(Source: Routledge)
Routledge has published a new
book on homicide and the law in 18th century England.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This volume uses four case
studies, all with strong London connections, to analyze homicide law and the
pardoning process in eighteenth-century England. Each reveals evidence of how
attempts were made to negotiate a path through the justice system to avoid
conviction, and so avoid a sentence of hanging. This approach allows a deep examination
of the workings of the justice system using social and cultural history
methodologies. The cases explore wider areas of social and cultural history in
the period, such as the role of policing agents, attitudes towards sexuality
and prostitution, press reporting, and popular conceptions of
"honorable" behavior. They also allow an engagement with what has
been identified as the gradual erosion of individual agency within the law, and
the concomitant rise of the state. Investigating the nature of the pardoning
process shows how important it was to have "friends in high places,"
and also uncovers ways in which the legal system was susceptible to accusations
of corruption. Readers will find an illuminating view of eighteenth-century
London through a legal lens.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Drew D. Gray is the head of
Humanities at the University of Northampton.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction and Themes
2. "Mercy Without Justice"?
Press Criticism of the Pardoning Process in Late Eighteenth-Century London: The
Kennedy Case of 1770
3. "There Goes Clarke, That
Blood-Selling Rascal": Murder, Revenge and the Crowd in Early 1770s
Spitalfields
4. The Royal Duchess and the
Apothecary’s Son: Homicide, Communal Prejudice and Pleading for Pardon in
Provincial England
5. Sex, Scandal and
Strangulation: The Strange Case of Francis Kotzwara and Susannah Hill
6. Conclusions
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