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I study English Literature and for a class on Crime Literature in the 18th century we had to write a blog. They are amazing, these are my classmates.

The Godliman Immoralist

Verity’s Diary

Prigs and Wigs

The Golden Age of (Female) Piracy and Crime

All Hands Ahoy

Moll’s Chest

Tea, Cream & Punishment

The False Witness

Mag’s Garret

Goodfellows & Crimederellas

Perniciouspen

#other blogs #18th century #crime #academic stuff

takemetothegallows

Character design For pirates.

Isn’t this drawing amazing?

takemetothegallows

https://pin.it/13RiXFM

#female pirate #fanart #not mine

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Oct 28, 2020 - Read Welcome Back! from the story Tough Girl: The Coming of the Kraken by Kakashi828 with 1,617 reads. willturner, fanfiction, jacksparrowxreader.

takemetothegallows

https://pin.it/c3OwUOJ

This is awesome and not mine

#fanart #female pirate #pirates #piracy

Oct 28, 2020 - Read Welcome Back! from the story Tough Girl: The Coming of the Kraken by Kakashi828 with 1,617 reads. willturner, fanfiction, jacksparrowxreader.

#fanart #not mine

Jul 21, 2021 - This Pin was discovered by Lucía. Discover (and save!) your own Pins on Pinterest

This is awesome!

#female pirate #pirates #fanart #not mine

takemetothegallows

Cross-dressing

Women during the 18th century were incredibly oppressed, they had virtually no freedom, they were not allowed to inherit anything or to have money of their own, they were dependent of their fathers and husbands. Woman needed to protect their reputation and therefore their virtue, it was a difficult balance in between being innocent but not too innocent and being experienced but not too experienced. There were a lot a reasons why women deviated from what was expected of them, some of these turned to a life of crime others cross-dressed.

Crossdressing, as a lot of other things during the 18th century, was illegal in certain situation given there were events, mostly mascaraed balls, were it was normal for people to cross-dressed. Male cross-dressing was usually associated with prostitution and found more commonly in mascarades, women, in the other hand, cross-dressed for freedom. There are several recorded stories were women had a life parting as men, dome people did it for fun, others because they liked it, and in some cases to live a freer life. These events were so out of the ordinary that they were fictionalized for example The Female Husband by Henry Fielding.

An example of these type of women who sought freedom is Hannah Snell, also known as a Female soldier, was one of the most famous women to embark on warships as a marine. She married James Summa, a Dutchman, in 1744 and had a daughter who died seven months after her birth, and joined the navy and served for years before she revealed her identity around 1750. According to he diaries, while in service she suffered multiple injuries including around 500 lashes on her back, 6 shot on her right leg, five on the left and one on her groin but never allowed herself to be discovered.

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#hannah shell #18th century #contextual #crossdress #the female soldier

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The Female Husband: Miss Mary “George” Hamilton

Earlier this week Ms Mary Hamilton AKA George Hamilton, daughter of a former Sergeant in the Foot-Guards, was arrested for lying about her gender and marrying three different women while posing as a man before being caught. Mary Hamilton’s journey began when she was sent to Bristol where she lived with Mrs Johnson for a time, they became more than friends before Mrs Johnson became Mrs Rogers. This was the first instance Mary had that gave her any indication that she was not an ordinary woman.

The Female Husband was married two more times before being discovered, once in Dartmouth where she practiced medicine and married the daughter of Mr Ivythorn, she was discovered by her wife three days into their marriage. Ms Mary Hamilton believes this marriage to be her undoing, apparently, the woman was chased by her former father-in-law which caused her to be recognized in Glastonbury while looking at a patient. Her fourth and final wife was named Molly, and apparently, she was the only one she loved, well, as much as a person can romantically love someone of the same sex. They were married three months, three months! How did Molly not notice? We will never know.

pitrosa

The Female Husband

The Female Husband by Henry Fielding is a novella which he wrote after seeing a small note about it on the paper. Although the cover for the book stated Fielding had gotten first hand testimony this was not true, at most he spoke with his cousin Henry Gold who happened to be the prosecutor for this case. The Female Husband’s name was Mary Hamilton and in reality managed to get married to fourteen different women before being caught.

