Earl Mervin Touchet's Sodomy Trial

Early Modern European considered sodomy an affront to society that it was a capital offence. Although this was a rather harsh punishment, most cases of sodomy never made it into trial. Those that end in a trial include an additional element that brought it to the State’s attention. The case of Earl Mervin Touchet, on April 25, 1631, involved a nobleman who faced a trial for rape and sodomy. His peers presided over the case and sentenced him to hang. In a different case, Thomas Rivers’ trial occurred on December 11, 1667, in which his apprentice accused him of sodomy, causing his near execution. The king ultimately pardons Rivers. Captain Edward Rigby was charged with sodomy for soliciting sex toward William Minton on December 7, 1698. His punishments
involved being humiliated on the pillory in three different locations, paying a fine and imprisonment for a year. The cases of Earl Mervin, Thomas Rivers, and Captain Edward Rigby shows that sodomy was common in Early Modern Europe yet the cases in which they were prosecuted, entailed some transgression that society needed to correct whether the status of patriarchy, monopoly of violence, or the change in the sexual status of male identity.
On April 25, 1631, Earl Mervin walked in front to the great table in which Lord Coventry was the lord High Steward who preside as the representative of the king. His crimes so abominable that 26 lords judge him, a trial by his peers, a privilege (rare event) reserved only in treason trials. His indictment was for rape and sodomy, and the Earl plead not guilty. The crime described in the deposition is that the Earl had intercourse with two servants and allowed both his wife and daughter to have sex with his servants. The master Attorney mentions that the crime of sodomy was to be prosecuted by Elizabeth’s law, a law created by King Henry 8th. Sodomy’s criminalization in England comes from the reign of King Henry the 8th, who created the Buggery Act in 1553. An interesting result from this trial is that the decision by his peers all supported the charges of rape while only 15 said he was guilty of sodomy. Sentenced to death by hanging, the punishment for buggery, yet the trial shows how little sodomy played a role in his conviction.
The bigger reason that the crime of sodomy was not the issue in the trial comes from the expectation of male sexuality.
As Randolph Trumbach says, a rake was an aristocratic man that sexually pursued young males and females. Earl Mervin was married two times and in the deposition, two of his servants accused him of sodomizing them. Rakes brought fear and awe to society, seeing them as an example of “masculine self-assertion.” As a starting point in male sexuality, the earl’s action by itself was not a problem. Many rakes were not persecuted since it involves those in the upper echelon of society. The only reason some sodomites faced prosecution involved an exception such as political and economic factors, violence, and a crime against nature. Under sodomy charges, Earl Mervin suffered for subverting society in a way that his fellow lords could not
forgive.
The significance of the trial of Earl Mervin is in showing how early 17th century England did not care about sodomy but his transgression to his status of being a patriarch. The revealing aspect of the deposition is that two servants admitted to sodomy with the lord but multiple testimonies mentioned the lord’s generous gifts to his servants. Earl Mervin was a man and the expectation in Early Modern Europe was for a patriarch to care for his family but as Cynthia Herrup says, “The Earl’s alleged profligacy and lewdness made him the enemy rather than the protector of the house and so by implication the enemy of every household.” As a patriarch of a great house, he had obligations such as caring for his children, wife, and being a proper master. The sin of sodomy was in how it breaks the conventional boundaries in Early Modern Europe. The action that is mentioned by the Master Attorney and is testified by the Earl is that he had given his servant Henry Skipwith 500 l’. per annum. As a father his money was to be given to his first child to continue his legacy yet such as frivolous gift to a servant shows how he did not care about social convention. So, it was no wonder that his son and the countess, his wife, brought these crimes to the king’s attention. Although this action brought about the indictment, the action to motivate both the lord’s conviction and his greatest crime was in breaking one of the fundamental aspect of European society.
The greatest offence that the lord had done in the eyes of his peers is that of allowing his wife to be raped by his servant. This affront to how families needed to work is turned on its head in this action since the Earl mocks it in saying that his wife’s body is his and as long as he gives his consent, he takes the responsibilities. This comment presents two different views in which part of Early Modern Europe supported and another opposed. A wife had a subservient role to their husband. The idea that Lord Mervin allowed his wife to be raped violates not only convention of sex between married people but also the institution of marriage. The revealing manner of how this case became a case against the lord for transgressing the societal norms comes from the fact that his wife and servants gave testimony against him.
