Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven

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Mervyn Tuchet

Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven , also Mervin Touchet, (* 1593 - 14 May 1631 in London ) was an English aristocrat who was sentenced to death for rape and fornication and executed.

Family background

Mervyn Tuchet was the son of George Tuchet, 1st Earl of Castlehaven , and his wife Lucy Mervyn. On February 20, 1616 (or 1617) he succeeded his father as Earl of Castlehaven . Before 1612 Lord Audley married the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Barnham, sister-in-law of the philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon . The marriage was reported to have been happy until Lady Elizabeth's death in 1622. The couple had six children. In his second marriage, the Earl married on July 22, 1624 in Harefield , Middlesex , again a wealthy woman, Lady Anne Stanley (1580-1647), daughter of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby , and widow ofGray Brydges, 5th Baron Chandos . She brought a daughter, Elizabeth, with her into the marriage, and a daughter died young. Lady Anne was much older than Tuchet, and the marriage was unhappy.

Castlehaven's eldest son James , who inherited the dignity of earls after his father's death, married his 13-year-old stepsister Elizabeth in 1628 at the age of 16. The presumed reason was that the inheritance should remain in the family.

Rape and fornication trial

The trial documents against Tuchet show that several men from the lower classes (Giles Broadway, Henry Skipwith, Amptill, Florence or Lawrence FitzPatrick) were taken into the house by the homosexual Earl and paid princely. There should have been group sex and abuse of the stepdaughter. In addition, Tuchet is said to have tried to get Skipwith to impregnate his stepdaughter, who was already married to his son James at the time. He married one of his daughters to Amptill. Skipwith, in turn, had an adulterous relationship with the wife of Tuchet; she is even said to have had a child from him, which disappeared, which Skipwith is said to have taken very badly. The son James stated that the extent of Tuchet's bondage to his male "favorites" eventually led to his lawsuit against the father in October 1630. The charges against Lord Castlehaven, based largely on information provided by the son, who appeared to be afraid of being disinherited, were tried before the Privy Council chaired by Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry , Lord High Steward .

The specific allegations were that Castlehaven had a homosexual relationship with a page named Lawrence Fitzpatrick and that his wife was being held so that Giles Broadway could rape her. Lord Castlehaven's wife described various types of sexual debauchery such as group sex and daughter abuse. The official prosecutor told the court that the earl became ill because he did not believe in God and this disbelief made him dangerous. The earl, in turn, protested his innocence; his wife and son conspired against him. He did not deny being homosexual and defended his love for Skipwith with the help of quotes from the Bible. In addition, he only had thigh intercourse. Lawrence FitzPatrick said during the trial that Anne, the Countess of Castlehaven, was "the most vicious woman in the world ". Indeed, all of the witnesses who testified against Tuchet benefited financially from his death.

The Castlehaven trial sparked a major public debate, witnesses were influenced, and Castlehaven, who was not granted a lawyer, remained innocent until the verdict. He was sentenced to death and beheaded on Tower Hill three weeks later, on May 14, 1631 . Page FitzPatrick were also executed for homosexual practices and Giles Broadway for rape; they were hanged.

reception

George Cokayne wrote in The Complete Peerage that, in his opinion, the Earl's death was a result of intrigues on the part of the Countess and that she herself had extramarital affairs.

The historian Cynthia Herrup, who analyzed the trial files and many other documents, takes the view that Castlehaven was executed mainly because he was Catholic and sympathized with the Irish. In addition, he had betrayed the patriarchal system according to which he had to keep his house and family "in order". Rictor Norton, historian of gay history, describes the Tuchet case as "a rich mixture of sexual scandal, family shame, greed, religious and national prejudice, outrage and drama". He criticizes Herrup for portraying the case from a feminist point of view and the two women alone as victims.

children

Mervyn Touchet married Elizabeth Barnham (1592–1622 / 4), daughter of the London Alderman Benedict Barnham and his wife Dorothea Smith , in their first marriage (around 1611) . They had six children:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cynthia B. Herrup, Touchet, Mervin, second earl of Castlehaven (1593–1631), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 1999, p. 12
  2. ↑ William Addams Reitwiesner: The descendants of Anne, Countess of Castle Haven on wargs.com
  3. ↑ a b Cynthia B. Herrup, Touchet, Mervin, second earl of Castlehaven (1593–1631) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
  4. ^ A b c d Rictor Norton, "The Trial of Mervyn Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, 1631", The Great Queens of History
  5. ↑ Cynthia B. Herrup, Touchet, Mervin, second earl of Castlehaven (1593–1631) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 1999, p. 19.
  6. ↑ The Castlehaven Scandal (1631) on earlystuartlibels.net

literature

predecessor Office successor
George Tuchet Earl of Castlehaven
1617-1631 		James Tuchet
personal data
SURNAME Tuchet, Mervyn, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Touchet, Mervin, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH 1593
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1631
Place of death London