‘A General Discharge or the Darling Angel’s Finishing Stroke’ (etching)

‘A General Discharge or the Darling Angel’s Finishing Stroke’. Coloured etching by and after Thomas Rowlandson.Published by Thomas Tegg, London. This print depicts a woman sitting astride a cannon hammering a spike into it while Frederick Duke of York kneels to the right. He exclaims: ‘A Wise General should make good in Retreat’ ‘Alas! Alas for ever ruined and Undone See she has spiked my great Gun’. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army the Duke of York had considerable powers to appoint and promote officers. In 1809 a Parliamentary enquiry established that his mistress, Mary Anne Clarke, had been accepting money for promising to use her influence with him to promote various individuals. There was no evidence that the Duke was involved in these transactions, but the scandal forced him to resign temporarily as Commander-in-Chief.