1 00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:07,720 It was a summer afternoon in June 1727. 2 00:00:07,720 --> 00:00:10,320 The King's chief minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 3 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:12,960 turned up unannounced at the country residence of 4 00:00:12,960 --> 00:00:15,640 George, Prince of Wales and his wife Caroline. 5 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,000 He was out of breath and in a state of great panic. 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:23,920 Walpole was the bearer of momentous news. 7 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:26,240 King George I was dead. 8 00:00:26,240 --> 00:00:28,320 Sir Robert Walpole tried to get in 9 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:32,200 to see the Prince and Princess of Wales but the lady-in-waiting said, 10 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:35,480 "Stop! You can't go in. They're asleep." 11 00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:37,280 But Sir Robert Walpole insisted. 12 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:39,320 He said, "I've got to go in with my news." 13 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:47,680 And the poor old Prince of Wales was rather caught on the hop. 14 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:51,680 At the moment when he learned that he'd become King George II 15 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:53,720 of Great Britain and Ireland, 16 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:57,280 he was probably still buttoning up his breeches. 17 00:00:57,280 --> 00:00:59,800 There was an element of farce about this 18 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:03,000 and George as King would have to up his game. 19 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:05,320 No more afternoon naps for him! 20 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:10,760 Four months later, George was crowned at Westminster Abbey. 21 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:13,520 The coronation anthem Zadok The Priest 22 00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:16,680 was specially composed for the occasion by Handel. 23 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:22,320 It accompanied George's transformation from Prince to King. 24 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:25,360 MUSIC: "Zadok The Priest" by George Frideric Handel 25 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,840 George II's reign would be long and turbulent. 26 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:36,240 German born, he found himself ruling a Britain that was 27 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:39,000 heading into the future at lightning speed. 28 00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:45,800 New money had forged a new middling sort of people in society 29 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:49,400 who questioned the established order. 30 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,480 Affairs of state were being discussed in taverns 31 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:53,720 and coffee houses. 32 00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:58,840 And the royal family found themselves mocked in newspapers, 33 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,000 in satirical prints and in the theatres. 34 00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:07,520 It would have been difficult for any dynasty 35 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:12,040 but this lot were still new. They only had shallow roots. 36 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:17,080 This was a very dangerous moment for the Hanoverian royal family. 37 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:20,040 If any one of them were to make a mistake, 38 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:22,240 it could break the monarchy. 39 00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:28,880 But this was the most dysfunctional royal family since the Tudors. 40 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:32,760 Their feuding would shake the state to its foundations. 41 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:41,160 The first Georgian kings have fascinated me for years. 42 00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:44,600 And for this series, 43 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:48,040 I've been given access to pieces from the Royal Collection as they're 44 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:52,200 prepared for an exhibition at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace. 45 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:02,400 These works of art, many of them commissioned or owned 46 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:04,200 by the first Georgian kings, 47 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:07,320 reveal how they had to adapt to a public 48 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:10,640 who were no longer merely just subjects. 49 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:15,040 And in doing this, the Hanoverians invented the modern monarchy. 50 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:28,800 This is George II's bed. 51 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:32,680 At first glance, it may look like any other grand Georgian bed. 52 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:36,920 But actually, this is his travelling bed, 53 00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:40,280 which could be collapsed down into 54 separate pieces - 54 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:42,120 the original flat-pack. 55 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:48,080 The fact that George needed a special bed for travelling 56 00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:49,960 tells us something important. 57 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:51,760 He was always, it seems, 58 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:54,040 popping off back to Hanover. 59 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:58,360 This was a real problem for his British subjects. 60 00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:01,520 It looked like George's heart still lay in his homeland. 61 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:05,440 His absences reminded the British that he was alien - 62 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:09,640 that he had another country to think about as well as Britain. 63 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:13,120 To many of them, George became the King who wasn't there. 64 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:20,320 And as well as the small matter of ruling both 65 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:23,080 Hanover and Britain, much of the King's time 66 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:25,400 was taken up by his mistresses, 67 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:28,160 which was really quite annoying to his long-suffering, 68 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:30,000 but loyal, German wife. 69 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,720 Let me introduce you to Caroline. She is my favourite queen. 70 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:41,480 As you can see from the bust, she's not exactly a fairy-tale princess. 71 00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:43,800 She's middle-aged, she's overweight, 72 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:45,760 she's had eight children. 73 00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:49,600 But she had this wonderfully warm and witty personality. 74 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:54,720 It made her very good at her job as Queen, welcoming people to court. 75 00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:58,600 But there was much more complexity and depth to her than that. 76 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:00,520 You do get a sense that she was bored 77 00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:03,960 and sort of blunted by her royal duties. 78 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:06,160 She would rather have been cracking jokes 79 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:08,320 with her clever friends somewhere else. 80 00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:11,880 And I think that if you look at the corner of her mouth here, 81 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:15,160 it's twitching, like she's about to start laughing. 82 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,640 While the King was prickly and distant, 83 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:28,320 Caroline was highly sociable. 84 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:30,800 In her private apartments at Hampton Court, 85 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:36,640 she gathered together a sparkling circle of intellectuals and wits. 86 00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:43,320 Caroline, at heart, was a warm and convivial person. 87 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:46,000 She loved to eat and she loved to talk. 88 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,240 The British courtiers really relished the way that she could 89 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,680 remember little personal details about each of them. 90 00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:54,040 She'd say things like, 91 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:57,040 "My Lord, how is your little girl? Is she better?" 92 00:05:57,040 --> 00:05:59,160 Or one of them remembered that, 93 00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:02,640 "The Queen was so interested in my print collection 94 00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:03,800 "that I had to go home 95 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,440 "and get all of the rest of my books to show her." 96 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:10,120 Because of her husband's poor social skills, 97 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:13,360 Caroline becomes the user-friendly public face 98 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:15,280 of the Hanoverian monarchy. 99 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:18,960 She was its likeable and approachable ambassador. 100 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:24,600 Caroline wielded enormous power and influence, 101 00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:26,480 especially over her husband. 102 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:29,800 This made her an indispensable ally 103 00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:33,200 to the King's leading minister, Sir Robert Walpole. 104 00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:38,000 As Prince of Wales, George had been wary of Walpole, 105 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,000 calling him a rogue and a rascal. 106 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,160 But Caroline persuaded George as King to keep Walpole on. 107 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,600 It proved to be a smart move. Walpole could get things done. 108 00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:54,720 Walpole was the ultimate fixer. 109 00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:57,760 He spent a lot of time whispering into people's ears. 110 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:00,000 "What about job X for person Y?" 111 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,560 If you wanted your son to be a captain in the Army, for example, 112 00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:06,160 Walpole was your man. 113 00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:09,160 His power was cemented when the King gave him 114 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:11,240 this house in Downing Street. 115 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:14,960 He accepted it not as an individual but on behalf of his office, 116 00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:18,080 which was First Lord of the Treasury, 117 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:20,320 as it still says on the front door. 118 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:26,760 This job title is better known to us today as Prime Minister. 119 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:32,280 Downing Street was Walpole's reward for his ability to provide 120 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:36,920 a stable government and a lavish budget for the King's court. 