{"id":34973,"date":"2026-02-20T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=34973"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:32:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:32:49","slug":"a-cartoon-history-of-the-monarchy-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2026\/02\/20\/a-cartoon-history-of-the-monarchy-3\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cartoon History of the Monarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Michael Wynn Jones<\/strong> and Many & Various<\/strong> (Macmillan)
\nISBN: 978-0333198056 (PB)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019re far too reluctant in this country to celebrate the history and quality of our own cartooning tradition; preferring simply to remark on the attention-grabbers or impressive longevity of one or two classic and venerable veterans of the pen-&-ink game for TV soundbites and platform clickbait. The actual truth is that for an incredibly long time the political art movement of the Empire and Commonwealth – and its enemies – was vast, varied and fantastically influential.<\/p>\n

The British wing of the form has been magnificently serviced over centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly ideas, repeatedly tickling our funny bones or enraging our sleeping consciences and sensibilities, all whilst poking our communal pomposities and fascinations.<\/p>\n

From earliest inception, satiric draughtsmanship has been used to attack and sell: initially ideas, values, opinions and prejudices or but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comic books, the sheer power of graphic narrative, with its ability to create emotional affinities, has led to the creation of unforgettable images and characters – and the destruction of real people or social systems.<\/p>\n

When those creations can affect the daily lives of millions of readers, the force they can apply in the commercial or political arena is well-nigh irresistible\u2026<\/p>\n

In Britain, the cartoonist has held a bizarrely precarious position of power for centuries: the deftly designed bombastic broadside or savagely surgical satirical slice instantly capable of ridiculing, exposing, uplifting or deflating the powerfully elevated, unapproachable and apparently untouchable with a simple shaped-charge of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor.<\/p>\n

For this method of concept transmission, lack of literacy or education is no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved centuries ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and a superteam of idealised saints, a picture is worth far more than a thousand words\u2026<\/p>\n

For as long as we\u2019ve had printing there have been scurrilous gadfly artists commentating on rulers, society and all iniquities: pictorially haranguing the powerful, pompous, privileged and just plain perfidious through swingeing satire and cunning caricature. Sometimes artists have been just plain mean. Those are usually the best and most memorable\u2026<\/p>\n

Britain had no monopoly on talent and indignation, and this canny compendium also frequently features European – and latterly American – takes on our always-scandalous Royals (wow, is THAT true today!) and oddball citizenry\u2026<\/p>\n

Released in 1978 and desperately in need of updating and re-issue, A Cartoon History of the Monarchy<\/strong> offers a potted, far from hagiographic history and deliciously skewed view of our Ruling Elite in all their unsavoury glory. Here reside an unbroken line of jibes, asides and broadsides culled from diverse sources by jobbing journalist and aficionado of japes, lampoons and sketches Michael Wynn Jones, who casts his discriminating eye from the reign of Elizabeth I up until just before the Silver Jubilee of the second Regina to bear the name\u2026<\/p>\n

Following a rota of the Kings and Queens of England, the pomposity-puncturing procession commences with The Age of Intolerance<\/strong>, reproducing cartoons and adding commentary dealing with the doings of the 10 monarchs from the initial Elizabeth I<\/em> to George II<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Accompanying essays share the zeitgeist of those times; the religious questions as England, Wales, Ireland and eventually Scotland faced numerous crises regarding succession. That issue always revolved around whether the land should be Catholic or Protestant. \u2018Popes, Plots and Puritans\u2019 <\/em>led to a final solution when \u2018The Men from Hanover\u2019 <\/em>arrived to settle the matter and fully cement the nation under the Church of England.<\/p>\n

A savage sampling of national and European opinions are represented by 26 visual bombards such as allegorical assault \u2018Diana and Callisto\u2019 <\/em>by Dutch artist Miricenys (1585), anonymous \u2018England\u2019s Miraculous Preservation\u2019 <\/em>(1648) and \u2018The Royal Oake of Brittayn\u2019 <\/em>(1649) amongst many others.<\/p>\n

