A copy of the engraving is attached to the backboard. Sir Francis Burdett, Bt., 1770-1844, the radical politician, was the third son of Sir Robert Burdett, 4th Baronet. He was in Paris during the early years of the French Revolution. He returned to England in 1793 and married Miss Sophie Coutts, daughter of Thomas Coutts the banker. In 1796 he became M.P. for Boroughbridge and sat as a reformist, attacking the government over the war against France, its restraints upon public opinion and the suppression of Habeas Corpus. From 1802 he sat for Middlesex and from 1807 for the next thirty years for Winchester. He was arrested for breach of Parliamentary privilege in 1810 and imprisoned in the Tower of London for several weeks. He was imprisoned again in 1820 for attacking the authorities over the Peterloo Massacre, and prompted the debates leading to the Reform Bill of 1832. He was in correspondence with Jeremy Bentham over legal reform.
He is shown pointing at a copy of Magna Carta, which he is said to have been reading at the time of his arrest in 1810. This painting and the print after it were clearly inspired by his political activities.