121 00:07:38,840 --> 00:07:40,680 A year into his reign, 122 00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:46,040 George began making preparations for his first trip to Hanover as King. 123 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:48,200 Now, who was going to rule Britain? 124 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:50,720 Well, Parliament passed the Regency Act, 125 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:53,440 putting Queen Caroline in charge. 126 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:56,480 And this confirmed what a lot of people already thought - 127 00:07:56,480 --> 00:07:59,720 that Caroline was the one who wore the trousers. 128 00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:01,360 As the popular poem had it... 129 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:23,040 Caroline worked hard to strengthen the Georgian dynasty. 130 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:25,760 And one way she did it was by publicly encouraging 131 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:29,960 the intellectual upheaval, generally called the Enlightenment. 132 00:08:34,520 --> 00:08:38,200 As Princess of Wales, Caroline had brought about a breakthrough 133 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:41,000 in the fight against smallpox. 134 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,240 The disease was attacking the population, people said, 135 00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:46,320 like a destroying angel. 136 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:50,600 Professor of medicine Gareth Williams 137 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:52,520 is going to show me the grim details. 138 00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:57,280 What we've got here are the three key stages of the smallpox rash. 139 00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:01,440 So we've got the early vesicles here. Here are the pustules, 140 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:03,560 getting quite nicely developed. 141 00:09:03,560 --> 00:09:06,920 And over there is the stage of the confluent rash. 142 00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:09,880 This is where all the pustules are full of pus 143 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:12,960 and there are so many of them that you're left with something like that. 144 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:16,000 - My goodness! - It was one of the great killers. 145 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:19,000 Smallpox actually killed one person in 12. 146 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:22,280 What happens in the early 18th century? There's a change, is there? 147 00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:28,440 Well, they got reports from Turkey of a way of preventing smallpox, 148 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,080 reported by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 149 00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:36,040 who was a bit of a girl, and she was the wife of the ambassador to Turkey. 150 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:38,280 She heard about an extraordinary practice, 151 00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:42,440 which was giving a healthy child smallpox deliberately. 152 00:09:42,440 --> 00:09:46,280 And it sounds completely counterintuitive but, in fact, 153 00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:47,800 it was actually one of the safest 154 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,640 and one of the most effective medical procedures of the day. 155 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:53,000 How did Caroline, who was then the Princess of Wales, 156 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:55,960 - get to hear about it? - Well, it was through Lady Mary. 157 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,600 She became a good personal friend of Princess Caroline, 158 00:09:58,600 --> 00:09:59,920 the Princess of Wales. 159 00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:03,000 Caroline said, "Well, OK, let's see the evidence." 160 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,640 So the evidence was quite bold, actually. 161 00:10:05,640 --> 00:10:10,040 Lady Mary had her daughter inoculated with smallpox the following spring - 162 00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:12,360 this was in 1721 - 163 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:15,400 and it was a really good time to do this experiment because smallpox 164 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:19,200 had broken out in London and people were running scared again. 165 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:22,000 So Caroline is convinced that this really works 166 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:25,240 and it seems to me that the most important thing that she does 167 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:27,080 is to inoculate her own children. 168 00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:29,560 Exactly right. But the broader issue is, yes, 169 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:31,240 you've got a royal who's engaged, 170 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:33,720 you've got a royal who's phenomenally bright 171 00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:38,000 and actually interested in not just the people and their problems 172 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:41,240 but in scientific and medical solutions for those problems. 173 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:47,080 It was this scientific approach 174 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:49,520 that separated Caroline and the Hanoverians 175 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:51,520 from their Stuart predecessors. 176 00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:57,920 The Stuarts had often laid their hands upon the sick, 177 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:02,040 believing they had semi-divine powers of healing. 178 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:05,920 But Caroline placed her trust in medicine, not magic. 179 00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:11,520 The French philosopher Voltaire commented on smallpox 180 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:14,320 in his book Letters On England. 181 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,120 He said that Europe thought the British crazy 182 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:20,200 for this business of making a well child sick. 183 00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:25,680 Voltaire tells us that inoculation really caught on. 184 00:11:25,680 --> 00:11:28,760 "England followed her example," he says, 185 00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:33,160 "and since then at least 10,000 children 186 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:38,000 "owe their lives to the Queen and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 187 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:42,000 "And as many girls are indebted to them for their beauty." 188 00:11:45,080 --> 00:11:48,240 Voltaire's book also highlighted other great changes 189 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:49,960 under way in Britain. 190 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:54,520 He noted how commerce had enriched the citizens, 191 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:56,440 helping to make them freer. 192 00:11:57,440 --> 00:11:59,080 This freedom had, in turn, 193 00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:03,480 made greater entrepreneurship possible, widening wealth overall. 194 00:12:12,440 --> 00:12:15,200 And nowhere was this more true than in London. 195 00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:20,200 Here, economic changes were creating a new kind of behaviour. 196 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:27,200 There was lots of new money in Georgian Britain - 197 00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:31,040 a lot of it in the hands of a new rank of people in society. 198 00:12:31,040 --> 00:12:34,320 They weren't aristocrats and they weren't the workers, either. 199 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:36,720 They were what was called the middling sort. 200 00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:38,400 Some of them were professionals, 201 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:41,000 like doctors and lawyers and clergymen. 202 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:43,720 Others ran shops or they were in trade, 203 00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:47,600 particularly in the new products of sugar and cotton. 204 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:49,760 And like all these people here at the market, 205 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:53,320 they had money to burn on things that they didn't really need, 206 00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:55,320 like vases for their houses 207 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:57,840 or trips to the pleasure gardens 208 00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:01,040 or really expensive cups of coffee. 209 00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:10,040 This emerging middling sort differentiated Britain 210 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:11,680 from its continental neighbours, 211 00:13:11,680 --> 00:13:14,240 where the aristocracy still held sway. 212 00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:20,800 And with this new social class came new spending power. 213 00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:31,160 In 1720, a Yorkshireman called Charles Clay came to London, 214 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:33,880 hoping that some of this new money would come his way. 215 00:13:36,280 --> 00:13:38,600 His particular wheeze was to construct 216 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:40,600 miraculously elaborate clocks, 217 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,360 which he then displayed to the public for a fee. 218 00:13:45,040 --> 00:13:49,960 Rufus Bird is going to show me one of Clay's craziest creations. 219 00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:53,600 It was originally called The Temple And Oracle Of Apollo. 220 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:57,440 It is an organ clock which, curiously, 221 00:13:57,440 --> 00:13:59,760 has this magnificent 17th-century 222 00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:03,960 Augsburg casket resting on top of it. 223 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:05,640 And then in the pedestal, 224 00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:10,080 you have this organ which plays ten different tunes arranged by Handel. 225 00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:11,480 How does it actually work? 226 00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:17,120 If we open this door here, you can see inside there is the weights 227 00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:21,560 and the pulley and then the barrel organ itself. I can play a tune. 228 00:14:21,560 --> 00:14:23,280 - Shall we play one? - Yes, let's hear it. 229 00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:28,600 JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYS 230 00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:36,960 And who was he making it for? What was the point of it? 231 00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:38,520 It was a commercial enterprise. 232 00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:43,800 We know that through the advertisement which his widow placed 233 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:50,200 in a newspaper in 1743. And I've got a copy of it just here. 234 00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:54,360 Mrs Clay describes this work of art as being, 235 00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:58,120 "The whole exceeding by many degrees anything ever exhibited 236 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:01,760 "to public view in any nation or by any artist whatsoever." 237 00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:04,200 - Amazing! And it's yours for a shilling. - That's right. 238 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:09,440 You can see this, and hear it, for one shilling. 