The image provided with the arraignment shows the true portrait of Earl Castlehaven and shows the fear that the state tried to convey through sodomites. The image displays a man with hair that goes to about his shoulders. His face presents a contrast. Most of his face is seen but his left side is shaded darker. His clothes are all black and wears a white collar that covers his shoulders. This image presents a rather frightening image for those who read this pamphlet or even those who looked at the picture. The shading on the left side is there to invoke the dark side of the lord, as a proof of his guilt.
A friend of Rivers would write an account of his near execution. The story starts with a master gardener by the name of Thomas River, who was age 27 and lived in South-Hampton in Vine Street while Henry Wells was a boy of 15. Wells was his apprentice for three months but he would run back to his mother’s home. Master Rivers would get two warrants to get him back. When questioned by the authorities the boy gives the reason for running away was that Master Rivers had at “several time Bugger’s him.” At this accusation Rivers was imprisoned and had a trial in the old Bailey on December 11, 1667. Under oath, Wells says that when River’s wife was gone, Rivers asked if he was cold. Upon confirming it, Rivers sodomizes him. He also recounts that Rivers took him to his cellar and tied his wrist and “abused him” and later doing the same outside in a field. In Rivers trial, the constable and the Beadle support the child’s testimony saying that they saw the master do it. The judge would find Rivers guilty and sentence him to be hanged at the Tyburn, the place of execution. Henry Wells later confessed to lying and the king pardoned Rivers.
This document presents a moralizing story, short in content but a rather clear message. Sodomy in this story is rather light considering that aside from the child’s accusation and story in the trial, the rest of the document only describes the efforts of a minister to get the child to tell the truth. Once Wells admits that his story was false, the king pardons Rivers. It, therefore, plays as a type of propaganda that shows the strength of the state by pardoning a wrongly convicted person. The divine intervention that this case presents would show that only those who are guilty of such a horrible crime were punished. Yet, the reality was that the authorities did not care about sodomy unless it came to their attention in a special manner.
This case follows a similar example of how Early Modern Europe did not care about sodomy unless some transgression occurred such as violence.
As James Saslow mention, “Sodomy was practiced across the entire spectrum of middle-and lower- class occupation: London merchants and actors…” Although not a rake, sodomy in the lower classes still exhibit the traits of those above, in which a master and apprentice follows the pederast model. Pederasty relations are those relations between two men, in which one was older usually with a beard, and the other was a prepubescent boy. A practice that originates from Greece, it was also common in Italy, especially Florence. As mentioned in the case of Earl Mervin, a male adult was allowed relations with a young man since they shared feminine features. This relationship although frowned upon was not a problem but it depended on what brought it to the authority’s attention. The violation that occurred in Rivers case is based on violence. In the trial, Wells accuses the master of binding him and abusing him both in a cellar and in a public field. The apprentice describing what occurred to him as abuse, which fall under the definition of a violent
act.
The image helps express the dangers of sodomy. The two main elements in the image is the gallows with a hangman’s noose and a man on a castle with his hand out. The man atop the castle has rather elegant clothing with wide sleeves, wearing a dark hat and a collar. The gallows helps emphasize the dangers of sodomy in which punishment for this sin was hanging. The man therefore must be the king and the power he controls to punish and pardon those he sees fit.
The document about the proceedings against Captain Edward Rigby describes his indictment and ultimate sentence of guilty for the crime of sodomy. Captain Rigby in his trial plead neither guilty nor not guilty but “demurred” the decision to the indictment. Captain Rigby on Wednesday of November 5, 1698 met William Minton in St James Park. He put his penis in Minton’s hand, which causes Minton to back away. Rigby then tells Minton to meet him in George Tavern on the coming Monday at five in the evening and to ask for room 4. Minton then meets up with his roommate Charles Coates about his encounter with Captain Rigby. With his help, he would make a plan to use the constable to protect himself from Captain Rigby. When Minton felt threaten he was to stomps on the floor and yells “Westminster” as a signal for help. Minton meets Rigby in room 4 at six while the constable and his associates were in a neighboring room. Rigby plays and kisses Minton once they are in the room. When Minton says that actions like that are for women, Rigby rebukes him by saying, “Dam’em, they are all poxt(?), I’ll have none of them.” Captain Rigby later removes Minton’s pants, bends him over, and talks lasciviously. Minton escapes this and runs toward the door. Rigby then draws his sword. Minton tells Rigby that he will pay for his crimes and does the signal, which brings in the constable. In the end, Captain Rigby would give the excuse of being drunk, and since he demurred to the indictment, he was punished by standing in the pillory in three different location on three different days. He was also to pay a fine of 1000 l’ to the king and stay in prison for one year.
