Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black ACT

Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black ACT
Author: E. P. Thompson
Publisher: Breviary Stuff Publications
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2015-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780992946661

With Whigs and Hunters, the author of The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson plunged into the murky waters of the early eighteenth century to chart the violently conflicting currents that boiled beneath the apparent calm of the time. The subject is the Black Act, a law of unprecedented savagery passed by Parliament in 1723 to deal with 'wicked and evil-disposed men going armed in disguise'. These men were pillaging the royal forest of deer, conducting a running battle against the forest officers with blackmail, threats and violence. These 'Blacks', however, were men of some substance; their protest (for such it was) took issue with the equally wholsesale plunder of the forest by Whig nominees to the forest offices. And Robert Walpole, still consolidating his power, took an active part in the prosecution of the 'Blacks'. The episode is laden with political and social implications, affording us glimpses of considerable popular discontent, political chicanery, judicial inequity, corrupt ambition and crime.

Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-century England

Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-century England
Author: Frank McLynn
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 434
Release: 1989
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780415010146

Why was the era of Augustan elegance also that of Hogarthian squalor? How far was the Industrial Revolution responsible for the rise of street gangs and highwaymen? Was it a coincidence that the autocratic monarchies of Europe suffered less from violent crime? Were such heroes as Dick Turpin motivated by Robin Hood impulses? Why were public executions regarded as entertainment and not deterrents? The author attempts to answer all these questions in this study of a society he characterizes as riddled with insecurities and governed by envies and fears. The book is aimed at students - graduate and undergraduate - of 18th European and British history, and those interested in crime, the law, criminality, and punishment.