239 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:12,720 50 years earlier, Charles Clay would have been making 240 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:17,000 a specialised item like this for a royal patron. 241 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:18,760 But in this new Georgian age, 242 00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:22,880 Clay could use his clocks to make a living from very different patrons - 243 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:25,040 paying customers. 244 00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:37,120 This early Georgian period was fast becoming 245 00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:39,040 the age of the self-made man. 246 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:45,960 There was one individual who epitomised this - Alexander Pope. 247 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:51,040 Pope was a satirist with legendary bite, 248 00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:53,280 who coined classic phrases like, 249 00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:57,920 "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 250 00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:01,480 But Pope is remembered as much for his business nous 251 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:03,200 as his heroic couplets. 252 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:08,120 He showed that a writer could earn a fortune 253 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:11,240 by selling his work directly to the public. 254 00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:15,960 And his success allowed him to live in some style. 255 00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:20,760 Although his grand villa in Twickenham no longer stands, 256 00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:24,920 one intriguing part of it has survived - a grotto. 257 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:33,080 This is not just an exciting underground grotto, 258 00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:36,160 it's also a museum of mineralogy. 259 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:40,480 Look at this crystal set into the walls there. It's winking at me. 260 00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:43,520 And originally there were little fragments of mirror 261 00:16:43,520 --> 00:16:47,200 stuck in amongst the stones so when you came down here with a lamp 262 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:51,000 and you turned it on, suddenly rays were shooting everywhere 263 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,600 and the whole thing was glittering. Ooh! 264 00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:57,200 Now, I think that is a piece of the Giant's Causeway. 265 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:00,320 You can see the six sides of the basalt there. 266 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:02,200 And there is a picture 267 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:05,560 that shows Alexander Pope doing some writing down here. 268 00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:08,280 But you'd think it was a bit dark for that. 269 00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:16,040 Now, how did he pay for all of this? The answer is this book. 270 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:20,360 This is the pocket version of his famous translation 271 00:17:20,360 --> 00:17:22,800 of the Iliad by Homer. 272 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,640 And he made money out of his work like a modern author would. 273 00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:31,560 He didn't have a single rich patron funding his lifestyle. 274 00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:35,040 He sold individual copies to a broad range of people. 275 00:17:35,040 --> 00:17:37,960 If you look at the first deluxe edition of the book, 276 00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:42,280 you'll see the list of subscribers - headed by Caroline. 277 00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:45,480 So she was acting here as a new type of patron. 278 00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:48,360 She's just buying the book, giving him some money, 279 00:17:48,360 --> 00:17:51,840 but - more importantly - offering him her moral support 280 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,760 so that other people would buy the book, too. And they did. 281 00:17:55,760 --> 00:18:00,560 It made him the equivalent in today's money of £400,000 - 282 00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:03,920 what he needed to buy his villa and to build his grotto. 283 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:09,720 Pope was very proud of the way he'd achieved all of this independently. 284 00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:12,360 He said, "I live and I thrive 285 00:18:12,360 --> 00:18:16,440 "not indebted to any prince or peer alive." 286 00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:27,920 However, Alexander Pope was only 4'6", 287 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:31,840 suffered from curvature of the spine and was a Catholic, too. 288 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:34,280 He was always an outsider. 289 00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:40,960 When he said he was in no-one's debt, he really did mean it. 290 00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:46,360 Pope decided to write his own version of Homer's Iliad. 291 00:18:46,360 --> 00:18:48,360 But his was going to be in English 292 00:18:48,360 --> 00:18:50,760 and it was going to be a great big spoof. 293 00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:53,800 The poem was called the Dunciad. 294 00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:58,200 From the very start of the Dunciad, it was clear that not even 295 00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:02,320 the royal family are safe from Pope's poisonous pen. 296 00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:06,200 "You by whose care, in vain decry'd and curst, 297 00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:11,760 "Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first." 298 00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:14,240 Who do you think that he meant by that? 299 00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:18,720 This blatant reference to George II 300 00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:23,000 kicks off a depiction of a society dominated by dimwits, 301 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:25,760 and ruled by a king of the dunces. 302 00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:31,200 He was under the thumb of a female character called Dullness. 303 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:34,840 She was very dreary and rather fat, too, 304 00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:37,520 and by this, Pope meant Caroline. 305 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:44,440 "Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind, 306 00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:48,520 "She rul'd, in native Anarchy, the mind." 307 00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:53,240 She'd been his big supporter as Princess of Wales 308 00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:57,000 but when she became Queen, she had other fish to fry. 309 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,840 Pope felt that he'd been neglected so he turned against her, 310 00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,080 using his very wounding weapons of words. 311 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,200 He basically says in the Dunciad 312 00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:09,240 that she's a bit of a porker and rather boring. 313 00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:15,360 But just as Pope's relations with Caroline turned sour, 314 00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:19,000 another member of the royal family was ready to take advantage. 315 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:24,200 Prince Frederick, Caroline's son and heir to the throne, 316 00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:26,600 befriended the poet in her place. 317 00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:27,960 He was even painted 318 00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:31,840 with a copy of Pope's translation of Homer in his hand. 319 00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:35,880 Caroline now had a rival in her patronage of the arts. 320 00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:57,840 Frederick was a genuine music lover. 321 00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:02,600 Sometimes he'd give a concert by an open window as the evening fell, 322 00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:04,880 playing his cello. 323 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:06,400 And all the court servants 324 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,000 would creep out into the courtyard to listen. 325 00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:14,720 Frederick's parents felt that this was undignified behaviour - vulgar. 326 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:16,840 Entertaining the masses?! 327 00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:22,440 You could forgive Frederick 328 00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:25,800 for thinking that his parents had abandoned him. 329 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:29,360 When he was seven, they left him behind in Hanover 330 00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:33,200 when George and Caroline came over to London in 1714. 331 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:36,120 There were good political reasons for this - 332 00:21:36,120 --> 00:21:39,200 Frederick was going to be the family's representative in Hanover 333 00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,080 so that the people there wouldn't think they'd been 334 00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:43,680 entirely forgotten about. 335 00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:45,880 The problems emerged years later 336 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:49,640 when Frederick came over to London himself, now a grown-up. 337 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:52,480 It wasn't just that he'd lost touch with his parents 338 00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:54,840 and needed to rebuild the relationship, 339 00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:56,440 it was worse than that - 340 00:21:56,440 --> 00:22:00,560 It turned out that he and his parents couldn't stand the sight 341 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:01,600 of each other. 342 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:05,040 And it was this hostility 343 00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:08,680 that would pose the greatest threat to the Georgian monarchy. 344 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:17,880 Frederick's openness and his social nature were in marked contrast 345 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:21,000 to his grumpy father George II. 346 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,560 The Prince of Wales's common touch would be perfectly captured 347 00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,600 in a painting by the artist Joseph Nicholls. 348 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:33,800 This is St James's Park on a summer evening 349 00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,160 and everybody's out for a walk. 350 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:39,280 A French visitor tells us that sometimes the park was so packed 351 00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:42,880 that you couldn't help touching your neighbour. 352 00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,880 He says that some people came to see, others to be seen - 353 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,480 all on the lookout for adventures. 354 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:52,440 He says that there were many priestesses of Venus 355 00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:53,560 about in the park. 356 00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:55,840 And the brilliant thing about this painting is that 357 00:22:55,840 --> 00:22:59,920 it's like a snapshot of the whole of Georgian society. 358 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:02,040 We have lowlife characters here, 359 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,280 like these ladies feeding their babies. 