A Recent Dialogue

This satirical broadside ballad entitled A Recent Dialogue refers to the notorious incident where an Anglican Bishop Percy Jocelyn, Lord Bishop of Clogher was caught in a compromising position with a young soldier in the back room of The White Lion public house, off The Haymarket in 1822. This incident caused such a scandal that it became the subject of dozens of satirical cartoons, pamphlets and limericks. Although both parties were arrested with their trousers down they both absconded before their trial. The watermark of the paper on which the ballad is printed is dated 1824. The ballad, signed 'T.B' may, therefore, have been written in response to a notice of 19 December 1824 read aloud to the congregation of Marylebone Church and then posted by the Bailiff, calling upon the Bishop to surrender to the Sheriff of Middlesex to face charges 'or you will be outlawed'. The heart of London's ballad trade was the Seven Dials area where printers such as John Pitts, James Catnach and Thomas Birt generated the bulk of London's street literature sold by ballad hawkers. The ballad writers would receive little reward from the printers for their efforts, reportedly sometimes only a few pints of ale.