The Siege of Lille Signed and dated

John Wootton, one of the earliest native English painters, was extensively patronised by the Royal family during the reign of George II: Queen Caroline visited his studio in 1732, by which time he was already working for her son, Frederick, Prince of Wales.

This pair of giant siege paintings was first mentioned by George Vertue as underway in November 1739; Wootton was paid 300 guineas each (one payment of £300 and another of £330) in 1742 (the date which appears on the canvasses); Paul Petit submitted a bill for the frames in 1743. The paintings were set up at Leicester House in 1745 where they were seen on the Grand Staircase by George Vertue in 1750.

The capture of the fortresses of Lille in 1708 and Tournay in 1709 designed by Louis XIV’s famous military architect, marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), were crucial episodes in the War of the Spanish Succession. At Lille Prince Eugene commanded the actual siege, while the Duke of Marlborough kept off any attempt to relieve it, both generals having made this situation possible by their victory at the Battle of Oudenarde on 11 July 1708. The allies entered Lille on 22 November 1708 having list 12,000 men.

The siege of Tournay saw the roles reversed: Eugene covering and Marlborough directing the siege itself. The action here began on 28 July 1709 and the citadel fell on the 3 September of that year. The fall of these two fortresses drove the French out of Flanders, though the final battle of the war, an indecisive blood-bath at Malplaquet on 11 September 1709, failed to deliver the knock-out blow intended by the allies. Why should Frederick Prince of Wales wish to decorate the stair case of his town house with depictions of thirty-year-old British victories, won during the time of the Stuart dynasty? It may have been because his grandfather, George I, served during the same campaign as commander of the Imperial forces on the Rhine, though he was not involved in either of these sieges.

It may have been a comment upon the war raging during the creation and hanging of these images: that of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) in which his father, George II, and brother, Duke of Cumberland, both distinguished themselves. There may have been a more general message intended for English visitors to Leicester House that the Hanoverian dynasty had always been allies to the British in one of their traditional theatres of war (Tournay once belonged to Henry VIII).

An extensive open landscape, the town under siege in the distance with rising smoke from bombarded areas; foot soldiers advance upon it; mounted officers across the foreground, the group to the left centred on Marlborough.

Provenance

Commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales