The complete Historical Filth

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Over the next few days/weeks, and on into the future, this thread will become the dumping ground for every piece of prurient borderline-obscenity that I'm keen not to confuse with the more earnest pieces I've written. Keep popping back, and (hopefully) enjoy.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Historical Filth- Five Weird Weddings

Recently I had a bit of a crisis about these articles I dish out. I started wondering whether it was seemly for a grown man to be sniffing around in the knicker-drawer of history, attempting to dress up blatant mucky smut in just enough historical detail to be make the cut in history forums. It got to the point where I was considering stopping these altogether- I'd even planned out a new series where I salvage the reputations of characters who have been unfairly damned in modern times. A worthy enterprise, I'm sure you'll agree.

Then, in an entirely typical act of perversity I decided to write possibly my least justifiable piece ever. Enjoy.


Henry IV Bolingbroke and Mary de Bohun

This one is probably only weird by modern standards. Marriages between children weren't unusual in medieval royalty (David II of Scotland was married at the age of 4), but there was usually a decorous interval of several years before children emerged. Not in this case, however. It's not recorded when the marriage took place, but the young pair were certainly up to the job because their first child was born when Henry (1367- 1413) was just 15 and his wife was 12. Their legacy is still honoured today, in the many underaged fumblings behind bike-sheds all over the land.



Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

Everything seemed to go so well at first. At their marriage in 1770, Louis was 16 and Marie 15. The whole of France sat back and happily waited for royal babies to dutifully pop forth. Except they didn't....

After a few years, courtiers were getting concerned, and delicate questions started to be asked of Louis. Actually, let's not beat about the bush- they were asking him if he was putting it in the right place.The indignant king brushed off their enquiries at first, but eventually he revealed all. It transpired that he suffered from a slight deformity of the foreskin that hindered him in experiencing any form of sexual sensation, and to this problem was added the fact that his sex education hadn't gone into much detail. To cut a long story short, while he was putting it in the right place, that's all he was doing. These formal insertions would be followed by an equally formal withdrawal and buttoning-up, and a dutiful "Goodnight dear".

After a spot of minor penile surgery and some rather more graphic sexual instruction, the king went about his duty rather more productively, and a fruitful marriage was theirs. Then they got guillotined.



George IV and Catherine of Brunswick

This is a particular favourite of mine. George (1762- 1830) was a typical Hanoverian prince even from his mid-teens- happily racking up the odd bastard child and secret marriage here and there, much to the displeasure of his parents (despite the fact that bigamy appeared to be a genetic trait in the family, alongside insanity, inbreeding and gout). He was possibly Britain's most promiscuous heir to the throne, and would have happily carried on for years, had he not run up colossal debts through his pursuit of high fashion, weird sex in strange clubs, and gambling. Eventually, in order to get his debts cleared, Parliament forced him into a political marriage with his cousin Caroline of Brunswick (1768- 1821).

She was a terrible choice. Rather than being a dutiful little virgin, she had already racked up a few affairs of her own. She was also decidedly plain and had a volcanic temper. To top it all, she had a famously relaxed attitude to her personal hygiene, and stunk. The "happy" couple met for the first time three days before the wedding, whereupon Catherine loudly declared her disappointment at the sight of such a fat and unattractive man. George went very pale and had to be plied with brandy to remain in her malodorous presence.

The wedding was a joy. George had threatened to run away, and his friends had to get him blind drunk in order to get him married at all- he spent most of the ceremony unconscious in a chair. Remarkably, out of some heroic sense of duty, he dragged himself out at one point in the night and fell into the bedchamber. Emerging a few minutes later, looking decidely green about the gills, he returned to his chair by the fire and blacked out again. Nine months later their child (unsurpringly, it was their only child) was born.

The rest of their married life was precictably disastrous. They both had affairs, and didn't speak to each other for years. George made strenuous attempts to keep Caroline out of the country, and attempted to bribe her with £50,000 to stay away from his coronation. He also launched two seperate Parliamentary inquiries into her sexual conduct, which was a little hypocritical given that he was still happily jumping anything with ovaries at the time.



Peter III and Catherine The Great

Can we get one thing straight from the start? Ok- please pay careful attention...

CATHERINE THE GREAT NEVER HAD SEX WITH A HORSE.

