Mrs Clarke in the House

Introducing Mary Anne Clarke (c.1776-1852), society hostess and royal mistress.

Mrs, M.A. Clarke. Hand-coloured etching by Charles Williams. London: S.W. Fores, February 1809

She pauses in front of the doors to the House of Commons, lifting her veil from her face and turning directly to the viewer, the hint of a knowing smile playing across her lips. By her side she holds a huge fur muff, the hand-warmer of choice of the fashion-conscious lady.

The elegant, alluring, and assured woman betrays no lack of confidence as she prepares to be cross-examined inside the Chamber for her role in a royal scandal surrounding the second son of King George III.

Clarke was the mistress of Frederick, Duke of York between 1803 and 1806. The Duke was forced to resign as Commander-in-Chief of the army in March 1809 after claims in Parliament that Clarke had received money in return for obtaining promotions. It seems she added names to lists which the Duke signed off, apparently not reading them very closely. Renounced by HRH, Clarke threatened to publish revealing memoirs and was able to extract huge pensions from the government to keep them suppressed. She proved herself an astute political operator.

The proceedings were, naturally, lapped up by caricaturists like Charles Williams (fl. 1796-1830), who swiftly etched this plate for sale on the 25th February 1809. Williams was a professional etcher of satires for London publishers about whom almost nothing is known. Like most satirical printmakers of his time, he favoured the etching technique as a fast medium capable of responding to the latest events within days. His more illustrious contemporary Thomas Rowlandson issued more than thirty satires on the Clarke affair, predominantly using etching.

Stipple portrait of Mary Anne Clarke from the ‘Lady’s Monthly Museum’ (1809)

Though a very simple composition – one of only a handful of caricatures in which Clarke is the sole or central figure – I find the image intriguing. Why did Williams present Clarke in this ‘attitude’ (in the artistic sense of the word)?

Some women who broke the mould and entered the public or political realm attracted the antipathy of the (overwhelmingly male) journalists, pamphleteers and cartoonists. And it is difficult, I think, to conclude that the characterisation of Clarke here is sympathetic. Rather is male chauvinism at play – Clarke as a symbol of the brazen woman of questionable virtue, enjoying her time in the limelight a little too much?

I’m certain Williams is pandering to the sense of novelty and mild titillation engendered by a self-confident, attractive young woman strolling into the heart of the political Establishment, effectively to give evidence against a senior royal. There is an undeniably journalistic feel to the image: Clarke poses like a latter-day red carpet celebrity for the paparazzi.

To no one’s surprise, the Duke was cleared of any personal wrongdoing and was reinstated to his command in 1811. As for Clarke – after conviction for libel over one indiscreet publication too many and jail time in 1813 – she moved first to Brussels, then to Paris. She died at Boulogne in 1852. Her life inspired a novel, Mary Anne, by her descendant Daphne Du Maurier.

The caricature by Charles Williams is available for sale:  http://jenningsprints.tumblr.com/post/135311403528/the-scandalous-woman-who-took-on-the-british