then, that person is booing and that person is cheering,
0:45:44 > 0:45:47can you sort of shut them out and go with them?
0:45:47 > 0:45:50Absolutely. We know that there were asides in Georgian theatre.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53If you play an aside in a theatre like this, you choose
0:45:53 > 0:45:56who you play it to and you choose who you don't play it to.
0:45:56 > 0:46:00- Ah, right!- So you can constantly manipulate the relationship
0:46:00 > 0:46:01with the audience.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04When you look at 18th-century plays,
0:46:04 > 0:46:06they appear to be incredibly naughty.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09They're always satirical, they're always causing trouble,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12they seem to be against power and authority.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15Yeah, I mean Tom Thumb, which is a pretty tough read,
0:46:15 > 0:46:20I have to say, is largely a sequence of knob jokes about Robert Walpole,
0:46:20 > 0:46:22which obviously he hated. Now if you read the script,
0:46:22 > 0:46:25he's not going to say that, he can't quite say that,
0:46:25 > 0:46:30because it's all negotiated live with sort of double entendre
0:46:30 > 0:46:33in this kind of theatre, where something can be implied,
0:46:33 > 0:46:38a joke aimed here can be shared to the exclusion of those people,
0:46:38 > 0:46:44and meanings are kind of fluid, immediate and transitory.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47And that makes it very threatening, politically.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52In 1737, Sir Robert Walpole would try to bring the curtain down
0:46:52 > 0:46:58on seditious theatres, citing a play that mysteriously hasn't survived -
0:46:58 > 0:47:00The Golden Rump.
0:47:01 > 0:47:05The details of the play itself are a bit mysterious.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07But you can get a hint of what it was about
0:47:07 > 0:47:12from this contemporary print, called The Festival of the Golden Rump -
0:47:12 > 0:47:15the focus of the scene is the King's bottom.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17And this itself was the focus of Georgian society
0:47:17 > 0:47:21because of the habit the King had at turning his back on people
0:47:21 > 0:47:24who were out of favour at court.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26If the King didn't want to speak to you, he would turn around
0:47:26 > 0:47:28and show you his backside,
0:47:28 > 0:47:31a technique that everybody called rumping.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Also, everybody knew that part of the reason the King
0:47:34 > 0:47:36had such a bad temper
0:47:36 > 0:47:40was because he suffered terribly from the haemorrhoids.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43In this print, the King is shown as a satyr,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45a creature that's out of control.
0:47:45 > 0:47:48And it's lashing out - in this case the satyr is kicking
0:47:48 > 0:47:52a magician-like figure who represents Sir Robert Walpole.
0:47:52 > 0:47:56But don't worry, sensible Queen Caroline is here,
0:47:56 > 0:47:59the mistress of medicine. She's going to bring the King
0:47:59 > 0:48:03back under her control by giving him an enema.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07She's injecting a magic potion up the royal bum.
0:48:09 > 0:48:11It's quite amusing to think
0:48:11 > 0:48:14that this play was only performed in public
0:48:14 > 0:48:16in the House of Commons.
0:48:16 > 0:48:19What happened was that Sir Robert Walpole claimed
0:48:19 > 0:48:21he'd been given a manuscript version of it,
0:48:21 > 0:48:25and in order to show how offensive and scandalous it was,
0:48:25 > 0:48:27he read it out in Parliament.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31Of course, everybody went, "This is terrible! We can't have this!"
0:48:31 > 0:48:36From now on, there would only be two licensed theatres in London.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40And all new plays had to be vetted by the Lord Chamberlain.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48But there's a very attractive conspiracy theory here.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52I like this one. The idea is that perhaps Sir Robert Walpole
0:48:52 > 0:48:54cooked the whole thing up himself.
0:48:54 > 0:48:57Perhaps he commissioned the scandalous play
0:48:57 > 0:49:02in order to create the outrage and to get his censorship law passed.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07In February 1737,
0:49:07 > 0:49:12Frederick took the feud with his father right into Parliament.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14His supporters backed a motion
0:49:14 > 0:49:17to get the Prince's allowance increased.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Frederick's side lost by only a few votes.
0:49:21 > 0:49:26This was the most public affront yet by the Prince to the King.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40And to make matters worse,
0:49:40 > 0:49:44Frederick and his wife, Augusta, had moved into Kensington Palace...