Ok? Got that? It never happened. It's a myth. Believe me- I wish it was true, as it would have got her a much larger entry (if you'll pardon the pun). No it wasn't horses. It was the people who rode them. My God, did she have a weakness for young cavalry officers. All those firm thighs in tight, tight breeches....

Anyway, I digress. Peter III (1728- 1762) was, to be blunt, a moron. Russia saw some fairly useless rulers in its history, but he really takes some beating. The funeral of the Empress Elizabeth (which saw him become Tsar) treated the citizens to the sight of their new ruler skipping and capering like an excited child at the head of the cortege. In 1745 he married Sophie Frederike Auguste, a 16-year old German princess, who took the name Catherine. He never got the hang of all that icky kissy stuff- his courtiers would dutifully lock him in with young Catherine in the hope that he might start feeling a few primal urges, but he would just spend the night playing with his toys instead. The bored bride quickly started taking a succession of lovers, one of whom assisted in the eventual murder of Peter. Catherine took the throne (and a few more young cavalry officers on the way) and became a great ruler, but I'm stuffed if I'm going to cover worthy topics in a "Filth" article. Suffice to say that she was still riding young men into her 60's, right up to her fatal stroke which took place while she was taking a dump. Not taking a horse. Got that?



John Ruskin & Effie Grey

John Ruskin (1819- 1890) was a great man in the world of art. He was probably the greatest and most influential art critic of all time- his championing of Turner's later works paved the way for modernism. Unfortunately he's probably best-known these days for his disastrous marriage to Effie Grey.

Already famous for his work, Ruskin was urged by his parents to marry the daughter of some Scottish family friends, and was only too pleased to oblige (he had fallen hopelessly in love with a Spanish girl at 17, but had been rejected). In April 1848, the couple were married, and after the usual festivities the young couple retired to their bridal bed. That's when it all started to go wrong...

After a short interval, Ruskin's servants were startled to hear the sounds of what appeared to be a man in some considerable distress. This was followed by the sight of Ruskin bursting out of the room and fleeing down the corridor in terror, stopping only to vomit out of a window. He refused to return to his room and spent the remainder of the night quivering on a couch, refusing to talk about what had happened. The full story did not emerge until the divorce proceedings years later- as Ruskin stated in his deposition to the court proceedings "the female form was not what I thought it was".

Ruskin had been deceived by Classical Art. The hundreds of artistic nudes he had seen in pictures or sculpture had not prepared him for one shocking fact- the true appearance of female genitalia and pubic hair. Expecting something broadly similar to the sexless planes of white marble or creamy skin he was so familiar with, the reality left him convinced that he'd married a monster. For the six years they were married, Ruskin never again attempted to consummate the marriage and was probably quite relieved when Effie left him for a young Pre-Raphaelite painter whose experiences with life models left him better-equipped to cope with women. They raised a large family together. Meanwhile Ruskin started falling miserably in love with pre-pubescent girls, became increasingly depressed and reclusive, and died a virgin.



That's yer lot from me. Now it's your turn. I've only picked out five, but there's got to be loads more out there. What's in your nation's history?

[Herra Gautason]

This is disgusting.

[Hueij]

Historical Filth

Now that you have your history Forum, does this mean we can expect a lot more Filth?

[Skanky Burns]

Hooray!
Always worth a re-read.

[Grandpa Troll]

and this was the downside I pointed out, cant keep it non sexual in nature have to bring that up

Oh well

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
That's yer lot from me. Now it's your turn. I've only picked out five, but there's got to be loads more out there. What's in your nation's history?

First PM was fond of addressing Parliament, and anyone else who would listen, while drunk.

War-time PM advised by his dog and his dead mother.

One or two premiers caught with young ladies of low virtue. One premier fond of boys in residential schools, but he's too recent to have really good dirt on or he'd be in prison.

Let me know if you'd like elaboration on any of them.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll
and this was the downside I pointed out, cant keep it non sexual in nature have to bring that up

Oh well

Gramps, dear heart- to blinker oneself to the shattering impact that the urges of the loins have had on the world's history is like fitting trousers to the legs of your furniture to avoid inflaming animal lusts. Laughable and pointless.

"Filth" articles are cheerfully packed full of rude stuff, but also contain a core of hard history. I write them because people like them. If it's going to offend you, be reassured that this thread is the one to avoid. Therefore I respectfully ask you to take your displeasure elsewhere.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by notyoueither

War-time PM advised by his dog and his dead mother.

