The Royal Family and Family Values in Late Eighteenth-Century England

Abstract

The idea of a royal family developed in England during the latter half of George III's reign. The increased press coverage of the royal family's activities that began during the Regency Crisis of 1788-1789 coincided with a court that featured stunning displays of both bourgeois family values and aristocratic libertinism. An examination of the discourse on the royal family in the London daily press in the era of the French Revolution reveals different marital models in conflict as well as considerable anxieties regarding the preservation of the social hierarchy and women's role in the domestic sphere. The British royal family was placed in an impossible situation when they attempted to embody a conjugal ideal that transcended both class difference and the ongoing tensions between the sexes.