E. P. Thompson – Whigs and Hunters, The Origin of the Black Act
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E. P. Thompson – Whigs & Hunters, The Origin of the Black Act
[Penguin 1990] buy used at abebooks.co.uk If you use this link to purchase this item breviary stuff will receive 5% commission 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
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