Abstract

Abstract This essay argues that the bold affirmation of the political, rather than the religious, purpose of his liturgical parodies enabled the journalist, satirist, and publisher William Hone (1780–1842) to turn three accusations of blasphemous libel into the triple defence of the freedom of the press during his trials in December 1817. Hone was accused of blasphemous and seditious libel for having printed and published three liturgical parodies in the early months of that year. These were The Late John Wilkes’s Catechism of a Ministerial Member, The Political Litany, Diligently Revised and The Sinecurist’s Creed, or Belief. He conducted his own defence and, against the odds, was acquitted in all three trials. On January 23, 1818, Hone published the narrated transcripts of the trials. The present essay analyses and interprets those transcripts, highlighting Hone’s eloquence, his de-sacralisation of court ritual, and, most important, the strategic use of satire as a legitimate method of political criticism and as an index of the freedom of the press. The Conclusion focuses on the political and cultural significance of Hone’s rebuttal performance and claims his long-standing right to our attention.

Highlights

  • The satirist, journalist, bookseller, and publisher William Hone (1780–1842) was put on trial on three consecutive days – December 18, 19, and 20, 1817 – for having printed and published in late January or early February of 1817 three liturgical parodies parodying the Church Catechism, the Litany, and the Athanasian Creed

  • Hone was prosecuted on three ex-officio informations4 and accused of blasphemous and seditious libel

  • In Memoirs from Childhood, an incomplete autobiography included in Frederick Hackwood’s work William Hone: His Life and Times, his interest for prints and books – the latter possibly stimulated by seeing his father constantly reading the Bible – is so evident that it is difficult to overstate their lasting influence

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Summary

Introduction

The satirist, journalist, bookseller, and publisher William Hone (1780–1842) was put on trial on three consecutive days – December 18, 19, and 20, 1817 – for having printed and published in late January or early February of 1817 three liturgical parodies parodying the Church Catechism, the Litany, and the Athanasian Creed. When the Attorney-General quoted Hone’s parody: “the Minister for the time being always obliges all his creatures to swear I, the Minister, am the Lord thy liege, who brought thee out of want and beggary into the House of Commons” (Hone, Trials 9), Mr Justice Abbott had to warn the audience that: 21 The allegation of truthfulness constituted no defence against a charge of libel In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, Blackstone (Book 4, 112) argued that “the provocation, and not the falsity, is the thing to be punished criminally.”. The meeting closed with an optimistic note stressing the power of the juries (Hone, Trials 232)

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