Cartoon grotesques like \u2018Cromwell\u2019s Car\u2019 <\/em>(1649) or \u2018Babel and Bethel\u2019 <\/em>(1679) appear beside such scandalous foreign attacks as Dutch illustrator Dusart\u2019s \u2018Fr. James King\u2019 <\/em>or anonymous French pictorial polemic \u2018Notice of Burial\u2019 <\/em>(both from 1690). We Brits riposted with jeering celebrations of martial triumphs such as \u2018The Arrival of William and Mary\u2019 <\/em>(1689), \u2018The Great Eclipse of the Sun\u2019 <\/em>(simultaneously a topical spin on a 1706 solar event and defeat of \u201cSun King\u201d Louis XIV by the British armies of Queen Anne), and \u2018A Bridle for the French King\u2019 <\/em>from the same year.<\/p>\n

Domestic contretemps are highlighted through such draughtsman\u2019s delights as anonymous 1743 shocker \u2018The Hanover Bubble\u2019<\/em>, Ebersley\u2019s \u2018The Agreeable Contrast\u2019 <\/em>(1746 and attacking King George\u2019s brother \u201cButcher\u201d Cumberland\u2019s treatment of Jacobites after the Young Pretender\u2019s defeat), and exposure of Popish influence in the Highlands, described in \u2018The Chevalier\u2019s Market\u2019 <\/em>1745…<\/p>\n

Whereas much of this material – British and otherwise – was generally national commentary and pure religio-political assault, by the time period covered in The Wickedest Age: George III to George IV<\/em> (1760-1830), the cartoon had also evolved into a weapon designed to wound with wit and crush through cruel caricature. After covering major crises and scandals of the generally sensible – if parsimonious – third George in \u2018The Royal Malady\u2019<\/em>, \u2018The Dregs of Their Dull Race\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Twilight Years\u2019<\/em>: a veritable Golden Age of popular disapproval and pictorial pummelling of the Prince Regent and much-delayed, frustrated monarch (plus his many indiscreet mistresses) is covered in \u2018The Prince of Whales\u2019<\/em>, \u2018The Secret Marriage\u2019<\/em>, \u2018\u2026Pray Get Me a Glass of Brandy\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Delicate Investigations\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The public disdain of the times generated a fusillade of cartoon prints, represented here by 35 graphic thrusts and savage cartoon sallies by names now as famous as any ruler. However master character assassins Townsend (\u2018The Scotch hurdy-gurdy\u2019<\/em>), George Cruikshank (\u2018Royal Condescension\u2019<\/em>), Gillray (\u2018A New Way to Pay the National Debt\u2019, \u2018A Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion\u2019<\/em>), Rowlandson (\u2018The Prospect Before Us\u2019<\/em>) and Heath (\u2018A Triumph of innocence over perjury\u2019<\/em>) are brilliantly bolstered by lesser lights West (\u2018The Save-all and the Extinguisher!\u2019<\/em>), Williams (\u2018Low Life above stairs\u2019<\/em>), Vowles (\u2018The shelter for the destitute\u2019<\/em>) and Marshall (\u2018The kettle calling the pot ugly names\u2019<\/em>) and some anonymous pen-pricks who nevertheless hit hard with \u2018Tempora Mutantor\u2019<\/em>, \u2018The captive Prince\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Reading of the Imperial decree\u2019 <\/em>and more.<\/p>\n

Eventually, periodical publication overtook print-shops as the great disseminators of cartoon imagery, and open savagery and targeted vulgarity of caricaturists gradually gave way to mannered, if barbed, genteel observation. Thus The Age of Discretion:<\/strong> William IV to Victoria<\/em> (1830-1901) offers a different style of Royal Commentary: no less challenging, but certainly more overtly respectful even when critical. Sometimes, though, the new family-oriented cartooning – even in magazines like Punch <\/strong>and The Times<\/strong> – simply sunk to fawning veneration as the institution of monarchy became more and more removed from the lives of the citizenry.<\/p>\n

