‘The British Inquisition, Romantic Terror and Radical Satire’

– Professor Ian Haywood (University of Roehampton)

The years 1819-22 saw a remarkable flourishing of radical satire in Britain. In response to events such as the Peterloo massacre, the Cato Street conspiracy, the government campaign to disinherit Queen Caroline and fresh attempts to censor subversive publications, visual and verbal satire reached a new degree of popularity and confidence. At the centre of this storm was a formidable collaboration between the radical publisher William Hone and the leading Regency caricaturist George Cruikshank. Their phenomenally successful satires transformed British politics into a spectacle of terror and repression: a British ‘Inquisition’. This imagery drew added force from the importance that radicals gave to the ‘Romantic’ revolutions in Spain. The parallel evolution of real and imaginary Inquisitions generated a fascinating series of ironies and spectacles.

1st February 2013