Take three parts Cobbett's "Complete Collection of State Trials," mix in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," sprinkle liberally with Debrett's peerage, add a public spectacle — and consider the erudite concoction of the pre-eminent sex scandal of the 17th century: "A House in Gross Disorder."
In 1631, Mervyn Touchet, Second Earl of Castlehaven, was accused of assisting in the rape of his own wife and committing sodomy with his servants. He was tried, found guilty and subsequently beheaded on Tower Hill. That he came to trial at all seems rather surprising, and he is one of the few English aristocrats ever executed for sexual misbehavior.
The principals in the case knew each other. Indeed, Castlehaven's son, Lord Audley, was his father's first accuser. Scholars have seldom examined the story, states Herrup, a Duke University professor of history and law, "because of its peculiarity, its salaciousness, and its apparent unimportance." Looking beyond the Agatha Christie elements, however, she determined that the disarray of the household involved legal, social and political problems not apparent on the surface.
In the 17th century, rape was about control of property and women; sodomy was about control of one's self. "Both felonies were much denounced, but little prosecuted, often vilified, but rarely punished." Ambiguity surrounded the definition of these acts, since there was no settled definition of carnal knowledge.
As Herrup demonstrates, Castlehaven was an outsider. An Irish peer, he had no ancient castle, no friends at court, no political dimension. According to rumor he was sympathetic to Catholicism, a dangerous stance in that place and time, though Audley himself was a staunch Catholic.
When he made the allegations against his father he was 19, on the brink of an inheritance that he feared might go to a servant on whom the earl had lavished property and affection. Audley's self-interest never appeared as damning to his interrogators as Casltehaven's risk of demeaning both his lineage and the integrity of the aristocracy.
During the trial, the legal inconsistencies of the case against the earl became apparent. The witnesses were mostly servants who were patently envious of one another, or other dependents. The countess, victim of the alleged rape, ranked much higher socially than her supposed attackers; why had she let six months elapse without reporting, or indeed ever speaking, about the incident?
"The critical proofs of the earl's ignominy," Herrup points out, "were non-sexual: his willingness to give away lands and goods, his inability to command his dependents, and his resolute defiance as a subject." She succeeds in putting the case in a new light. What condemned Casltehaven was not his libido but allegations of his incompetence. In a society where the harmony of the state was equated with the well-run household, the earl constituted a threat to the stability of the realm.
But was he guilty as charged? Here Herrup confronts a well-nigh insoluble problem: The events at Castlehaven's estate took place so long ago and under such ambiguous circumstances that it's virtually impossible to determine guilt or innocence. One of the reasons mystery stories appeal to readers is the sense of closure they bring to a puzzle. Still, Herrup shows that even without this sense of closure, many issues of the past remain viable.
