Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England

Transcription

1 Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England

2 Also by David Lemmings GENTLEMEN AND BARRISTERS: THE INNS OF COURT AND THE ENGLISH BAR, PROFESSORS OF THE LAW: BARRISTERS AND ENGLISH LEGAL CULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY THE BRITISH AND THEIR LAWS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (edited ) Also by Claire Walker GENDER AND POLITICS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: ENGLISH CONVENTS IN FRANCE AND THE LOW COUNTRIES

3 Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England Edited by David Lemmings Professor of History, University of Adelaide and Claire Walker Senior Lecturer in History, University of Adelaide

4 Editorial matter and selection David Lemmings and Claire Walker 2009 All remaining chapters their respective authors 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

5 Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Note on Works Cited in Endnotes vii viii ix xi 1 Introduction: Law and Order, Moral Panics, and Early Modern England 1 David Lemmings 2 The Concept of the Moral Panic: An Historico-Sociological Positioning 22 David Rowe 3 This Newe Army of Satan : The Jesuit Mission and the Formation of Public Opinion in Elizabethan England 41 Alexandra Walsham 4 Cross-dressing and Pamphleteering in Early Seventeenth-Century London 63 Anna Bayman 5 Fear made Flesh: The English Witch-Panic of Malcolm Gaskill 6 A sainct in shewe, a Devill in deede : Moral Panics and Anti-Puritanism in Seventeenth-Century England 97 Tim Harris 7 Remember Justice Godfrey : The Popish Plot and the Construction of Panic in Seventeenth-Century Media 117 Claire Walker 8 The Dark Side of Enlightenment: The London Journal, Moral Panics, and the Law in the Eighteenth Century 139 David Lemmings 9 Forgers and Forgery: Severity and Social Identity in Eighteenth-Century England 157 Randall McGowen v

6 vi Contents 10 How frail are Lovers vows, and Dicers oaths : Gaming, Governing and Moral Panic in Britain, Donna T. Andrew 11 A Moral Panic in Eighteenth-Century London? The Monster and the Press 195 Cindy McCreery 12 The British Jacobins: Folk devils in the Age of Counter-Revolution? 221 Michael T. Davis 13 Conclusion: Moral Panics, Law and the Transformation of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England 245 David Lemmings Index 267

7 Illustrations 7.1 The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinalls, Jesuits, Fryers, &c: through the City of London, November the 17 th 1679 (1680). Image courtesy of the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum Lucipher s new Row-Barge (c. 1721). Image courtesy of the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum William Dent, A Representation of Rynwick alias Renwick Williams, commonly called the Monster (1790). Image courtesy of the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum Isaac Cruickshank, The Monster Cutting a Lady/Copper Bottoms to Prevent being Cut (1790). Image courtesy of the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum James Gillray, Swearing to the Cutting Monster or a Scene in Bow Street (1790). Image courtesy of the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum James Gillray, The Republican Attack (1795). Image courtesy of the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum. 222 vii

8 Acknowledgements This book originated in a symposium on Moral Panics, the Media and the Law, held at the University of Newcastle, Australia, in September We are very grateful to all the participants who attended and helped to flesh out our ideas, especially those who travelled from Britain and North America. The symposium and this collection of essays form part of a larger project on Moral Panics and the Law in eighteenth-century England, which was funded by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council. We take this opportunity to thank the ARC for their continuing willingness to fund pure research in the humanities. We would also like to acknowledge the University of Newcastle s financial contribution to the symposium, and the University of Adelaide for its continuing support. In addition we are grateful to Robert Martin for his assiduous proof-reading and assistance with the index. viii

9 Notes on Contributors Donna T. Andrew is Professor of History at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Her published research has centred on the public sphere and eighteenth-century English culture, especially manners, morals and class formation. She is the author of Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) and co-author (with Randall McGowen) of The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd: Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Anna Bayman is Assistant Editor for the English Historical Review and a member of the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. Her research is on pamphleteering in the Elizabethan and early Stuart period. She has published articles on pamphlets about rogues, witches, and female writers, and is completing a book on Thomas Dekker. Michael T. Davis is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Tasmania. He researches in the area of British political, social and legal history, with a focus on working-class culture and discourses. His publications include as editor Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), a six-volume collection on the London Corresponding Society (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2002), (with Iain McCalman and Christina Parolin) Newgate in Revolution: An Anthology of Radical Prison Literature in the Age of Revolution (Continuum, 2005), (with Paul Pickering) Unrespectable Radicals? Popular Politics in the Age of Reform (Ashgate, 2008) and (with Brett Bowden) Terror: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism in Europe, 1605 to the Future (University of Queensland Press, 2008). Malcolm Gaskill is Reader in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. His recent publications include Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), and Witchfinders: a Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy (London: John Murray, 2005). Tim Harris is Munro-Goodwin-Wilkinson Professor in European History at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He has published extensively on popular politics and culture in late seventeenth-century England, and his recent books include Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2005) and Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2006). ix

10 x Notes on Contributors David Lemmings is Professor of History in the School of History and Politics at the University of Adelaide. He is the author of Gentlemen and Barristers: The Inns of Court and the English Bar, (Oxford, OUP, 1990), and Professors of the Law: Barristers and English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, OUP, 2000), and editor of The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005). He is currently completing a book on law, governance and English society in the eighteenth century. Cindy McCreery is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the role of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and colonial illustrated press, including satirical prints. Major works include The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in late Eighteenth-century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) and Ports of the World: Prints from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Philip Wilson Publishers, 1999). Randall McGowen is Professor of History at the University of Oregon. He is co-author (with Donna Andrew) of The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd: Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). He has written many articles on the cultural history of the death penalty, and is currently at work on a book on forgery and criminal law reform in early nineteenth-century England. David Rowe s doctoral studies at the University of Essex, UK, partially overlapped with the tenure of Stan Cohen, who first developed the concept of moral panic, as Professor in its Department of Sociology. Professor Rowe is currently Director of the Centre for Cultural Research (CCR), University of Western Sydney, Australia. His books include Sport, Culture and the Media: The Unruly Trinity (second edition, Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2004) and Critical Readings: Sport, Culture and the Media (edited, Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2004). Claire Walker is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Adelaide. Her published research has focussed on religious women and the politics of recusancy in early modern England. She is the author of Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Alexandra Walsham is Professor of History at the University of Exeter, UK. She has published extensively on the religious and cultural history of early modern Britain and is the author of Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1993), Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: OUP, 1999) and Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2006).

11 Note on Works Cited in Endnotes All works cited were published in London, unless specified otherwise. xi