By George! I have no idea

Mr. Al sent this week’s By George! in last night. I know I should have stayed up for it, but I didn’t so it’s late and I haven’t even read it yet. Forget about having a picture with it. Anyway, I hope it’s good.

In our time when communication with anyone nearly anywhere on the planet instantaneously is a fact of life, it’s hard to imagine a time when communication was more or less limited to the people one could speak to face to face. Letters were largely the habit of the Better Sorts, who could afford private letter carriers. Even a rudimentary education was beyond most people, particularly in the countryside.

But the situation had changed enough by the early 19th century that London could support a fair number of newspapers. These were not newspapers in the sense that we think of them today. They were more or less op-ed pages with some news, and much gossip,sprinkled throughout. They also made no bones about their political affiliations.

The Tories had their papers and the Whigs theirs. No one expected papers to be impartial, they were supposed to support the cause. And tell the world what the Better Sorts were doing behind closed doors. To this end, newspaper publishers, being good businessmen, realized that there was money to be made not only by selling papers to the faithful, but by accepting money to run stories favoring particular candidates or other significant persons.

As I mentioned earlier, London in the early 19th century was mad for gossip. The fastest way to spread it was through the papers. It was only natural that the Prince and Princess of Wales would approach papers already in the Whig or Tory camp and ask that their side of the story be given a public airing.

It gave the Prince a venue in which the worst stories of his wife’s behavior would reach the widest possible audience. It gave the Princess the platform she desired to show the world how badly her husband was treating her. It would seem that the Prince had to pay considerably more for his good press than Caroline. But as the Prince was well aware, life just wasn’t fair sometimes.

All of the people involved knew that it it never hurt to make sure publishers saw things their way with a little gift. Or even supplying the stories to be printed. If the stories were true, all the better. But if they were not… The Princess had the Morning Chronicle on her side, as well as The Pilot and the Star. While Tory papers could be counted on to be loyal to all things Tory, they had to tread carefully as regarded the Prince Regent.

It was one thing to run articles about Caroline’s bad behavior, it was another to run articles praising the Prince Regent. Lady Charlotte Lindsey informed Lord Brougham, Caroline’s media handler, that the publisher of the Evening Star was offered 300 pounds a year to become the Prince’s friend. The offer was declined. According to one historian; “Championing the Princess was far more profitable than supporting the Regent.”

The former publisher of the Morning Post, Peter Stewart, claimed “some permanent situation under government.” The basis of his claim was that a small annuity he had received would be “doubled or tripled as a permanency whenever His Royal Highness by the accession of power was able to do so.”

The Rev Henry Bate Dudley loyally came to the Prince Regents defense in the pages of the Morning Herald. For those loyal services he received a baronetcy and a stall at the cathedral at Ely. The good reverend thought his loyalty had to been bought rather cheaply and pressed a claim for more. It was rejected. He then “obtained by blackmail an annuity of 300 pounds.” Not a word on what this gentleman of the cloth was blackmailing the Regent with, only that he was successful. Damn!

What was true for the Prince Regent and Princess of Wales was true for all of the Better Sorts. The papers of London could be a powerful weapon against an adversary. If incriminating letters fell into the wrong hands, a bit of legwork to shop them around to the papers is all it would take to destroy a reputation. Libel laws only protected, in theory, people who had had lies printed about them. If your enemy happened to possess information that was true, things could go very badly. For Princess Caroline,she was going to discover that even bought friends had their limit. And that even those who wished her well could not hide the fact that she had begun to behave very badly indeed.

– Mr. Al