360 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:07,120 Here is kissing going on. 361 00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:08,720 Here is a man taking a leak. 362 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:10,120 We also have commerce - 363 00:23:10,120 --> 00:23:13,240 these ladies are selling cups of milk to the gentry. 364 00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,240 Over here, we have high society. 365 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:19,880 This lady is taking snuff. 366 00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:24,040 This foppish gentleman is doing a very fancy French sort of bow. 367 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:29,600 And right at the centre of all this is Frederick, the Prince of Wales. 368 00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,880 And that's what makes it such a British scene. 369 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:36,120 In France, the King was stuck out at Versailles. 370 00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:39,880 He was aloof and remote from his people. 371 00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:44,320 But Frederick thinks of himself as the people's prince. 372 00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,800 He's got the popular touch. He's on a royal walkabout. 373 00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,960 You can see people turning to watch him. 374 00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,280 And this is very typical of Frederick. 375 00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:56,360 He doesn't position himself above the crowd but right at its centre. 376 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,000 The royal court was no longer setting the rules 377 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:10,480 for fashionable life. 378 00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:14,720 And Frederick responded by joining in the contemporary craze 379 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:19,000 for refined but informal gatherings. 380 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:24,160 This was reflected in a new kind of painting - the conversation piece. 381 00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:29,560 Rather than formal group portraits, conversation pieces showed people 382 00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:33,080 actually enjoying each other's company. 383 00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,200 Here's a lively dinner party 384 00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,880 with the host dishing out lots of drinks, 385 00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:43,000 guests fumbling with each other 386 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:47,240 and a fat clergyman looking on with worldly satisfaction. 387 00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,720 Even the royal family were depicted in this new style of painting. 388 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,120 This is an oil sketch for a conversation piece 389 00:25:02,120 --> 00:25:03,400 of the royal family. 390 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,440 It was done by the artist William Hogarth on spec. 391 00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,440 His hope was that the King would really like it and that he'd buy it. 392 00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,960 It's got all the hallmarks of a conversation piece. 393 00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,080 It's a family scene - 394 00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,280 mother, father, the children all talking to each other. 395 00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,360 But there are three very good reasons that George II 396 00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:23,600 was never going to buy this picture. 397 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,600 Firstly, William Hogarth wasn't an artist in favour at court. 398 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,160 There, the work was dominated by his rival, 399 00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,000 Queen Caroline's favourite artist William Kent. 400 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,200 Secondly, the very idea that George II would buy 401 00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,840 a piece of avant-garde art is ridiculous. 402 00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,240 He didn't like art at all. 403 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,040 And thirdly, it's a bit of a farce cos it looks like a happy family 404 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,760 but, in fact, this lot hated each other. 405 00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,120 There were terrible rivalries and tensions 406 00:25:50,120 --> 00:25:52,560 between these parents and these children. 407 00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,360 Fortunately for Hogarth, 408 00:25:59,360 --> 00:26:03,120 he didn't actually need royal patronage to be successful. 409 00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,400 Like Alexander Pope, Hogarth was a freelancer 410 00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:10,240 with an entrepreneurial streak. 411 00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,360 This is his very nice pad in Chiswick. 412 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:16,280 That he could afford it 413 00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,760 shows how well he understood what his customers wanted. 414 00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:23,880 And what they wanted was prints - 415 00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,120 the original affordable art. 416 00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,960 Britain went wild for these characters and these images 417 00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:37,000 but what most people were seeing wasn't Hogarth's own work. 418 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,040 To keep things exclusive, he'd only produce enough prints 419 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:44,000 to go to his list of just over 1,000 subscribers. 420 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:45,520 But almost instantly, 421 00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:50,000 his rivals and copycats started to produce cheap knock-offs. 422 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,040 The speed with which they did this was incredible. 423 00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:56,240 It was almost before the ink had dried on the originals. 424 00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:01,200 A set of Hogarth prints - and of these knock-off copies too - 425 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,320 can be found in the Royal Collection. 426 00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:08,080 I'm meeting senior curator Kate Heard to see how they differed 427 00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,680 and what, if anything, the artist could do about it. 428 00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,120 So I'm a subscriber. 429 00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:16,240 I've paid my money to Mr Hogarth and the print is going to come out. 430 00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:17,640 What am I going to get? 431 00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,560 You're going to get six prints, of which this is the first one, 432 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:22,080 showing the harlot, 433 00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,440 of The Harlot's Progress, arriving in London. 434 00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,920 - Oh, dear! She's a fresh young girl. - Absolutely. 435 00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,800 We know that it's going to be bad. 436 00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:32,600 Hogarth made 1,240 of them and refused to make any more. 437 00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,560 One of his great selling points was that it's an exclusive thing. 438 00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:37,000 You subscribe, you pay upfront, 439 00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:38,880 you're one of the club that can have them. 440 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,160 What did you do if you weren't a subscriber, then, 441 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:42,880 but you wanted to own these images? 442 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:47,160 Well, you could actually get hold of slightly different copies - 443 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,680 not the real thing, but pirated copies, 444 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,200 which were rushed out by the print sellers within a few weeks. 445 00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:55,200 It's reversed, as well, isn't it? 446 00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,920 Yes, that's because they're copying the original print. 447 00:27:57,920 --> 00:27:59,920 So somebody's drawing it - here it is - 448 00:27:59,920 --> 00:28:02,280 and then he puts the ink on and he turns it over. 449 00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,760 And turns it back to front on the sheet of paper. 450 00:28:06,120 --> 00:28:09,720 They're not bad prints, considering how quickly they were made. 451 00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,680 And how did Hogarth respond to this? What action did he take? 452 00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,160 He was furious. He'd had his initiative taken away from him 453 00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,200 and he got together with a group of fellow printmakers 454 00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,920 and they petitioned Parliament which, in 1735, 455 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,400 published a Copyright Act, which allowed people like Hogarth, 456 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,840 for 14 years, to have copyright over their images, over their prints. 457 00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,040 And if you copied the prints, you would be punished? 458 00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,960 - You would be fined. - And that law stood all the way until 1911. 459 00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,480 It was a very impressive piece of legislation. 460 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,680 - Was it known as Hogarth's? - It's known as Hogarth's Act. Absolutely. 461 00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:47,080 If prints were popular, newspapers were even more so. 462 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,000 During the course of the 18th century, newspaper production 463 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,800 would rise from one million to just over 14 million a year. 464 00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:04,320 You didn't even need to purchase a copy yourself. 465 00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,280 Newspapers were available for browsing 466 00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:08,200 in your neighbourhood coffee house. 467 00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:15,320 What's really surprising is just how well informed people were. 468 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,640 Imagine that you and I are reasonably well-off, 469 00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,520 reasonably intelligent Georgian chaps. 470 00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,120 Before spending the afternoon at the pleasure garden or the theatre, 471 00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,000 perhaps we're going to pop into the coffee house 472 00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,000 to have a read of the newspapers. 473 00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,920 What sort of information is available to us 474 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,000 in the London Journal of 1732? 475 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,480 Well, an enormous range. 476 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,320 Page one tells us about foreign affairs. 477 00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:47,920 We've got a report from Paris. 