Dissenters, Radicals, Heretics and Blasphemers

John Hostettler

Description

Shows the historical importance of challenges to the state and powerful groups. Demonstrates how rights we take for granted have been acquired and set into Law over time thanks to the actions of committed men and women.

Sujets

• Legal history
• Human rights
• Activism

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908162144
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
About the author
INTRODUCTION
EARLY CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND POLITICS
Introduction
Pelagius
English Nationalism
Independence
Charge of Heresy
Indestructible Views
JOHN WYCLIFFE
Early Protestant
John of Gaunt
Church Indulgences
Bible in English
Politics
End of Pope’s Power of Inquisition
Death
RELIGIOUS MARTYRDOM
Sir John Oldcastle
Abuse of Criminal Law
Transubstantiation
Found Guilty
Death by Fire
Poor Priests
WAT TYLER AND THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT
Hated Poll Tax
Black Death
Wat Tyler and the March on London
Rebel Demands
Meeting the King
Vengeance
Heroic Message
CROMWELL’S COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE
Undermining the Traditional Ethos
John Lilburne and the Levellers
The Putney Debates
Trials of “Freeborn John”
Judges are Ciphers
“Perverse Verdict”
Women Levellers
Second Prosecution of Lilburne
Prophecy
The Diggers or True Levellers
Gerard Wynstanley
St George’s Hill and Cobham
Political Programme
THE ISLAND BEDLAM
The Seekers and Ranters
Scourges of the Wealthy
Abominable Practices
Muggletonians
Fifth Monarchists
Barebone’s Parliament
THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
Quakers
Blasphemy
William Penn
Alleged Conspiracy
Common Law
Incredible Scenes in Court
Bushell’s Case
Changing Image
JOHN COOKE
Barrister-at-Law
Solicitor-General
Prosecuting the King
“Refusal to Plead is a Confession”
Trial of John Cooke
Vitriol
JOHN MILTON
Revolutionary Ardour
Divorce Pamphlets
Secretary for Foreign Tongues
Freedom of Speech
The Restoration
Paradise Lost
Optimism
JOHN BUNYAN
From Tinker to Christian
Soldier in the New Model Army
Imprisonment
The Pilgrim’s Progress
Milton, Bunyan, Defoe
Affinity with the Ranters
DANIEL DEFOE
Political Leanings
The True-born Englishman
Defending Dissenters
Robinson Crusoe
JOHN WILKES
The Hellfire Club
The North Briton
Wilkes and Liberty!
Absurd Ruling
Massacre of St. George’s Fields
Unconstitutional Ploy
Unreformed Parliament
TOM PAINE
Common Sense
The Rights of Man
Social Reform
Trial for Seditious Libel
Alleged Spy in France
The Age of Reason
Return to America
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
The Clapham Sect
Crusade Against the Slave Trade
Morality
The End
THOMAS HARDY AND THE TREASON TRIALS OF 1794
Government Repression
Rehearsal in Scotland
Reign of Terror
Trial of the Shoemaker
William Pitt’s Testimony
Victory Tokens
Hardy to Lafayette
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
Early Development
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Controversy
William Godwin
THE PETERLOO MASSACRE
“Orator” Hunt
The Yeomen Charge
York Assizes
Eventual Success
REFORM OR REVOLUTION
Franchise Anomalies
The Reform Bill
Rioting
Bristol in Flames
Aftermath
Propaganda
Francis Place
Victory
CHARTISM: JOHN FROST AND ERNEST JONES
The Peoples’ Charter
Women Supporters
Divisions within the Movement
John Frost
Bull Ring Violence
The Newport Rising
High Treason
Chartist Leaders Gaoled
Kennington Common
Ernest Jones, the Chartists’ Advocate
“The Charter and No Surrender”
Red Republican
THOMAS WAKLEY — AN ENEMY OF INJUSTICE
An Improbable Radical
The Lancet
The Ballot
Tolpuddle Martyrs
Friend of Chartism
The People’s Judge
Coroner for West Middlesex
Death by Flogging
KEIR HARDIE
Self-help
The Cloth Cap
The Independent Labour Party
The Birth of the Labour Party
The Labour Party and the Taff Vale Case
Aftermath
International Impact
Folk-hero
THE PANKHURSTS AND THE SUFFRAGETTES
Votes for Women
Birth of the Suffragette Movement
The Mud March
Schism and Successes
In Court
Forced Feeding of Hunger Strikers
More Violence
“Cat and Mouse”
The Derby
Appraisal
Sylvia Pankhurst
Stream of Dissent
MARIE STOPES
Campaigner for Birth Control
The Mothers’ Clinic
Eugenics
International Success
BATTLE OF CABLE STREET
British Union of Fascists
“They Shall Not Pass”
BUF Defeat
CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
The Atomic Age
J. B. Priestley’s Call
Aldermaston Marches
Committee of 100
Cuban Missile Crisis
Greenham Common
Current Policy
MODERN REVOLT
Rebels
The Angry Brigade
Battle of The Beanfield
Poll Tax Riots
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Dissenters, Radicals, Heretics and Blasphemers
The Flame of Revolt that Shines Through English History
John Hostettler
Copyright and Publication Information