Nice one- I'd like to here more on this.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp



Gramps, dear heart- to blinker oneself to the shattering impact that the urges of the loins have had on the world's history is like fitting trousers to the legs of your furniture to avoid inflaming animal lusts. Laughable and pointless.

"Filth" articles are cheerfully packed full of rude stuff, but also contain a core of hard history. I write them because people like them. If it's going to offend you, be reassured that this thread is the one to avoid. Therefore I respectfully ask you to take your displeasure elsewhere.

Correct, but I have an opinion and opinion stated in a manner to see what is in your words

Laughable and pointless

will most certainly happen, people turn a topic such as this into a thread to start inapropriate talk and before you know it, Markos and Dan decide that abuse of the forum (not your topic specifically) but the responses and poster keep edging up to and extending the line, well, it could lead to ramifications up to and including closing a forum.

That was my point, serious and historical, I would like to see this forum grow and grow to be a mature area to discuss History!

Yes, I am a big man who understands sex and all the good and bad, pure and ugly, were, are and shall ever be part of man's History. Yes, many deviates and many prominents have caused scandelous acts to disrupt the flow of countries lives and thus creation of Historical debacles which altered the course an event was on, even unto a paradigm shift.

Gramps

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Indeed they did, and here's some more.

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Historical Filth- Hellraisers of the 18th Century

I'm going to beg your indulgence for this one. Normally "Filth" articles revolve around the dirty little secrets of the people who made history- kings, Popes and Generals. This one doesn't. In the grand sweep of history these characters probably don't amount to a great deal, but sometimes you've just got to trust your instincts. These people were un-frigging-believable.

What's a hellraiser? Violent, lecherous and drunk, but crucially they have to carry off their actions with style. The notion of the hellraiser was born in the 17th century, and these boys from the British Isles were among the very greatest. Enjoy....



Archbishop Lancelot Blackburne (1658- 1743)

I consider Blackburne to be the first great British hellraiser. His youth was uneventful- he was educated at Christchurch and ordained as a priest in 1681. Growing bored with the parish priest life, he accepted a church posting to the Caribbean. At this point, he took an unusual change of career path and became a pirate.

He spent a few years enthusiastically (and ruthlessly) racking up a tidy little fortune before retiring back to England , searching out a diocese where the incumbent priest was at death's door- leaving him as Rector of Calstock. By 1694 he was sub-Dean at Exeter Cathedral but was forced to resign when it was revealed he had constructed a tunnel connecting his house with the bedroom of a local dignitary's wife.

He used his immense charm to get himself reinstated two years later. By 1714, his pathologically anti-Catholic views made him very popular with George I, and he was appointed Bishop of Exeter. However he chose to live in London, because he knew where all the best brothels were there. Eventually he became Archbishop of York, but never bothered fulfilling any of his duties as he was too busy fornicating. Chroniclers of the time noted he always insisted on sharing his bed with at least two young women at any one time. After his death it was claimed that every prostitute in Yorkshire was in mourning.



Beauchamp Bagenal- (1741- 1802)

One of the most fondly-remembered Irish hell-raisers, Bagenal loved a good fight. Being lame, he preferred to fight while leaning against gravestones, but in his old age he was reduced to fighting a neighbour while remaining seated in a chair as he could barely stand. He still won, severely injuring his opponent in the process.

The one thing he loved more than fighting was drinking. He hosted wild drinking matches while holding a brace of pistols- one to shoot open the barrels, with the other used to take pot-shots at guests not drinking enough. Some guests were known to hide in the garden to escape the debauchery. His biographer sums him up thusly-

"....fought a prince, jilted a princess, intoxicated the Doge of Venice, carried off a Duchess from Madrid, scaled the walls of a convent in Lisbon and fought a duel in Paris."

The princess he jilted went on to marry King George III of England.


Brian Maguire - (1770- 1835)

Ireland's greatest duellist. He fought his first duel some time after 1799- it was an unusual duel because while his opponent was armed with a sword, Maguire chose to use a billiard cue. He won, killing his rival in the process. He quickly became a duelling addict, with a habit of leaning out of his bedroom window spitting on passers-by below in the hope of getting challenged to a duel. As he had a reputation of being a lethal fighter, he had increasingly fewer takers as the years passed. He spent his time shooting out lit candles held by his wife.