478 00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,760 Page two gives us a report from Hanover, 479 00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:52,760 where the King is this week. 480 00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,320 We've got a very detailed account of what he's up to there. 481 00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,000 On page three, we've got a brand-new fruit 482 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,720 that's just been presented to Queen Caroline. 483 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:05,200 It's ripe and in a state of utmost perfection 484 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,200 and it is a pineapple, a complete novelty. 485 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,120 Now, you and I are not members of the court. 486 00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,240 We're members of the public and this is an enormous 487 00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:16,960 range of information that we've got access to. 488 00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,000 Our kings and queens aren't just faces on a coin - 489 00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:22,680 they're real characters in our minds. 490 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,400 This isn't just a newspaper - 491 00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,920 it's an information superhighway. 492 00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,080 And now the world and his dog 493 00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,240 can have a well-informed opinion on current affairs. 494 00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,440 What's more, the world and his dog 495 00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:44,480 weren't going to keep their opinions to themselves. 496 00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,800 Georgian coffee houses were called the "penny universities". 497 00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:57,000 Pretty much blind to social status, they often hosted debating clubs. 498 00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,520 There was more to this than just passing the time. 499 00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,880 The Georgians had this new belief that you could refashion yourself 500 00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:07,920 into a person of taste by soaking up the right kind of books and ideas. 501 00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,040 To discuss all this, I'm meeting up with Lucy Inglis, 502 00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:15,760 creator of the blog Georgian London. 503 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:20,880 Is this about self-improvement? 504 00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:24,000 Is this about Georgian people wanting to learn from each other? 505 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,880 Yes, very much about self-improvement. 506 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,480 The new concept of the rising middle classes 507 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:32,600 and what it was to educate yourself and improve yourself. 508 00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,000 And there was also this idea that there was 509 00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,440 only so much knowledge in the world and it could be known and mastered 510 00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:40,400 if you were only willing to apply yourself. 511 00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:41,560 That's a brilliant idea - 512 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,560 you could read every single book that existed if you tried hard. 513 00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:48,560 - Pretty much, yeah, yeah. - What's this you've got here on your computer? 514 00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,280 This here is some information that I've gathered 515 00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:54,280 about one society in particular, the Robin Hood Society. 516 00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,280 They met every Monday evening. 517 00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,360 And what did they get up to in these meetings? 518 00:31:58,360 --> 00:31:59,960 Well, they said, first of all, 519 00:31:59,960 --> 00:32:03,120 that even though they would enjoy a Welsh rarebit and a pot of beer, 520 00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,040 it was not a drinking club - it was a disputing one. 521 00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:07,960 At those places, men feed their bodies 522 00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,040 but at this one, they feed their mind. 523 00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:11,960 And what sort of people attended? 524 00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,880 Well, we have a list of members of the club here - 525 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,520 a baker, a doctor, a governor of the plantations, a soldier, 526 00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,120 an author, a comedian, a house painter, a genius... 527 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:23,280 - A genius? - A genius, yes. 528 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,640 So he's put that down as his profession - a genius. 529 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:29,520 - He was a genius. A noted bug doctor and a highwayman. - No way! 530 00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:31,800 - A highwayman attended the club? - Yeah, absolutely! 531 00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:33,080 A professional highwayman? 532 00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,960 - Yeah, he was thought to be one of the best debaters but he... - I bet! 533 00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:37,800 Did he use his gun? 534 00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,960 Yeah, he couldn't stay off the roads 535 00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,920 - and he sadly met a sticky end at the end of a rope at Tyburn. - Oh, dear! 536 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,880 - I know. - A loss to the club, I would think. - Yes. 537 00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:48,920 So here we have a network of people 538 00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,960 who have only been brought together by the club itself. 539 00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,560 - They're from different ranks in society. - Yes. 540 00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:59,320 And that is one of the key points of all these clubs - 541 00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:03,040 that they were deliberately bringing people together from all levels. 542 00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,800 What did the King and the government think about these clubs? 543 00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:07,920 Sometimes they were debating questions like, 544 00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:09,400 "Is the Prime Minister any good?" 545 00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,840 - This is quite dangerous. - Absolutely. Very dangerous. 546 00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:15,160 The Robin Hood Society tried to get around this by publishing 547 00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,080 their set of rules and things they weren't going to discuss, 548 00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,880 which was politics and God. 549 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,360 - However, they did discuss both. - Oh, that was just for show, then? 550 00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,240 - "We're not going to discuss this, but really we are." - Exactly, 551 00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,760 which is why the members were supposed to be known to each other, 552 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,560 so that you knew if you had a spy in the camp. 553 00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,720 This culture of debate meant that the decisions of King and Parliament 554 00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:41,680 were held to public scrutiny. 555 00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:53,720 In 1733, Sir Robert Walpole introduced an Excise Bill 556 00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,760 to Parliament, imposing a tax on popular commodities 557 00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,280 like wine and tobacco. 558 00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,720 Now, nobody likes a new tax, 559 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,800 especially not the self-confident new London trading classes. 560 00:34:08,240 --> 00:34:10,200 There were riots outside Parliament 561 00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,840 and Queen Caroline and Robert Walpole were burned in effigy. 562 00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,680 Crucially, though, the King stood by his minister. 563 00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:21,160 He let it be known that 564 00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:25,120 to oppose his government was to oppose the King himself. 565 00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:28,200 If you went against Walpole, then you were a traitor. 566 00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,960 One of Walpole's opponents in Parliament was Lord Cobham. 567 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,720 He had been a great supporter of the Hanoverian monarchy. 568 00:34:38,720 --> 00:34:40,600 But, for his disloyalty, 569 00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:43,840 the King ejected Cobham from the House of Lords. 570 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,680 Cobham retreated to his country house at Stowe. 571 00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:52,720 Here, he planted his revenge 572 00:34:52,720 --> 00:34:56,480 in the form of Stowe's magnificent landscape garden. 573 00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:10,920 In Georgian Britain, even gardening was political. 574 00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:15,240 The landscape garden was supposed to embody British liberty. 575 00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:21,680 A place where, as one Georgian put it, "The eye can roam free." 576 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:31,880 But Stowe also delivered a more pointed message. 577 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,440 Cobham hid within it a series of secret meanings 578 00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,360 or metaphors for contemporary politics and morality. 579 00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:42,520 Now, you weren't expected to work out 580 00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:45,320 all of these hidden secret meanings all by yourself. 581 00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,760 You could buy a guidebook to the gardens, 582 00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,040 like this original Georgian version. 583 00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:54,200 And it tells me that at this spot here, I have a decision to make. 584 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:58,440 I can either turn up that way, which is the path of virtue. 585 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,440 Up there we have temples dedicated to virtue 586 00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,400 and the heroes of history. 587 00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,600 Or I can go down that way. 588 00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:07,480 That's the route of vice. 589 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,920 Down there the book promises me lustful monks, 590 00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,240 women out of control, group sex and voyeurism. 591 00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:22,400 The garden at Stowe certainly drew in the crowds. 592 00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:26,520 And Lord Cobham had thoughtfully built this inn on the outskirts 593 00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:28,040 to accommodate them all. 594 00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:35,520 The tourists who chose the path of virtue crossed a series of bridges 595 00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:39,840 to illustrate that a virtuous life is never without its obstacles. 