Dissenters, Radicals, Heretics and Blasphemers The Flame of Revolt that Shines Through English History
John Hostettler
ISBN 978-1-904380-82-5 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-908162-07-6 (E-book)
Published 2012 by Waterside Press Ltd. Telephone [phone] Sherfield Gables E-mail [e-mail] Sherfield on Loddon Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk Hook, Hampshire United Kingdom RG27 0JG
UK distributor Gardners Books, 1 Whittle Drive, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN23 6QH . Tel: [phone]; [e-mail]; www.gardners.com
North American distributor International Specialized Book Services ( ISBS ), 920 NE 58th Ave, Suite 300, Portland, Oregon, 97213-3786, USA . Tel: [phone] Fax [phone]; [e-mail]; www.isbs.com
Copyright © 2012 This work is the copyright of John Hostettler. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by the author in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of the publishers to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide.
Cover design © 2012 Waterside Press. Design by www.gibgob.com
Cataloguing-In-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.
e-book Dissenters, Radicals, Heretics and Blasphemers is available as an ebook (ISBN 978-1-908162-07-6) and also to subscribers of Myilibrary and Dawsonera.
Printed by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn.
About the author
John Hostettler was a practising solicitor in London for 35 years as well as undertaking political and civil liberties cases in Nigeria, Germany and Aden. He sat as a magistrate for a number of years and has also been a chairman of tribunals. He played a leading role in the abolition of flogging in British colonial prisons and served on a Home Office Committee to revise the rules governing electoral law in Britain. He holds several university degrees and three doctorates. Dissenters, Radicals, Heretics and Blasphemers is his 21st book.
His biographical works include those on the radical social reformer Thomas Wakley and legal icons Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Sir Edward Carson, Sir Edward Coke, Lord Halsbury and Sir Matthew Hale.
John Hostettler’s writings also encompass a succession of acclaimed works for Waterside Press, including The Criminal Jury Old and New: Jury Power from Early Times to the Present Day ; Fighting for Justice: The History and Origins of Adversary Trial ; Hanging in the Balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain (with Brian P. Block and a Foreword by former Prime Minister Lord Callaghan); the all-embracing A History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales ; Champions of the Rule of Law ; and the reissue of a work previously published by Barry Rose, Sir Thomas Erskine .
In 2009, his book Sir William Garrow: His Life, Times and Fight for Justice , co-written with Richard Braby (a descendant of William Garrow), rescued from obscurity the true story of one of English law’s forgotten legal giants, a tale mirrored by the prime time BBC TV series “Garrow’s Law”.
Dedication

To my wife Joy for her considerable help and many ­suggestions on reading the manuscript.
Review

This book is a glorious Molotov cocktail to be placed in the hands of every citizen and lobbed at the status quo. John Hostettler’s inventory of leading Dissenters throughout our history reminds us that dissent is the intellectual tradition which keeps liberty alive and energises democracy. A brilliant and exhilarating work. A counter to the politics of passivity.
Helena Kennedy QC
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Heroes
The British men and women who merit a place in what follows have all had a profound impact on our way of life. Some were earnest and zealous individuals. Others were more hot-headed and impetuous. Frequently they are found to overlap in more than one of the categories referred to in the title. They sometimes gave their lives for liberty and the future but often they enjoyed to the full the lives they led and the esteem in which they were held by those who supported them. What they all wanted was to improve the lot of the common people against the few who endeavoured to preserve the status quo, meaning their own wealth, power and privilege. This meant, although they did not always know it, they were moving, sometimes intuitively and sometimes resolutely, inexorably towards the modern concept of democracy. They are among the heroes of the history of our land.
Dissenters
Dissent is a universal, explosive force that helps turn the wheels of history. By dictionary definition a dissenter is someone who refuses to conform. But that also applies to rebels who are a different breed, although the distinction can be a fine one. In the last chapter of this book I consider three groups of rebels whose activities have made a disturbing impact. But they did not significantly change the future.
In the main I deal with dissenters who are men and women who lead or join with others in a common cause to make the world a better place. Often they suffer imprisonment or death for their beliefs. They are frequently so-called “troublemakers” who change the society in which they live as recent events in North Africa and the Middle East have s