A comic print of a man (William, Duke of Clarence) sitting up in bed, with one hand extended as if to ward off the ghost of a woman in a nightgown (Dorothy Jordan) who has appeared from a coffin in a puff of smoke. William wears a shirt and nightcap, the bedclothes are tangled around one of his legs while the other, bare, has accidentally kicked over a chamber pot on the floor, marked 'Jordan.' Papers on the floor are marked 'Royal Navy,' 'Liningen' and 'Affair of State.' In a speech bubble, he says 'Ah! I have done those things that now give evidence against my soul. O spare me. Oh! Oh!' Another woman sleeps undisturbed behind him. Beside the bed, a nautical-style lamp is labelled 'Poop lantern.' Opposite, Jordan stands solemnly upright, one arm raised with an accusatory pointing finger, her feet in a coffin labelled 'Buried by subscription at Paris.' In a speech bubble, she says 'False, fleeting, perjured Clarence! Awake wretch: and behold the unhappy victim of thy avarice and debauchery. My entombed bones in a foreign land buried by the charity of strangers, call aloud for vengeance. Awake thou, slanderer, never more to sleep!' A poster on the back wall shows a row of eight elaborately dressed men and women, labelled 'Royal Bastards dedicated to John Bull' (with the word 'Bastards' partially censored). Below, the print's title is provided in large letters: 'Clarence's Dream; or, Binnacle Billy receiving an unwelcome visit from ye other world.' 'Clarence' is partially censored but the missing letters have been written in in ink; 'Mrs Jourdan' has also been added in ink below her figure.

Clarence’s Dream, or Binnacle Billy receiving an unwelcome visit from ye other world

Attributed to Isaac Robert Cruikshank, published by Thomas Dolby

1821

Etching

British Museum, 1868,0808.8507

Image credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

This satirical print uses Richard III to comment on the personal life of a royal duke.

William, Duke of Clarence starts from bed on seeing the ghost of Dorothy Jordan, an actress specialising in Shakespearean comedy, and his former mistress. The future William IV was the first Duke of Clarence since George, brother of Richard III. According to Shakespeare, Richard had Clarence drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

This print combines two aspects of Shakespeare’s play. William speaks George's lines from Richard III about his (prophetic) dream of drowning, but his pose recalls David Garrick's performance of the title role, as depicted by William Hogarth. Both were familiar reference points for consumers in the ever-expanding nineteenth-century print market.

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A Scene in Richard III

Egron Sellif Lundgren (1815-75)

1854

Lundgren Scene from Richard III

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King Richard III, Act IV, Scene iii

Francis Legat (1755-1809), after James Northcote (1746-1831)

1790

King-Richard-the-Third-act-IV-scene-III.tiff

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