Armed Vessel of the Holy Tongue for the Jesuit Monarchy

This Dutch etching mounts a ferocious attack on Catholic monarchs Louis XIV and James II during the Glorious Revolution. Two crowned heads ride a grotesque hybrid beast—part camel, part dragon—trampling bodies, cannons, and the instruments of state. Ships and fortifications burn in the background as crowds witness the chaos. The accompanying Dutch and Latin verses mock the alliance between France and the exiled English king, casting them as religious zealots destroying Protestant nations. The print exemplifies the virulent visual propaganda of the era, employing grotesquerie, bodily caricature, and explicit violence to delegitimize political enemies. Such satirical etchings, circulating widely across Protestant Europe, established the graphic language of partisan combat that would flow directly into the broadsheet tradition, caricature prints, and eventually the sequential art forms of modern comics.