0:49:46 > 0:49:50..where Frederick's habits quickly began to grate on his mother.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54The palace was so claustrophobic
0:49:54 > 0:49:57that Caroline had to come out into the gardens
0:49:57 > 0:49:59to get a bit of privacy. She loved walking.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02She'd clack along in her slippers with red heels.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06Other times, though, she was trapped indoors.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08Once, she was looking out of the window,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11and she saw Frederick crossing the courtyard beneath her,
0:50:11 > 0:50:15and she was heard to say "There he goes, that monster!
0:50:15 > 0:50:20"How I wish that a hole from hell would open up and swallow him."
0:50:24 > 0:50:29In July 1737, this feud finally came to a head.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35The royal family had assembled at Hampton Court
0:50:35 > 0:50:39to witness the arrival of Frederick and Augusta's first child.
0:50:40 > 0:50:45But Frederick was determined to keep his parents away from the birth.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49Augusta's labour pains began in the middle of the night.
0:50:49 > 0:50:51Now, you'd expect them to call the midwife
0:50:51 > 0:50:54and keep her in bed, but no.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56Her husband Frederick made her get up.
0:50:56 > 0:51:00He made her walk down the stairs, and he bundled her into a carriage
0:51:00 > 0:51:03to drive 15 miles through the night to St James's Palace.
0:51:05 > 0:51:10Now, poor Augusta was a teenager. She was in a foreign land.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13This was her first pregnancy, and she spent her first labour
0:51:13 > 0:51:16in a bumpy carriage in the middle of the night.
0:51:16 > 0:51:20This is terribly cruel behaviour on Frederick's part.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23Augusta was writhing about in agony,
0:51:23 > 0:51:25and Frederick held her down with his weight.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29He used so much force that he later said he put his back out doing it.
0:51:31 > 0:51:35When they arrived at St James's Palace, they weren't expected,
0:51:35 > 0:51:37so nothing was ready for them.
0:51:37 > 0:51:39There weren't even any sheets for the bed.
0:51:39 > 0:51:42And when the little baby girl was eventually born,
0:51:42 > 0:51:45they had to wrap her up in a table napkin.
0:51:51 > 0:51:53Frederick was successful
0:51:53 > 0:51:56in tricking his parents out of their privilege
0:51:56 > 0:51:59of being present at the birth of their grandchild.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01When Caroline heard what had happened,
0:52:01 > 0:52:03she too got up in the middle of the night
0:52:03 > 0:52:07and came dashing to St James's Palace, but she was too late.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09The baby was already born.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12The next day, there was an almighty bust-up,
0:52:12 > 0:52:16and everybody knew about it. It got into the newspapers.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19This was a very dangerous moment for the Hanoverian monarchy.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22Both sides were damaged.
0:52:22 > 0:52:24George II looked like he couldn't even control his family,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27and as for Frederick, he looked irresponsible.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30He'd risked the life of his wife.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33How could he be trusted with the future of the nation
0:52:33 > 0:52:35when the time came?
0:52:35 > 0:52:40And worst of all, there was no prospect of reconciliation.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44This quarrel looked set to continue to the grave.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49It would take just that, a death,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52to make the royal family and the country take stock.
0:52:55 > 0:53:01In November 1737, in her brand-new library at St James's Palace,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05Caroline was suddenly stricken with intense pain.
0:53:10 > 0:53:14What was actually wrong with Caroline? Well, nobody knew.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17The doctors weren't allowed to examine her body.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20There was a sense that this would have been undignified,
0:53:20 > 0:53:24and also an idea that queens weren't really made out of flesh and blood,
0:53:24 > 0:53:26that they were never ill.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29But poor Caroline was clearly in agony.
0:53:29 > 0:53:32She was put to bed, and eventually the King insisted
0:53:32 > 0:53:34that the doctors have a look at her stomach.
0:53:34 > 0:53:36And then they discovered
0:53:36 > 0:53:39that ever since the birth of her last child,
0:53:39 > 0:53:44Caroline had been suffering in secret from an umbilical hernia.
0:53:44 > 0:53:48This is when a hole opens up in the walls of the stomach.