596 00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:43,400 But I'm on the path of vice, 597 00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:47,000 where visitors get titillation alongside moral instruction. 598 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:52,800 One of the stopping-off points is the Temple Of Venus. 599 00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,480 The book tells me that the paintings in here 600 00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,040 tell the story of this lady, who runs away from 601 00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,200 her disagreeable husband and goes instead 602 00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,200 to revel with a beastly herd of satyrs, 603 00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,400 these famously lascivious creatures. 604 00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,440 So it's basically a temple to naughty women. 605 00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,360 But we're still in the vice area of the garden, don't forget, 606 00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,160 so we know not to follow their example. 607 00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,560 Let's go on improving our characters somewhere else. 608 00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:23,120 But Cobham intended his garden 609 00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,880 to offer something more than just moral instruction. 610 00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:30,960 Stowe also reads like a political pamphlet, 611 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,520 Cobham's own State Of The Nation address. 612 00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,720 And some of these messages seem to be aimed directly 613 00:37:37,720 --> 00:37:40,760 at Frederick, Prince of Wales. 614 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:44,440 Cobham and his group of opposition politicians had identified 615 00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,520 the Prince as a potential leader for their cause. 616 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:53,680 At the heart of the garden is the Temple Of British Worthies. 617 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,280 Here I'm meeting Richard Wheeler to find out how 618 00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:02,680 this pantheon of British heroes is actually an attack on George II. 619 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,960 Obviously, there's politics going on here. 620 00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,200 He's chosen some characters but not others. 621 00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:10,880 What was he trying to express? 622 00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:13,640 Well, there's a subtext going on here, because he'd just broken 623 00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:15,960 from Sir Robert Walpole's Whig Party 624 00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:18,960 to form his own internal Whig opposition, the Whig Patriots. 625 00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:24,080 So we have King Alfred, the mildest, justest, most beneficent of kings - 626 00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,720 everything that King George II the second was not. 627 00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:29,760 And beside him Edward, the Black Prince, the terror of Europe, 628 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,240 the delight of England - 629 00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:34,440 everything to which Prince Frederick aspired. 630 00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,400 And, of course, Prince Frederick was the titular leader 631 00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:40,040 of the Whig opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. 632 00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,960 Why was Cobham so much against Sir Robert Walpole? 633 00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:45,480 Because he was our first Prime Minister 634 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,240 and the idea of a Prime Minister was deeply objectionable - 635 00:38:48,240 --> 00:38:51,520 that one person should rule was dictatorial, absolutist 636 00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:53,760 and everything that was wrong. 637 00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,040 So, according to the guidebook, King Alfred's been picked out because 638 00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,600 he guarded liberty and he was the founder of the English Constitution. 639 00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:02,480 This is all significant, isn't it? 640 00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,080 English Constitution is probably the most significant, 641 00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:07,920 because if anything works at Stowe 642 00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:12,120 it's the idea of our old Gothic Constitution deriving from 643 00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,160 the Witan, the parliament of the Saxons. 644 00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,720 So we have Alfred here, the greatest of the Saxon kings. 645 00:39:18,720 --> 00:39:22,560 And on the hill behind, you've got the Saxon Temple, 646 00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,680 which is otherwise known as the Temple Of Liberty. 647 00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:30,640 So it's all anti-autocracy and the main point of which was that 648 00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,040 Parliament chose the King, as it did in Saxon times. 649 00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,240 I think a lot of this is instruction for Prince Frederick, 650 00:39:37,240 --> 00:39:40,320 telling him how to behave if he's going to be a patriot king. 651 00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:43,520 One has to remember that Lord Cobham and all his compatriots 652 00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:45,960 were the ones who brought the Hanoverians over. 653 00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:48,080 But they've got to remain under control. 654 00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,880 So it's the Whig oligarchy who are actually running the country 655 00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:53,320 and the King as a constitutional monarch. 656 00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,640 So the idea of the constitution - really important. 657 00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:00,240 And the King really doing what he was told. 658 00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:02,360 And guess what? There's no Germans here at all. 659 00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:04,920 No, they're all over in the other side in the garden of vice. 660 00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:06,600 I don't quite know why but there it is. 661 00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:13,240 None of this was lost on Frederick, who would commission an opera 662 00:40:13,240 --> 00:40:16,440 in honour of Alfred, the great patriot king. 663 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,600 OPERA SINGING 664 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,400 Frederick was emerging as the leader of the opposition. 665 00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:35,360 So his parents tried to rein him in by suppressing his allowance. 666 00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,200 The simplest way for a prince to up his income was to get married. 667 00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,520 But George and Caroline had deliberately put off 668 00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,240 finding their son a wife. 669 00:40:49,240 --> 00:40:54,000 Poor Fred was left on the shelf until he was almost 30. 670 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,600 In April 1736, his parents finally relented. 671 00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:04,800 The German princess, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha became Frederick's wife. 672 00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:06,200 Luckily for Augusta, 673 00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,800 Frederick liked his princess bride and got his pay rise. 674 00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,120 But he was disappointed when it turned out to be 675 00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:16,280 only £50,000 a year, half of what he had been expecting. 676 00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,520 Now there was open conflict between the prince and his parents. 677 00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,400 This was the beginning of an annus horribilis 678 00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,160 for the Georgian monarchy. 679 00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,160 And when the King left for Germany yet again, 680 00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:33,880 his courtiers felt the force of public opinion. 681 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:38,400 People got so fed up with George constantly going off to Hanover, 682 00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,360 that a mysterious spoof notice appeared, 683 00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,120 stuck to the gates of St James's Palace. 684 00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:49,000 It read, "Lost or strayed out of this house, 685 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,000 "a man who has abandoned a wife and six children." 686 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:57,080 A reward was offered for information of four shillings and sixpence, 687 00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,720 but you weren't to expect any more money than that. 688 00:41:59,720 --> 00:42:04,160 "Nobody judging him to deserve a crown." 689 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:12,000 Prince Frederick's camp were furious that he hadn't been made regent. 690 00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,640 Caroline was once again running the show, 691 00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:19,000 and she was back in full social reformer mode. 692 00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,680 Once her target had been smallpox. 693 00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:26,280 But she now wanted to clamp down on a new blight sweeping London, 694 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,640 the craze for gin. 695 00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,360 Londoners thought that if beer came by the pint, 696 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,440 so too should this new drink called gin. 697 00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,560 By the 1730s, they were addicted to gin. 698 00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,080 They were drinking two pints per head per week. 699 00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:46,440 His Majesty's government decided to reduce gin consumption 700 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,440 by increasing the price. They put a big new tax on gin. 701 00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,640 This went down very badly with Londoners. 702 00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,080 There were riots about the gin tax. 703 00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,640 Liquor shops were draped in black to mourn the death of gin drinking. 704 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,400 And there was an ominous new chant amongst the crowds on the street. 705 00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:09,160 They went, "No gin, no king. No gin, no king." 706 00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,560 What did Prince Frederick do to calm down the situation? 707 00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,000 Well, nothing at all. In fact, he inflamed it. 708 00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:21,000 He was seen going to a tavern and drinking a glass of gin. 709 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,400 And by doing this he was saying, 710 00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,640 "I'm just like you. I like gin and I don't like the king." 711 00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:34,520 Frederick's ingratiating ways incensed Caroline. 