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The Prisoner of War and the Eighteenth-Century Prison
Britain and France were at war with each other for over half of the long eighteenth century. This period of sustained conflict produced immense changes, in both countries, in the character of the state and the course of economic development. Yet one of the most obvious ways in which contemporaries would have encountered the war was in the presence of large numbers of prisoners of war held by their country. Early in the century there were thousands of such captives, and by its end they numbered in the tens of thousands. Renaud Morieux takes this neglected topic for the focus of his multifaceted study. These prisoners created challenges that were legal and diplomatic, as well as administrative and financial. The citizens of each country found themselves having to learn to live with captives of a nation with which they were at war. In a work that is both theoretically informed and exhaustively researched, Morieux offers fresh insight into the consequences of war for European society.
Journal Article
Forgery and the Twelve Judges in Eighteenth-Century England
In his thoughtful and informative article on the twelve judges and judicial
review, James Oldham illuminates an important if little-studied corner of
eighteenth and nineteenth-century judicial practice. For centuries judges in
criminal (and civil) cases had reserved questions that presented peculiar
difficulties related to procedure or the interpretation of statute to the
consideration of their colleagues. We seldom glimpse much of the substance or
form of these deliberations. They were private and informal discussions,
although by the eighteenth century the participants in these meetings observed
well-understood conventions. Oldham outlines what these rules and practices
involved. Decisions, for instance, did not have to be unanimous. The majority
opinion took on the force of precedent, even though the deliberations often
survived only in unpublished notes or the memories of the judges. Oldham gives a
strong reading to this practice. Judges not only determined which cases would be
referred to their colleagues, they exercised considerable discretion in ruling
on the objections that had been raised. He views this process as offering
another example of the power of the judges to shape the character of legal
proceedings in early modern England. They were not only correcting procedural
mistakes that arose during a trial; they were actively interpreting statute. In
doing so, they demonstrated their decisive role in controlling the operation of
criminal justice over the long eighteenth century.
Journal Article
Managing the Gallows: The Bank of England and the Death Penalty, 1797–1821
Over thirty years ago Douglas Hay began his influential essay, “Property, Authority and the Criminal Law,” with the unsettling claim that “the rulers of eighteenth-century England cherished the death sentence.” He went on to offer a major reinterpretation of eighteenth-century justice, one with wide-ranging implications for how we understand English society in that period. The gallows, Hay argues, was meant to inspire terror. The passage of a large number of capital statutes spoke of the resolve of the ruling class to defend its property with the most extreme of measures. Yet the ultimate sanction was used sparingly. Hay's most important insight was to note the role of discretion in the operation of eighteenth-century justice. The choice not to impose death was as important as the occasions when offenders died. The elite deftly exploited these opportunities. The mercy dispensed by the Crown not only presented a more benign image of authority, it also taught the lessons of patronage and deference that instructed the lower orders in the proper attitude to take toward their social superiors. Thus justice worked more powerfully than religion to create legitimacy for the existing order.
Journal Article
America's Death Penalty
Over the past three decades, the United States has embraced the death penalty with tenacious enthusiasm. While most of those countries whose legal systems and cultures are normally compared to the United States have abolished capital punishment, the United States continues to employ this ultimate tool of punishment. The death penalty has achieved an unparalleled prominence in our public life and left an indelible imprint on our politics and culture. It has also provoked intense scholarly debate, much of it devoted to explaining the roots of American exceptionalism.
America's Death Penaltytakes a different approach to the issue by examining the historical and theoretical assumptions that have underpinned the discussion of capital punishment in the United States today. At various times the death penalty has been portrayed as an anachronism, an inheritance, or an innovation, with little reflection on the consequences that flow from the choice of words. This volume represents an effort to restore the sense of capital punishment as a question caught up in history. Edited by leading scholars of crime and justice, these original essays pursue different strategies for unsettling the usual terms of the debate. In particular, the authors use comparative and historical investigations of both Europe and America in order to cast fresh light on familiar questions about the meaning of capital punishment. This volume is essential reading for understanding the death penalty in America.
Contributors:David Garland, Douglas Hay, Randall McGowen, Michael Meranze, Rebecca McLennan, and Jonathan Simon.
eBook
The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd
The Perreaus and Mrs. Ruddtells the remarkable story of a complex forgery uncovered in London in 1775. Like the trials of Martin Guerre and O.J. Simpson, the Perreau-Rudd case-filled with scandal, deceit, and mystery-preoccupied a public hungry for sensationalism. Peopled with such familiar figures as John Wilkes, King George III, Lord Mansfield, and James Boswell, this story reveals the deep anxieties of this period of English capitalism. The case acts as a prism that reveals the hopes, fears, and prejudices of that society. Above all, this episode presents a parable of the 1770s, when London was the center of European finance and national politics, of fashionable life and tell-all journalism, of empire achieved and empire lost. The crime, a hanging offense, came to light with the arrest of identical twin brothers, Robert and Daniel Perreau, after the former was detained trying to negotiate a forged bond. At their arraignment they both accused Daniel's mistress, Margaret Caroline Rudd, of being responsible for the crime. The brothers' trials coincided with the first reports of bloodshed in the American colonies at Lexington and Concord and successfully competed for space in the newspapers. From March until the following January, people could talk of little other than the fate of the Perreaus and the impending trial of Mrs. Rudd. The participants told wildly different tales and offered strikingly different portraits of themselves. The press was filled with letters from concerned or angry correspondents. The public, deeply divided over who was guilty, was troubled by evidence that suggested not only that fair might be foul, but that it might not be possible to decide which was which. While the decade of the 1770s has most frequently been studied in relation to imperial concerns and their impact upon the political institutions of the day, this book draws a different portrait of the period, making a cause célèbre its point of entry. Exhaustively researched and brilliantly presented, it offers both a vivid panorama of London and a gauge for tracking the shifting social currents of the period.
eBook
Penal Reform and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century England
Politics in the Atlantic world, in the years around 1800, were shaped by the ideological contests that followed in the wake of the American and French Revolutions. This period saw fierce struggle between proponents of liberal, radical, or utopian principles, on the one hand, and conservative defenders of the established order, on the other. The lines were sharply drawn and the stakes were clear. While reformers dreamed of new beginnings, reactionary politicians feared that even modest change would undermine all authority. Among the various causes that stirred the passions of the advocates of change, one that attracted particular attention in
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