0:53:48 > 0:53:49It's terribly painful.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52Caroline had come to her crisis
0:53:52 > 0:53:57because a little loop of her bowels had popped out through that hole.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00What the doctor should have done is get the bowels,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03push them back in and sew up the hole.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05That's what they would do today.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08But Caroline's doctors made a terrible mistake.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10That little loop of bowels,
0:54:10 > 0:54:13they cut it off.
0:54:20 > 0:54:24Throughout all of this, Caroline kept up her good spirits.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27When the doctor came in to operate, she encouraged him
0:54:27 > 0:54:31by saying, "Dr Ranby, just pretend you're cutting up your ex-wife."
0:54:33 > 0:54:35Her only concern seemed to be
0:54:35 > 0:54:38for the grief of her husband and her children.
0:54:41 > 0:54:47George II now devoted himself to her care. He sat by the bed in tears.
0:54:48 > 0:54:50And when she was at death's door,
0:54:50 > 0:54:53they had this very famous conversation.
0:54:53 > 0:54:59She said to him, "I want you to be happy. Marry again after I'm gone".
0:54:59 > 0:55:03But he said "No. I will have mistresses."
0:55:03 > 0:55:07The implication was that the mistresses meant nothing to him.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10He would never have a second Queen.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14And when she died, it was with her hand in his.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23And where was Prince Frederick?
0:55:23 > 0:55:25Despite the estrangement,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28he had asked to come to his mother's bedside,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31but the King had forbidden it. "Frederick", he said,
0:55:31 > 0:55:36"shall not come and act any of his silly plays here."
0:55:37 > 0:55:42When Caroline had heard this, she had deferred to her husband.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46But later, she sent a private message, a blessing,
0:55:46 > 0:55:48and forgiveness to her son.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54A piece of street poetry summed up the public reaction.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58"Death, where is thy sting,
0:55:58 > 0:56:01"to take the Queen and leave the King?"
0:56:06 > 0:56:08And what of the King?
0:56:10 > 0:56:16Here is sad and lonely George, all by himself, missing his wife.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18He's gone to her library
0:56:18 > 0:56:21to have a look at the bust of her over the door.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25This was a real low point for George II.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28Not only had he lost his companion of 30 years,
0:56:28 > 0:56:31he had also lost an important political ally.
0:56:31 > 0:56:36She had been the friendly face of his regime.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42He would eventually recover and, old soldier as he was,
0:56:42 > 0:56:46go on to enjoy military victories over the French and the Scots.
0:56:51 > 0:56:57This period saw the development of a well-informed and pugnacious public,
0:56:57 > 0:57:00a new force that challenged the old elite.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04The world had changed, and sooner or later,
0:57:04 > 0:57:09every monarchy across Europe would have to come to terms with it.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11If you were an 18th-century king or queen,
0:57:11 > 0:57:13you had two choices here.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16Either you could ignore all of this and hope that it went away -
0:57:16 > 0:57:20that's what they did in France, and look what happened to them -
0:57:20 > 0:57:22or you could subtly change the way
0:57:22 > 0:57:25in which you went about being a monarch.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28In Britain, it was Queen Caroline and Prince Frederick
0:57:28 > 0:57:30who really understood this,
0:57:30 > 0:57:34so much so that I think they rather overshadowed George II.
0:57:36 > 0:57:39Caroline had tried to help the British, promoting science
0:57:39 > 0:57:43and philosophy and social improvement.
0:57:43 > 0:57:46And Frederick had embraced the people,
0:57:46 > 0:57:49placing himself amongst the crowd, rather than above it.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55They somehow knew how to ease the friction between the monarchy
0:57:55 > 0:57:58and the people, and I think we can judge their success
0:57:58 > 0:58:01by the fact that 300 years later,
0:58:01 > 0:58:04their descendants are still on the throne.
0:58:11 > 0:58:15Next time, as Britain seeks to rule the waves,
0:58:15 > 0:58:20King George's love of fighting helps him overcome the death of his queen,
0:58:20 > 0:58:25renewing his sense of kingship as he leads his troops into battle.
0:58:26 > 0:58:28"Now, boys!" he said.
0:58:28 > 0:58:32"Fire and be brave, and the French will soon run!"