712 00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:38,920 "My God," she said, "popularity always makes me sick, 713 00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:43,200 "but Fred's popularity makes me vomit." 714 00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:46,360 A storm was brewing. 715 00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:54,400 In December 1736, King George was returning from Hanover 716 00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,160 when his ship was caught in a violent gale. 717 00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:03,160 Rumours reached London that he'd been lost at sea. 718 00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:12,840 Caroline was distraught and also disgusted at Prince Frederick, 719 00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,800 who was clearly relishing the prospect of becoming King himself. 720 00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,760 For a week, the country held its breath. 721 00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,440 Many were wishing that the King had drowned. 722 00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,000 But finally, news arrived that he was safe and well. 723 00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:33,800 Back in London, George II now had to deal with his upstart son 724 00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,480 and mounting political opposition. 725 00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,640 One of the best mouthpieces for dissident voices was the theatre, 726 00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:47,520 perhaps the most subversive art form in Georgian Britain. 727 00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:49,920 Not surprisingly, Prince Frederick 728 00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,040 had already associated himself with the stage. 729 00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:57,680 He had written his own comedy, The Modish Couple. 730 00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,960 Here at the Bristol Old Vic, an original Georgian theatre, 731 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,080 its artistic director, Tom Morris, can explain how the stage 732 00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,400 provided a platform for mocking the ruling order. 733 00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:14,680 We're standing on a stage here. 734 00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,880 It's not the way people think of a modern theatre. 735 00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,480 We're not kind of shut away from the audience somewhere up there. 736 00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:23,680 We're surrounded by them. 737 00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:27,680 And what's more, it's manifest in the architecture of the building 738 00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,000 that different members of the audience 739 00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,160 will have a different point of view. 740 00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,000 Someone sitting over there will necessarily have 741 00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,520 a different point of view of this conversation 742 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,680 than someone sitting over there. It's like a reverse shot. 743 00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,960 If, as an actor then, that person is booing and that person is cheering, 744 00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,920 can you sort of shut them out and go with them? 745 00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,880 Absolutely. We know that there were asides in Georgian theatre. 746 00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:53,480 If you play an aside in a theatre like this, you choose 747 00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:56,120 who you play it to and you choose who you don't play it to. 748 00:45:56,120 --> 00:46:00,320 - Ah, right! - So you can constantly manipulate the relationship 749 00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:01,640 with the audience. 750 00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:04,240 When you look at 18th-century plays, 751 00:46:04,240 --> 00:46:06,640 they appear to be incredibly naughty. 752 00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,520 They're always satirical, they're always causing trouble, 753 00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,240 they seem to be against power and authority. 754 00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:15,440 Yeah, I mean Tom Thumb, which is a pretty tough read, 755 00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:20,000 I have to say, is largely a sequence of knob jokes about Robert Walpole, 756 00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,680 which obviously he hated. Now if you read the script, 757 00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,800 he's not going to say that, he can't quite say that, 758 00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:30,000 because it's all negotiated live with sort of double entendre 759 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:33,760 in this kind of theatre, where something can be implied, 760 00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:38,400 a joke aimed here can be shared to the exclusion of those people, 761 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:44,040 and meanings are kind of fluid, immediate and transitory. 762 00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:47,840 And that makes it very threatening, politically. 763 00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:52,960 In 1737, Sir Robert Walpole would try to bring the curtain down 764 00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:58,800 on seditious theatres, citing a play that mysteriously hasn't survived - 765 00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:00,560 The Golden Rump. 766 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,080 The details of the play itself are a bit mysterious. 767 00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,120 But you can get a hint of what it was about 768 00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:12,040 from this contemporary print, called The Festival of the Golden Rump - 769 00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:15,160 the focus of the scene is the King's bottom. 770 00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:17,840 And this itself was the focus of Georgian society 771 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:21,920 because of the habit the King had at turning his back on people 772 00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,040 who were out of favour at court. 773 00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,640 If the King didn't want to speak to you, he would turn around 774 00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:28,560 and show you his backside, 775 00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:31,800 a technique that everybody called rumping. 776 00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,960 Also, everybody knew that part of the reason the King 777 00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:36,320 had such a bad temper 778 00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:40,200 was because he suffered terribly from the haemorrhoids. 779 00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:43,040 In this print, the King is shown as a satyr, 780 00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,120 a creature that's out of control. 781 00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,280 And it's lashing out - in this case the satyr is kicking 782 00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:52,960 a magician-like figure who represents Sir Robert Walpole. 783 00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:56,560 But don't worry, sensible Queen Caroline is here, 784 00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,560 the mistress of medicine. She's going to bring the King 785 00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:03,280 back under her control by giving him an enema. 786 00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:07,440 She's injecting a magic potion up the royal bum. 787 00:48:09,720 --> 00:48:11,680 It's quite amusing to think 788 00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:14,720 that this play was only performed in public 789 00:48:14,720 --> 00:48:16,480 in the House of Commons. 790 00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:19,200 What happened was that Sir Robert Walpole claimed 791 00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:21,520 he'd been given a manuscript version of it, 792 00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:25,320 and in order to show how offensive and scandalous it was, 793 00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:27,320 he read it out in Parliament. 794 00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:31,000 Of course, everybody went, "This is terrible! We can't have this!" 795 00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:36,240 From now on, there would only be two licensed theatres in London. 796 00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:40,720 And all new plays had to be vetted by the Lord Chamberlain. 797 00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,880 But there's a very attractive conspiracy theory here. 798 00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:52,560 I like this one. The idea is that perhaps Sir Robert Walpole 799 00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:54,760 cooked the whole thing up himself. 800 00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,720 Perhaps he commissioned the scandalous play 801 00:48:57,720 --> 00:49:02,600 in order to create the outrage and to get his censorship law passed. 802 00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,920 In February 1737, 803 00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:12,880 Frederick took the feud with his father right into Parliament. 804 00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:14,640 His supporters backed a motion 805 00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,040 to get the Prince's allowance increased. 806 00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:21,640 Frederick's side lost by only a few votes. 807 00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:26,360 This was the most public affront yet by the Prince to the King. 808 00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:40,160 And to make matters worse, 809 00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:44,640 Frederick and his wife, Augusta, had moved into Kensington Palace... 810 00:49:46,240 --> 00:49:50,560 ..where Frederick's habits quickly began to grate on his mother. 811 00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,440 The palace was so claustrophobic 812 00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,240 that Caroline had to come out into the gardens 813 00:49:57,240 --> 00:49:59,880 to get a bit of privacy. She loved walking. 814 00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:02,880 She'd clack along in her slippers with red heels. 815 00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:06,240 Other times, though, she was trapped indoors. 816 00:50:06,240 --> 00:50:08,160 Once, she was looking out of the window, 817 00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,760 and she saw Frederick crossing the courtyard beneath her, 818 00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,880 and she was heard to say "There he goes, that monster! 819 00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:20,320 "How I wish that a hole from hell would open up and swallow him." 820 00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:29,120 In July 1737, this feud finally came to a head. 821 00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,480 The royal family had assembled at Hampton Court 822 00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:39,400 to witness the arrival of Frederick and Augusta's first child. 823 00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:45,120 But Frederick was determined to keep his parents away from the birth. 824 00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,840 Augusta's labour pains began in the middle of the night. 