Based on the information he got from the newspaper and, supposedly, from his cousin, Fielding filled in the blanks with his own imagination. I doubt he intended to create a lesbian character but that’s exactly what he did, in his story, Mary Hamilton falls in love with a woman who later on breaks her heart and causes her to embark on a journey where she passes herself as a man and marries. Whether these marriages were out of attraction, love or something else varies, and given that it was the eighteenth century, an open lesbian relationship was too much for the era, which is probably why Mary’s last marriage doesn’t well.

Mary Hamilton marries Mary Price out of love making this her first and last real marriage, as well as, the longest one. Fielding could have had them both in madly in love while in the know and simply have Mary Price lie to save herself as her wife petitions, especially since he published it anonymously. In the novella, Mary Hamilton is caught while checking on a patient and is recognized by someone who knew her from her previous life, while married to wife number two but girl number four. In my head, Mary Hamilton and Mary Price married as men and wife because they loved each other and wife and wife was not possible at the time.

#critical #henry fielding #18th century #book #based on real life events

Character design For pirates.

Isn’t this drawing amazing?

#piracy #female pirate #18th century #fanart #not mine

Though pirates have existed since ancient times, the Golden Age of piracy was in the 17th and early 18th centuries. During this time more than 5000 pirates were said to be at sea.

#piracy #contextual #18th century #other blogs #crime #pirates

Cross-dressing

Women during the 18th century were incredibly oppressed, they had virtually no freedom, they were not allowed to inherit anything or to have money of their own, they were dependent of their fathers and husbands. Woman needed to protect their reputation and therefore their virtue, it was a difficult balance in between being innocent but not too innocent and being experienced but not too experienced. There were a lot a reasons why women deviated from what was expected of them, some of these turned to a life of crime others cross-dressed.

Crossdressing, as a lot of other things during the 18th century, was illegal in certain situation given there were events, mostly mascaraed balls, were it was normal for people to cross-dressed. Male cross-dressing was usually associated with prostitution and found more commonly in mascarades, women, in the other hand, cross-dressed for freedom. There are several recorded stories were women had a life parting as men, dome people did it for fun, others because they liked it, and in some cases to live a freer life. These events were so out of the ordinary that they were fictionalized for example The Female Husband by Henry Fielding.

An example of these type of women who sought freedom is Hannah Snell, also known as a Female soldier, was one of the most famous women to embark on warships as a marine. She married James Summa, a Dutchman, in 1744 and had a daughter who died seven months after her birth, and joined the navy and served for years before she revealed her identity around 1750. According to he diaries, while in service she suffered multiple injuries including around 500 lashes on her back, 6 shot on her right leg, five on the left and one on her groin but never allowed herself to be discovered.

#contextual #crossdress #18th century #female husband #the female soldier #women #historical #crime

takemetothegallows

Moll Flanders- A Minnie Series

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders

from 1996 is a mini-series adaptation of the 18th century novel written by Daniel Defoe in the perspective of the female protagonist,

Moll Flanders.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders from 1996 is a mini-series adaptation of the 18th century novel written by Daniel Defoe in the perspective of the female protagonist, Moll Flanders. This novel tells the story about the fall and rise of Moll Flanders, a beautiful woman born in Newgate Prison, as she navigates through 18th century society. The mini-series only has four episodes of approximately forty minutes each, with Alex Kingston as Moll Flanders and a young Daniel Craig as Jemmy, her final husband who was a highwayman.

In the novel, Defoe never allows Moll to describe herself in the book, her attitude and personality are the only things that are mentioned. Like in the novel, Moll Flanders is portrayed as a conniving, an ambitious woman who seeks a better life and in this search she falls into a life of crime. Her outfit and hairstyle changes depending of the situation she is in, for example when she is with her first family she is dressed as a servant with her curly-red hair tied back in a low bun, but later on, when she is fortune hunting, her hair is styled as is the trend and wears jewelry, big gowns with velvet details. Her husbands reflect their position in life with their clothing.

