The Queen Caroline Affair in Radical Periodicals

Abstract The rendering of the Queen Caroline affair by the radical periodical press constitutes a case study of the intersection of the press, propaganda, gender, class, politics, and, ultimately, a metaphor of political and cultural change. Rooted in this assertion, the present essay examines and interprets the version of the Queen Caroline affair in the three radical periodicals that resisted the passing of the Six Acts in 1819. These were The Republican, edited by Richard Carlile; Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, edited by William Cobbett; and the Black Dwarf, edited by Thomas Jonathan Wooler. The Conclusion determines the extent to which early nineteenth-century radical journalism contributed to political and cultural progress. The protagonists of the Queen Caroline affair in the radical periodicals were timeless: they were corruption, injustice, lack of freedom, and the public as the motors of change – a political struggle with deep cultural undertones.