1808

The UK faces its 1808
and equivalent of Spain’s capsize
that year from a long-standing second-rate
world power, to be Napoleon’s prize.

A disgraced Royal Family, disgraceful
prime ministers, dishonest policy,
dipped the old galleon to the mainsails
like a flag, not just the fatuity

of Godoy, serving as the lover
of both the king and the queen, No Goya
paints Britain’s ignominy, none cover
priapic Noahs either, whom lawyers

dare not defend. A Death of Nelson,
taking place in Hogarth’s Bedlam.

Woodford Halse - 6 February 2026

Manuel de Godoy y Alvarez de Faria Rios ( 1767 -1851) the so-called Prince of the Peace, governed Spain under Carlos IV and the unsavoury Maria Luisa when it collapsed in 1808. He held office 1792-98, and then after an interval as Captain General, was de facto prime minister while his cousin held the office 1801 - 8.

After being a first rate European power from the 1490s to the 1640s, Spain managed to remain a considerable second-rate power from the Thirty Years War until 1808. The UK, as imperial Great Britain’s successor state, is on the verge of losing all, in a crisis that dates from 2014-16, as public life is discredited.

I refer to the Death of Nelson canvases by Benjamin West ( 1738 - 1820 ) in 1811, who invented the genre with the Death of Wolfe originally, and by Arthur William Devis ( 1762 - 1822 ) in 1807.