The series adds little details to the story that facilitate to the viewer to follow along the story, as well as five it the feel of a documentary. Moll is the narrator and her voice is used to mark the pass of time and to explain her feelings when necessary. Although she mostly sticks to providing context and narrating the passage of time, however whenever she does something extremely questionable she feels the need to justify herself to the camera, for example after Mr. Bland dies and she leaves her children with his relatives she justifies herself to the camera, almost as if she feels judged by the camera or even the audience. Another questionable episode is when she strays a little girl of her path to rob her and leaves her alone in an alley, something that has her feeling despicable.

Each of the episodes begin with a flash forward of Moll Flanders in prison and a man leading a crowd of well-dressed people to back of the prison. He’s shouting prices and sensationalist phrases as if he’s leading a tour group while sightseeing, some of the things he yells are along the lines of “follow me boys and girls, for entertainment and enlightenment “, presenting Moll as an attraction for being different to the other British society ladies. The tour guide mentions her marriages and even highlights her most shameful one, the one to her own brother, with the intention shocking his audience, and in consequence to shock the viewer as well. But yet again, that’s the power of people’s morbid curiosity.

The series starts with a prolepsis of Moll in the gallows before she starts telling her story from childhood, the first episode covering from her birth to the end of her marriage to the linen-draper. Obviously glassing over several small facts in order to make the story move along faster, for example the length of her affair to the oldest son of her first proper family, Rowland, as well as her miscarriage during the time she was his mistress. Although in the book, Molly is married a lot of times throughout the novel but only the most relevant were shown as is the case of the sons of the mayor, Rowland and Robin, the linen-draper, and in the second episode, her own brother, Lemuel. Surprisingly, given that there is a belief all women want children and that all women who have children must love them, the multiple children she births and abandon are shown.

The third episode begins by narrating her courtship and wedding to Jemmy. During their wedding night, as in the book, they realize that while they love each other they are both broke con artists, even Jemmy’s sister wasn’t his sister but his former partner in crime. They part ways, somewhat unwillingly from Moll’s side, but reunite some later she and a group of people traveling to London and they are stopped by highwaymen, they leader being Jemmy. From the adaptational point of view, it is understandable why the screenwriter decided to have the couple reunite before and not until the end like in the book. Jemmy’s intentions regarding Moll, his feelings and his reasoning for leaving her in the middle of the night needed to be explained, the audience had to know he truly loved her, so that, in the end when they reunite the suspense and expectation is greater.

After this encounter she meets the Bank Clerk. She marries him after he divorces his wife and gives him two children. After Mr. Bland dies and leaves Moll indebted she runs and leaves her kid with some relatives of her husband. The whole encounter is used as her introduction to a life of crime, before her husband’s death she was simply a con artist, after his death, she steals for the first time. After she recovers from her ordeal with the little girl, Mother, her land lady and person who lets her know where to fence the goods, introduces her to Lucy, another thief.

Moll and Lucy team up, start pulling scams and celebrating with Mother, and eventually become a couple before Lucy is caught and executed. Moll mentions she spends years as a thief before dipping her toe into prostitution, until eventually she is caught and sent to Newgate prison avoiding execution by claiming her belly. Moll convinces the authorities that she was with child to delay her execution. The scenes where a man leads a group of people into the prison to see Moll, turns out to be true, she even reconnects with Rowland. The ending of the series is different from the book’s, during her stay she meets Jemmy again, he has been arrested for murder and highway robbery, his case is weak, he requests to be sent to Virginia under Moll’s advise. He is released Meanwhile Moll is about to be hanged waiting to see if Jemmy can get her a pardon. Their story ends when they arrive to their new life in Virginia, where Moll has some properties and money her mother made sure to leave her with a promise of a new life, while in Defoe’s ending they reconnect with her children and later in life go back to England.

takemetothegallows

#moll flanders #jemmy #daniel defoe #daniel craig #critical #adaptation #alex kingston #18th century