William\u2019s times are summed up in text via \u2018The Sailor King\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Reform Billy\u2019 <\/em>whilst Victoria\u2019s epochal reign and the Parliamentarians who increasingly wielded decisive power is described through \u2018The Queen of the Whigs\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Revolutions are bad for the Country\u2019<\/em>, \u2018The Black and the Brown\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Years of Widowhood\u2019<\/em>. The 36 collected images recapture days of Empire, with Heath, Seymour & Doyle predominant in illustrating bluff sea-dog William\u2019s socially contentious days of Reform (no, not our modern bunch of useless Gammons, but actually people seemingly seeking to make the country better very long ago…)<\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s years – from engaging popular ing\u00e9nue Queen, through happy bride to politically intrusive grand dame of European Court intrigue – highlights the craft of Doyle \u2018The Queen in Danger\u2019<\/em> (1837), Leech \u2018There\u2019s Always Something\u2019<\/em> (1852), Tenniel \u2018Queen Hermione\u2019 <\/em>(1865), \u2018New Crowns for Old Ones!\u2019<\/em> (1876), Morgan (Where is Britannia?\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018A Brown Study\u2019 <\/em>(both 1867) and Sambourne \u2018Kaiser-i-Hind\u2019<\/em> (1876) amongst so many others. Her latter years saw a rise in social conscience cartooning as displayed by the crusading Merry with \u2018The Scapegrace of the Family\u2019 <\/em>(1880), \u2018The fall of the rebels\u2019<\/em> in 1886 and more. The telling modernist take of Max Beerbohm cuttingly illustrated the rift between the Empress and her playboy heir in \u2018The rare, the rather awful visits of Albert Edward to Windsor Castle\u2019<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

Despite her well-publicised disapproval of the good-time Prince, he became an effective king as did his son, both covered in The Edwardian Age:<\/strong> Edward VII to George<\/em> V<\/em>, spanning 1901-1936. Their dutiful achievements are depicted in \u2018The Coming King\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018The First Gentleman of Europe\u2019 <\/em>before war with Germany necessitated a family name change for George: \u2018The First Windsor\u2019<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

With kings increasingly used as good-will ambassadors and cited in scandals frequently ending in court (sound familiar?), the 30 cartoons in this section include many German pieces from not only the war years but also the tense decade that preceded them. At that time of tinderbox politics, Imperial Superpowers jostled for position and used propaganda to appeal to the world\u2019s \u201cunwashed masses\u201d for justification in their aims and ambitions. Beside veteran caricaturists like Leech, Morgan, May, Partridge, Staniforth and David Low are merciless lampoons from German cartoonists Brandt, Blir, Heine, Gulbransson and Johnson as well as French illustrator Veber and lone American Kirby.<\/p>\n

Our pen-&-ink pictorial history lesson concludes with The Age of Respectability:<\/strong> Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II,<\/em> by generally skipping World War II, concentrating on the openly secret scandal of Edward & Mrs Simpson in \u2018Abdication\u2019. <\/em>Thereafter the advent of \u2018New Elizabethans\u2019 <\/em>brought a modern age of monarchs as sideshow attractions\u2026<\/p>\n

Although Fleet Street chose to whitewash and suppress the affair between a King-in-waiting and an American divorcee, the rest of the world made great play of the situation: as seen here with 11 telling cartoon shots from Americans McCutcheon and Orro, whilst French scribbler Effel posited typically insouciant Gallic pragmatism in \u2018Une Solution\u2019 <\/em>and German-based Gulbransson played up the true romance angle\u2026<\/p>\n

In the meantime, British cartoonist Low had to be at his most obliquely hilarious, delineating the crisis by not mentioning it, whilst Punch<\/strong> stars such as Partridge steadfastly pursued a line of deferential, tragic sacrifice…<\/p>\n

Although there is very little material featuring wartime monarch George VI – a propaganda casualty of the conflict – the last 20 cartoons herein celebrate the changing image of a very public Royal Family, pictured by names hopefully familiar to contemporary cartoon lovers.<\/p>\n