825 00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:51,920 Now, you'd expect them to call the midwife 826 00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:54,000 and keep her in bed, but no. 827 00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:56,320 Her husband Frederick made her get up. 828 00:50:56,320 --> 00:51:00,400 He made her walk down the stairs, and he bundled her into a carriage 829 00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,960 to drive 15 miles through the night to St James's Palace. 830 00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:10,080 Now, poor Augusta was a teenager. She was in a foreign land. 831 00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:13,840 This was her first pregnancy, and she spent her first labour 832 00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:16,760 in a bumpy carriage in the middle of the night. 833 00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,560 This is terribly cruel behaviour on Frederick's part. 834 00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,080 Augusta was writhing about in agony, 835 00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,720 and Frederick held her down with his weight. 836 00:51:25,720 --> 00:51:29,560 He used so much force that he later said he put his back out doing it. 837 00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:35,360 When they arrived at St James's Palace, they weren't expected, 838 00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:37,240 so nothing was ready for them. 839 00:51:37,240 --> 00:51:39,600 There weren't even any sheets for the bed. 840 00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:42,760 And when the little baby girl was eventually born, 841 00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,080 they had to wrap her up in a table napkin. 842 00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:53,120 Frederick was successful 843 00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,200 in tricking his parents out of their privilege 844 00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,520 of being present at the birth of their grandchild. 845 00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,360 When Caroline heard what had happened, 846 00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:03,440 she too got up in the middle of the night 847 00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:07,480 and came dashing to St James's Palace, but she was too late. 848 00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:09,720 The baby was already born. 849 00:52:09,720 --> 00:52:12,280 The next day, there was an almighty bust-up, 850 00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:16,760 and everybody knew about it. It got into the newspapers. 851 00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,960 This was a very dangerous moment for the Hanoverian monarchy. 852 00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:22,280 Both sides were damaged. 853 00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,960 George II looked like he couldn't even control his family, 854 00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:27,720 and as for Frederick, he looked irresponsible. 855 00:52:27,720 --> 00:52:30,000 He'd risked the life of his wife. 856 00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:33,600 How could he be trusted with the future of the nation 857 00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:35,760 when the time came? 858 00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:40,320 And worst of all, there was no prospect of reconciliation. 859 00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:44,720 This quarrel looked set to continue to the grave. 860 00:52:47,240 --> 00:52:49,360 It would take just that, a death, 861 00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:52,720 to make the royal family and the country take stock. 862 00:52:55,280 --> 00:53:01,920 In November 1737, in her brand-new library at St James's Palace, 863 00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:05,680 Caroline was suddenly stricken with intense pain. 864 00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,400 What was actually wrong with Caroline? Well, nobody knew. 865 00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:17,600 The doctors weren't allowed to examine her body. 866 00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:20,280 There was a sense that this would have been undignified, 867 00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:24,720 and also an idea that queens weren't really made out of flesh and blood, 868 00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:26,280 that they were never ill. 869 00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:29,040 But poor Caroline was clearly in agony. 870 00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:32,120 She was put to bed, and eventually the King insisted 871 00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:34,760 that the doctors have a look at her stomach. 872 00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:36,600 And then they discovered 873 00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,760 that ever since the birth of her last child, 874 00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:44,560 Caroline had been suffering in secret from an umbilical hernia. 875 00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:48,200 This is when a hole opens up in the walls of the stomach. 876 00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:49,600 It's terribly painful. 877 00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:52,360 Caroline had come to her crisis 878 00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:57,880 because a little loop of her bowels had popped out through that hole. 879 00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:00,960 What the doctor should have done is get the bowels, 880 00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,160 push them back in and sew up the hole. 881 00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:05,200 That's what they would do today. 882 00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:08,960 But Caroline's doctors made a terrible mistake. 883 00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:10,600 That little loop of bowels, 884 00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:13,160 they cut it off. 885 00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:24,680 Throughout all of this, Caroline kept up her good spirits. 886 00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:27,800 When the doctor came in to operate, she encouraged him 887 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:31,960 by saying, "Dr Ranby, just pretend you're cutting up your ex-wife." 888 00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,120 Her only concern seemed to be 889 00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:38,280 for the grief of her husband and her children. 890 00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:47,400 George II now devoted himself to her care. He sat by the bed in tears. 891 00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:50,280 And when she was at death's door, 892 00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:53,360 they had this very famous conversation. 893 00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:59,320 She said to him, "I want you to be happy. Marry again after I'm gone". 894 00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:03,320 But he said "No. I will have mistresses." 895 00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:07,360 The implication was that the mistresses meant nothing to him. 896 00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,160 He would never have a second Queen. 897 00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:14,560 And when she died, it was with her hand in his. 898 00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:23,920 And where was Prince Frederick? 899 00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:25,720 Despite the estrangement, 900 00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:28,680 he had asked to come to his mother's bedside, 901 00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,760 but the King had forbidden it. "Frederick", he said, 902 00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:36,280 "shall not come and act any of his silly plays here." 903 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:42,440 When Caroline had heard this, she had deferred to her husband. 904 00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:46,160 But later, she sent a private message, a blessing, 905 00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:48,080 and forgiveness to her son. 906 00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:54,840 A piece of street poetry summed up the public reaction. 907 00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,200 "Death, where is thy sting, 908 00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:01,280 "to take the Queen and leave the King?" 909 00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:08,200 And what of the King? 910 00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:16,160 Here is sad and lonely George, all by himself, missing his wife. 911 00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:18,160 He's gone to her library 912 00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:21,840 to have a look at the bust of her over the door. 913 00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:25,040 This was a real low point for George II. 914 00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:28,280 Not only had he lost his companion of 30 years, 915 00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,400 he had also lost an important political ally. 916 00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:36,640 She had been the friendly face of his regime. 917 00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:42,560 He would eventually recover and, old soldier as he was, 918 00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:46,560 go on to enjoy military victories over the French and the Scots. 919 00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:57,040 This period saw the development of a well-informed and pugnacious public, 920 00:56:57,040 --> 00:57:00,080 a new force that challenged the old elite. 921 00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,400 The world had changed, and sooner or later, 922 00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:09,400 every monarchy across Europe would have to come to terms with it. 923 00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:11,760 If you were an 18th-century king or queen, 924 00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:13,280 you had two choices here. 925 00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,720 Either you could ignore all of this and hope that it went away - 926 00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:20,560 that's what they did in France, and look what happened to them - 927 00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:22,640 or you could subtly change the way 928 00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,160 in which you went about being a monarch. 929 00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:28,680 In Britain, it was Queen Caroline and Prince Frederick 930 00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:30,360 who really understood this, 931 00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:34,920 so much so that I think they rather overshadowed George II. 932 00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:39,800 Caroline had tried to help the British, promoting science 933 00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:43,640 and philosophy and social improvement. 934 00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,240 And Frederick had embraced the people, 935 00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:49,520 placing himself amongst the crowd, rather than above it. 936 00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:55,160 They somehow knew how to ease the friction between the monarchy 937 00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:58,960 and the people, and I think we can judge their success 938 00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:01,320 by the fact that 300 years later, 939 00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,480 their descendants are still on the throne. 940 00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:15,280 Next time, as Britain seeks to rule the waves, 941 00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:20,480 King George's love of fighting helps him overcome the death of his queen, 942 00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:25,040 renewing his sense of kingship as he leads his troops into battle. 943 00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:28,680 "Now, boys!" he said. 944 00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:32,400 "Fire and be brave, and the French will soon run!"