Verity de St. Germain

The Count of St. Germain is considered a very mysterious man, very little is know about his origins or his past. During his younger years, at barely twenty-years-old he fell in love with his long time friend Esmée Beauchamp, and married her. She was the daughter of a Duke and because of it a lot of people frowned upon their relationship, but it just worked. Shortly after they married they welcomed their daughter Verity de St. Germain, she was born with big green eyes and a deep-red hair, as time passed she grew into a beautiful woman who did not fit into her time. Her childhood was not a common one, her father, the count, travelled all over the world and sometimes took her and his wife with him. Verity loved to learn, she loved to read, her parents taught her everything they knew and allowed her to learn from the people she met during their travels. However she was shelter, most of her time was spent at their home behind four walls, she was rarely allowed out and when she did venture into the outside world she was accompanied by someone. She yearned to travel, to experience on her own. Despite her desires, she always manage to make the best of her situation, knowing the only reason her parents sheltered her that much was because British society would not accept her the way she was. Intelligent. Passionate. Free.

They were happy until one sunny Monday morning Esmée died along with her unborn child after she suffered a miscarriage.

~

Verity was eighteen years old when she met the man who would soon become her husband, Captain Alexander “Alec” Garridan. He was born to a merchant family in London, his mother Edna, was born a seamstress and met his father, Abraham after he went into the workshop where she worked at for an emergency fix on his coat. Alexander “Alec” Garridan was considered a strange child, he was quiet and liked to read, he would read anything he could get his hands on, whether it was an inventory list or a romantic novel. Due to his father’s business he travelled a lot, however he was always drawn to the sea, mesmerized by the mysterious waters and its sway, so as soon as he could, he joined the Navy. Due to his diligence and quiet character he moved up the ranks fast, and had the opportunity of traveling the seas and meeting new places before he was discharged at the age of twenty and seven. As a navy officer he was invited and expected to attend several galas and parties hosted and almost fully attended by nobles. It was in one of these events that he met his wife Verity, the first and only child of the Count of St. Germain.

They attended the same ball. She was drawn to him, he was quiet, trying not to draw attention to himself, never addressing anyone first, only dancing when instructed to. Verity was acting in a similar way, only she was sneaking out to the gardens every so often so she could read a few pages of her book. They became fast friends, bonding over social events and the need to socialize with everybody in attendance in the name of politeness. History was repeating itself, he was beneath her, she was the daughter of a Count and a Duchess, and he was a naval officer with merchants as parents.

They fell in love.

He understood her, loved her quirks, her laugh, the fact that she refused to use a corset when she was at home, that she hated the hairstyles and preferred to simply braid her hair or let it loose, that she loved to learn and read a little bit of everything, that she did not play de piano nor sing very well, He just… loved her wholeheartedly. And she him. She never asked to be more outspoken, nor shamed him for his origins or silence, she accepted him for who he was the same way he had accepted her.

He asked the Count for her hand in marriage, everyone was surprised when he gave it with an enormous dowery and his blessing. Verity had received several marriage proposal through the years from all over the world, all from respectable men from respectable families but in the end, she only had eyes for Alec.

They married. It was a big ceremony with a big reception, worthy of her status and their love. While society may not approve

~

Anyone who truly saw them could tell how much they loved each other. The were happy, even though people wondered why they didn’t have children, especially since they were young. They would only smile and shrug whenever they were asked, however, there were several reasons they would never answer this question, first, because it was none of their business, and second, because they had their reasons. The truth was Verity was scared of pregnancy and childbirth since her mother’s death, she wasn’t ready and her husband respected that, unlike most men at the time.

In time, Alec was honorably discharged from the Navy and took over as a representative for his father’s importing and exporting business. This change gave him the opportunity to travel the world as he accompanied the shipments to the ports and traded with potential clients. Verity had gotten her own ship and crew full of reliable people and began to travel the world along with Alec exchanging stories whenever they reached port. Her ship was known as the Screaming Siren, and her crew, mostly female wore male clothing for security matters. At first, it was about traveling and seeing the world, women being free from expectations for a while, but then, they were almost victims to a raid by pirates.

~

Verity lost a part of herself that day.

~

Eventually they managed to get control of the ship back and out of self-defense, killed most of the invaders. In their anger, Verity and the others decided to do something about what had happened to them, they wanted to do something that could prevent this encounters and at the same time create a safe environment where women could be free. They armed themselves and vowed to aid those in need while punishing those who had wronged them. Even in men’s clothing and her hair tied back people took notice of the color, rumors began.