The imagery is also contextually far more familiar – and presumably comfortable – to modern tastes as print media generally learned to save their vitriol for politicians and celebrities: reserving only minor chidings and silly teasing for \u201cthe Royals\u201d, as seen in \u2018Birthday Greetings\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Under the Splendid Empire Tree\u2019 <\/em>(Shepard fin 1947) or Illingworth\u2019s 1951 panels \u2018Family Ties\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Happy Returns\u2019<\/em>. Papers were, however, happy to utilise monarchy to score points against governments, as seen in an attack on Enoch Powell (Cummings\u2019 \u2018Ministry of Repatriation\u2019<\/em>) and the battle between Rhodesia\u2019s Ian Smith and Harold Wilson, lampooned in \u2018Your Move!\u2019 <\/em>by Jak (both 1968) or the legendary Giles\u2019 \u2018New Rent Assistance Bill\u2019 <\/em>(1971).<\/p>\n

Also offering acerbic jollity of a far more blueblood-specific variety are cartoon giants Trog and Waite, joining the abovementioned in exploiting the Royal Family\u2019s gift for headline-stealing gaffes in such daring gags as \u2018I Suppose we did send them to the Right Schools?\u2019<\/em>, \u2018I Suppose she\u2019ll think these are of the Queen Mother\u2019<\/em>, \u2018More Pay\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Andrew\u2019s Exchange Student\u2019<\/em>: coming full circle with the best of Hanoverian excesses scrutinised by cost-conscious government and public – albeit this time for rather more gentle laughs…<\/p>\n

Appended with a scholarly section of Acknowledgements, Illustration sources and Index of artists<\/em>, this is an extremely effective introduction to the lasting relationship between Royalty, Church and Fourth Estate, offering a fantastic overview of Regal adaptability and cultural life through cunningly contrived images and pictorial iconography that shaped society and the world.<\/p>\n

These are timeless examples of the political pictorialist\u2019s uncanny power and, as signs of the times, form a surprising effecting gestalt of the never-happy nation\u2019s feeling and character.<\/p>\n

None of that actually matters now, since these cartoons have performed the task they were intended for: moulding attitudes of generations of voters who never voted for monarchy. That they have also stood the test of time and remain beloved relics of a lethal art form is true testament to their power and passion.<\/p>\n

Stuffed with astounding images, fascinating lost ephemera and mouth-watering tastes of comic art no aficionado could resist, this colossal collection is a beautiful piece of cartoon history to delight and tantalise all who read it.<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t had many monarchs since this book was first released, but there are plenty of new Royals and so many scandals to explore, so it\u2019s long past time for a fresh edition, no?<\/p>\n

NOW<\/em><\/strong> CAN WE HAVE A NEW REVISED EDITION PLEASE?<\/em>
\n\u00a9 Michael Wynn Jones 1978. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Today in 1893 attorney and psychologist Elizabeth Holloway Marston<\/strong> was born, although you won\u2019t find her name on any of the Wonder Woman<\/strong> stories she wrote with her husband. In 1929 Australian John Dangar Dixon<\/strong> (Air Hawk and the Flying Doctors<\/em><\/a> – which ran from 1959 until 1986) was born, as was Torpedo<\/strong> creator Enrique S\u00e1nchez Abul\u00ed<\/strong> in 1945 and colourist Steve Oliff<\/strong> in 1954. Dwayne McDuffie<\/strong> arrived in 1962, as did Mike Allred<\/strong>, whilst Lady Killer<\/strong>, Batman<\/strong> & Catwoman<\/strong> scribe Jo\u00eblle Jones<\/strong> didn\u2019t join the party until 1980.<\/p>\n

We lost both Superman<\/strong> stalwart Wayne Boring <\/strong>and Blake & Mortimer <\/strong>creator Edgar Pierre Jacobs<\/strong> in 1987 and strips scribe Elliot Caplin<\/strong> (Dr. Bobbs<\/em>, Peter Scratch<\/em>, Big Ben Bolt<\/strong>, Abbie an’ Slats<\/strong>, Long Sam<\/strong>, Little Orphan Annie<\/strong>, The Heart of Juliet Jones<\/strong>) in 2000.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re British and never grew up, today in 1971 TV based weekly Countdown<\/strong> launched…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Wynn Jones and Many & Various (Macmillan) ISBN: 978-0333198056 (PB) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. We\u2019re far too reluctant in this country to celebrate the history and quality of our own cartooning tradition; preferring simply to remark on the attention-grabbers or impressive longevity of one or two classic … <\/p>\n

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