The March of the Guards to Finchley

[1] The painting is a depiction of a fictional mustering of troops on the Tottenham Court Road to march north to Finchley to defend the capital from the second Jacobite rebellion of 1745, which was part of a series of uprisings that had been occurring since the late 17th century and were aimed at returning the Stuart Dynasty to the throne after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Jacobite risings were a series of rebellions affecting all of the British Isles except for Wales and that occurred between 1688 and 1746, four years before the painting of March of the Guards to Finchley.

However, promised support from France failed to arrive, and, in the absence of an English popular uprising, Charles assented to the demand of his Council of War to return to Scotland.

However, George II had been expecting an artwork that honoured his most favoured guards, not mocked them – accounts state he was offended by what he considered an insult on Hogarth's part.

[6] However, Frederick II was certainly no expert on the arts, and he was more known on the battlefield; some have speculated that this explains his positive reception to a work depicting the English military in poor form.

In advertisements for the painting, Hogarth referred to a subscription-based extra whereby buyers who deposited another three shillings on top of the seven and sixpence would be considered in a lottery for the ownership of the original copy, which would be delivered to the winning subscriber after the engraving had been finished.

[1] Paradoxically, the work both highlights the dissolute and disreputable nature of the guardsmen and shows that they can be transformed into a disciplined fighting force, with the drummer and boy fifer summoning the soldiers to their duty.

A drummer standing to the left is similarly the centre of feminine attention – perhaps his wife and child; behind, a man urinates against the tavern wall, pained by his venereal infection.

[11] Further to the right, near the edge of the painting, a drunken soldier has collapsed to the ground from his own intoxication; despite his state, he rejects the water his comrade behind him is offering him, and instead reaches for another measure of gin from the woman to his left.

[1] Critics have likened the chaotic scene of The March of the Guards to Finchley to the narrative of English satirist Henry Fielding's Tom Jones.

In his Hogarth's Literary Relationships, Robert E. Moore states that the "elements" of comedy" in The March of the Guards to Finchley are "the very essence of Fielding's comedy as well":[11] At a first hasty glance the multiplicity of characters and action in Tom Jones, once the story has taken to the road, suggests a chaos just like the wild disorder of the "March to Finchley" [...] the structure of Tom Jones is well-nigh perfect, one of the marvels of English fiction.