~

Verity had told Alec what had transpired, he felt her pain and understood her decision to do something. They both knew her father could never know, he may have been loving and understanding with her but not with the outside world. They promised each other they would meet before they reached port so she could shake off any suspicions of what she would be doing along with her crew. Alec, besides exchanging letters with his wife, began writing the tales she tell him thinking maybe one day people would want to know who she was and what she did for what she believed was right.

~

They hadn’t meant to, but soon the crew and captain of the Screaming Siren| became a legend. They were said to be ruthless, no man left alive, no wrongdoer left unpunished, not a single thing of value left behind, not a single person left unaided. Their captain was said to be a woman as well as most of the crew, yet this was not believed by many, but those who did described her as a small woman with long curly red hair, big green eyes and plump lips. Beautiful with a pistol in each hip and a dagger on her back. Her crew was dressed alike, all with clothes made for them but styled for men.

Most people only payed attention to the rumors that painted Captain Crimson as ruthless, who could possibly believed the stories of a kind-hearted pirate? I mean, it’s in the god-dammed name, what else could be crimson but blood, some people even said her hair hadn’t always been red, apparently it had turned more red with each of her victims until it was as red as blood. Why would someone with this fearsome reputation also aid young brides who feared their husbands or offer safe passage to immigrants, even give some of the money from the raided ships to the beggars.

~

One of the men in Alec’s crew, Frederick Cumberbatch, had become his best friend and encouraged him to publish the stories under a nom de plum and as rumors written down. After making sure they would be published anonymously, through what was basically a hot-potato game, passing the manuscripts from one person to another until they were delivered or simply being sent through the postal service with no return address. With the purpose of not arising suspicion among the stories of this Pirate Captain, he would add other stories he heard on the sea.

~

As her reputation grew so did the rumors of her origins, each one crazier than the last one, and as time passed, the captain of the Screaming Siren, began to be know by many different names. The most common one was the Red Death, mostly whispered by her enemies, those she had helped called her their angel.

Angel of Mercy

Angel of Vengeance

Angel of Salvation

Other pirates believed she was a mermaid or sea spirit, incapable of thinking a woman could have done anything the Red Death had done.

~

#creative #original story #18th century #one shot #original character #short story

The Bloody Code

The Bloody Code was the name by which the British legal system was known during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. This name was due to the number of people who where killed for their crimes. As the years passed, the number of crimes that carried the death penalty increased from 50 in 1688 to 215 during early 1800’s. The purpose of the law being this bloody was to discourage crime, if people saw that almost everything carried the death penalty they would think twice before committing a crime. Most crimes went you to the Gallows, meaning hanging, some punishments like pillorying were designed with the purpose of humiliating the perpetrator. If you were indebted you were sent to debtors prison, if you were awaiting your sentence you were taken to Newgate prison.

Some of the crimes that could get you hanged were:

murder

arson

forgery

cutting down trees

Highway robbery

stealing horses or sheep

destroying turnpike roads

pickpocketing goods worth a shilling (roughly £30 today)

being out at night with a blackened face

being an unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child

stealing from a shipwreck

Some prisoners chose punishment by transportation with the purpose of avoiding execution, they would be sent to the colonies as cheap labor. Once they were in the colonies after a while, they had the option of buying their freedom and start fresh, it was hard labor but it was better than death. This option continued to be picked until the Transportation Act, which regulated the number of people who were transported was approved in 1717.

Given that the options for entertainment for the lower classes were not that ample, executions were a form of entertainment. Crows would gather around the gallows, some people would help the hanged die faster by pulling them down in order to break their neck. There were several prisons and gallows that were widely know, for example Newgate Prison or the Tyburn gallows, these were famous because most of the people who were executed there were under twenty-one years old and mostly because of petty crimes like theft. By the 18th century Tyburn had become associated with mockery, irreverence and the defiance of authority.

#contextual #crime #punishment #18th century #bloody code #execution #gallows #prison #transportation act #historical

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https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/100293

https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2016/07/10/executions-at-tyburn-ritual-and-reality/

https://medicinemacabre.com/2020/02/03/the-tyburn-tree-gallows-part-1/

#other blogs #18th century #historical #contextual