Cultural Skirmishes in 18th Century England: The Attack on Aristocratic Vice

Abstract

AbstractThis paper seeks to trace the evolution and nature of changing ideas about crime and vice in 18th century England. The new social history of England, which began in the 1960s, inspired perhaps most visibly by the works of E. P. Thompson, had as an early area of interest the history of plebeian criminality: motives, policing, the work of the courts and the nature of punishment. After the first wave of these groundbreaking studies, some historians started considering the crimes and vices of England's upper classes, which, in contrast, were treated quite differently by the courts, whether the offense was killing someone in a duel or killing oneself, both acts which were seen to be murderous, though no aristocrat was so punished. This change in direction created a body of work which complemented the fine earlier studies of plebeian crime and gave rise to studies of four aristocratic vices, i.e. duelling, suicide, adultery and gambling. What made these vices the focus of public attention, however, was the growth of the popular press which highlighted stories of such misdeeds and reported on whatever trials occurred as well as printing letters from their readers on their responses to these stories. This combination of vices unpunished, and a popular media which publicized the fact, enabled the emergence of a critique of aristocratic mores on moral and cultural grounds, and may have led to many of the “middling sort” to think that they were better people than their betters.