The case that appears chance encounter, yet actually included a person who set it all up. The first cases to be set up by the Society for the Reformation of Manners, shorten to morals, a group desiring to bring a stricter social disciplining to Europe. The society of manners was set up in London on 1690 and collected names and address of people who transgress the morals of the city. The Rigby case was one of the first examples of this society trying to capture men who sodomize. As Rictor Norton says, “But Thomas Bray, a member of the Society for the Reformation of Manner, believed [Rigby] to be guilty, and worked out a plan with the constabulary to entrap him, using as bait a servant by the name of William Minton.” Rigby seemed to be involved in a court martial that acquitted him of sodomy, yet Morals wanted to make an example of him. This shows an evolution in London and by extension European society desiring stricter social disciplining.
The problems that Moral society desired to reform were molly clubs, seen in the example of Captain Rigby. The location of the tavern, which was a place where equals would drink with each other, would be a place where men could lodge and have intercourse. Although in this case, Captain Rigby was captured and punished, he expresses the classification of the Beau or a middle ground between a Fop and a Rake. Rakes were men of the aristocracy that pursued both woman and boys while the Fop is an overdressed man that was effeminate, essentially being the connection of sodomy to men who seek only men. What these different names for men who do actions that would be closer to what females were expected to do shows an evolution. In the way in which Earl Mervin was sexually dominant toward both men and woman, yet kept his gender identity, Captain Rigby would be closer to breaking the boundaries that Early Modern Europe desired to maintain.
The idea of a man preferring the relation of a man in the case of Captain Rigby becomes especially important considering both the decline of prostitution in early modern Europe and the plague. Prostitution by 1698 would be criminalized, yet existing in not only England but also most of Europe. The Protestant Reformation helped in criminalizing seen especially in Martin Luther’s influence in making marriage the only way to have sex and propaganda. The interesting part, in this case, is the response Captain Rigby gives in which, As he says, “Dam’em, they are all poxt, I’ll have none of them.” Plagues would sweep over Europe and although at first they would not be associated only with prostitutes, but they would over time. It, therefore, explains one reason that some men would prefer to have intercourse with other men, that they will not get a disease.
The manner in which Captain Rigby expresses a transgression was in breaking the boundaries of sexual mores of Europe. As mentioned above, Captain Rigby presents a different man that rather than being a bisexual who follows the idea that men must be aggressors, he prefers to be with only men. This is seen in the event when Minton asks him how can two men have intercourse. He remarks, “ for it’s no more than was done in our fore fathers time…that the French king did it, and the czar of muscovy made Alexander, a carpenter, a prince for that purpose.” Rigby’s response shows that he has an understanding of the historic precedent of sodomy, as mentioned in the Rivers example. Greeks were the fore fathers of western Europeans and Captain Rigby by referring to this shows that he has social consciousness similar to that of the upper class renaissance artist and intellectuals.
Rigby appealing to the upper class sodomite comes from his personal experience.
Captain Edward Rigby’s image in contrast to that of Earl Mervin presents a transformation in the appearance and action of sodomites. Captain Rigby as mentioned was a beau, or a man with tendencies like the rake, and the appearance of the fop . This is best seen in his how overdressed he is, with a jerkin with a flowery patter and both the jerkin and coat he wears have many buttons. He has a mane that is imposing, curly and its length would extend a little a bit under his shoulders. This image presents a self-confident man who keeps himself well-groomed and well dressed. It is no wonder that the committee of morals targeted Captain Rigby, since with the mix of rake behavior and fop appearance, an evolution in male identity appeared.
A common idea that is shown from all these cases is the significance of what the person indicted for sodomy declares. The severity of the punishment depends on the willingness of the accused to agree to the law than anything else. In the case of Castlehaven, in his trial, he would say he was not guilty and even asserting a plot between his wife and his son. In the case of Thomas Rivers, he would assert his innocence until the very end. In the case of Captain Edward Rigby, he would demure his decision and in the end give alcohol to be the reason for his odd behavior. Although these three sources all come from England, the crime of sodomy would be prosecuted very rarely. In both the Rivers and Earl Mervin case, the accusation of sodomy included the charge of penetrative sodomy. In both these cases, there was also the implication of penetration, which for Early Modern Europe was utterly unforgivable. Captain Rigby would only try to do it, which allows him to be merely shamed and jailed a better result than death. Early Modern Europe had a strict definition for sex, and as these cases show, although kissing became discourages by the late 17th century, it was not enough for Rigby to get the death sentence.