Fashionable Jockeyship

This is one of the more generally humiliating prints about the affair between the Prince of Wales and Lady Jersey conducted with the knowledge and complicity of her husband. It shows the Prince, fat and cruel, in military dress literally riding the Earl (who had been recently named the Prince's Master of Horse) to his wife's bed. The Prince holds up two fingers as a sign of the cuckold's horns, to which Lord Jersey acquiesces completely. Lady Jersey is depicted as old and witch-like, leering back at the Prince.

The sordidness of the connection is suggested by the Prince's plumed coronet sitting on top of the Jersey's portable toilet or close stool as it was then called. And the incongruity of the affair is reinforced by the picture of Cupid piping to the dancing sow. After all, Lady Jersey was at this time a forty-three year old grandmother and mother, herself, of ten children. The Prince was thirty-four. But like the Jersey Smuggler Detected published a week earlier, the print is brilliantly executed with faces, figures, and the contours of bedding and drapery all suggested with nothing more than the etching needle.

Apart from the brilliance of its drawing and its wholesale rejection of everyone depicted in it, the print is also interesting for the light it shines upon the relationship between Gillray and his nearest competitor, Isaac Cruikshank. Caricatures depicting Lady Jersey and the Prince began to appear as early as 1794 with three prints from Cruikshank in 1794/95. But in May 1796 Gillray got into the act with The Jersey Smuggler Detected on May 24th and The Grand Signior Retiring on May 25th. Cruikshank replied with the four panel print, Sketches from Nature!!! on May 28th.

The first panel, "The Sultan Retiring," is clearly indebted in conception and detail to Gillray's The Grand Signior Retiring. Similar in title, both portray the Prince as an Ottoman Turk with Lady Jersey as, in effect, one of his harem. Cruikshank also borrows the Prince's robe and pointed slippers, the pathetic and complicit Earl of Jersey holding the candle, and the rude and dismissive Va-ten from the Prince. But Lady Jersey's pose is more crudely and explicitly welcoming in Cruikshank's version.

Just as clearly, the third panel, "The Discovery," borrows significantly from Gillray'sJersey Smuggler Detected. Both portray Princess Caroline as she discovers her husband's infidelity with Lady Jersey. In both, Lady Jersey is nestled in the Prince's arms. But the limp and broken candle likely derives from Gillray's The Morning After Marriage where a long night with Mrs. Fitzherbert had exhausted the Prince's capabilities. If so, Cruikshank's subtitle, "Give me all you can & let me dream the rest" belongs to Lady Jersey who it seems made a discovery of her own about the Prince.

But the second panel, "Fashionable Pastime" which preceded Gillray's print of Fashionable Jockeyship by three days obviously shows that the influence could work both ways. Gillray borrows the riding Prince mounted on his Master of the Horse. He also borrows the taunting "Buck! Buck! How many horns do I hold up", though he puts it clearly in the Prince's mouth whereas Cruikshank seems to suggest it is spoken by both the Prince and Lady Jersey. But Cruikshank's inclusion of the a free rendering of Gillray's Sir Richard Worse-than-sly, exposing his wifes bottom; o fye! on the wall behind the Prince adds a dimension that Gillray omits: that the Earl's complicity in his wife's adultery gives him a perverse enjoyment. This supposition may be further supported by the appearance of the Earl peaking out from under the bed in "The Discovery."

Gillray is probably the most consistently original caricaturist of his time. He seldom borrows figures or details from any other artist unless he is explicitly alluding to them. Fashionable Jockeyship is an exception. But in borrowing as much as he does here, he certainly may have felt justified having in effect given to Cruikshank so much more than he got in return. And, of course, any side by side comparison of Gillray and Cruikshank only demonstrates the superior drawing and etching skill of Gillray.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on Fashionable Jockeyship.
• "George IV of the United Kingdom," Wikipedia
• Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey

Comments & Corrections

NOTE: Comments and/or corrections are always appreciated. To make that easier, I have included a form below that you can use. I promise never to share any of the info provided without your express permission.

First Name:	Last Name:
Email Address:
Comments/Corrections: