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Whigs and Hunters plunges into the murky waters of the early eighteenth century to chart the violently conflicting currents that boiled beneath the apparent calm of the time. The subject is the Black Act, a law of unprecedented savagery passed by Parliament in 1723 to deal with 'wicked and evil-disposed men going armed in disguise'. These men were pillaging the royal forests of deer, conducting a running battle against the forest officers with blackmail, threats and violence.

These 'Blacks', however, were men of some substance; their protest (for such it was) took issue with the equally wholesale plunder of the forest by Whig nominees to the forest offices. And Robert Walpole, still consolidating his power, took an active part in the prosecution of the 'Blacks'. The episode is laden with political and social implications, affording us glimpses of considerable popular discontent, political chicanery, judicial inequity, corrupt ambition and crime.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

Preface

Introduction: The Black Act

PART 1: Windsor

1. Windsor Forest

2. The Windsor Blacks

3. Offenders and Antagonists

PART 2: Hampshire

4. The Hampshire Forests

5. King John

6. Awful Examples

7. The Hunters

PART 3: Whigs

8. Enfield and Richmond

9. The Politics of the Black Act

10. Consequences and Conclusions

i. People

ii. Forests

iii. The Exercise of Law

iv. The Rule of Law

Appendix 1: The Black Act

Appendix 2: Alexander Pope and the Blacks

Note on Sources

Postscript to the Peregrine Edition

Index of Persons and Places

Subject Index