In 1820, George IV tried to divorce Queen Caroline by accusing her of adultery through a parliamentary bill. The public largely supported Caroline against a king widely seen as selfish and hypocritical. The affair turned royal marriage into mass political theatre.

The scandal generated satirical verse, cartoons, pamphlets, and popular songs. It helped poets and journalists present monarchy as morally compromised spectacle, a theme that fed nineteenth-century radical and comic writing.