George Robert Fitzgerald- (1748- 1786)

Fitzgerald was addicted to duelling, which was a major problem in 18th century Ireland. He fought his first duel at 16, and it was one of his teenage duels that nearly killed him after he was shot in the head. His life was saved by a surgeon who removed the bullet from his brain, which was an impressive display of surgical skill considering that Fitzgerald had him by the throat and was shouting at him to save his toupee at the time. Fitzgerald's father was so distraught with his son's condition that he impaled a well-wisher with his rapier.

Having recovered, Fitzgerald went on to gain a reputation as a duellist so skilled that nobody would fight him. Disappointed by this, he turned to picking quarrels at random by hitting passers-by- on one occasion he shot a man's wig off unprovoked. One pedestrian unlucky enough to step on Fitzgerald's dog was probtly impaled on his rapier. His random acts of violence resulted in him being expelled from the court of Louis XV.

His father was on the receiving end of the worst of Fitzgerald's temper. When Fitzgerald Snr. refused to change his will, his son knocked his teeth out before manacling him to a bear for the day. He was then locked up on a cave. This ill-treatment resulted in him being sentenced to two years imprisonment, but it proved impossible to lock up a man with a private army of 500 men.

Fitzgerald finally made the fatal mistake of being so irascible that his own army fled in fear. He was sentenced to death for murdering a rival. On the first attempt to hang him the rope broke, and Fitzgerald entertained the crowd with jokes while the hangman set up the gallows again. The second attempt proved successful.



John Mytton - English (1796- 1834)

Mytton started early- he was expelled from Westminster School at the age of 12 for repeatedly getting involved in fist-fights with his teachers (which he usually won), and for leaving horses in his tutor's (upper storey) bedroom. He was expelled from Harrow after only 3 days. He became MP for Shrewsbury in 1819 by wandering around his constituents, inviting them to take £10 notes from his hat. However he found his first visit to Parliament dull and never went back.

Instead of politics he concentrated on his drinking and dangerous sports. A typical day would consist of drinking 5 bottles of port for breakfast, racing his carriage until it would crash, followed by a bout of wrestling with his pet bear. Occasionally he would watch dog-fights, though he tended to get over-excited and on one occasion defeated a champion fighting Bull Terrier with just his teeth. He was also a keen practical joker- guests at his home tended to wake up next to horses or bears, and he was particularly fond of dressing up as a highwayman in order to rob his guests as they returned home.

His physical fortitude was legendary. Shunning warm clothing, he was once seen running stark naked across a frozen lake chasing a duck. The summit of his achievements in this field came with his cure for hiccups. Having heard that suffering a fright could cure hiccups, he attempted to cure himself by setting his nighshirt on fire. In the process he suffered severe burns that left him bed-ridden for a month, but was reputedly delighted that his cure was a success- declaring "The hiccup is gone, by God!" before losing consciousness. While recovering, he staggered several miles in his bandages to keep an appointment as the carriage sent to collect him had only two horses, and he refused to settle for less than four. He ended his days in a debtors jail, drinking himself to death.


Would-be hellraisers take note. This is the standard to match, or you'll end up looking like a bit of a big girl's blouse in comparison.

[Straybow]

Donald McBane (1664-17??)

A colorful character mostly known for duelling and pimping. Fled from battle in two clashes between Scots clans, reportedly leaping clear across the Garry River (at elast 18 feet) on the second occasion. Was disarmed and spanked with the flat of the blade in his first duel. After much training and practice his duelling fortunes reversed.

Spent years in various Royal Scots units, mostly tramping about Europe. Bade his time pimping, selling drink and holding gambling debts for fellow soldiers. Made his fortune capturing enemy officers and ransoming them back. Made his reputation plying women and defeating or intimidating their fathers, brothers, suitors, husbands, and rival pimps.

At the end of the War of Spanish Succession he returned to England and became a stage gladiator. He retired in 1727 to write his memoirs and books on instruction of swordsmanship.

[One_more_turn]

"Archbishop Lancelot Blackburne (1658- 1743)"

This guy had lived for 85 years?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Historical Filth- Honourable Members

I've recently found myself driven to distraction by how dull and tawdry modern politics are. Though the knicker-sniffers of the press do their best to depict our politicians as sub-human degenerates, the truth of the matter is that they're crashingly boring people for whom the pulsing of blood in their withered privy organs occurs with roughly the same degree of frequency as maulings by chocolate werewolves. Blair, Bush, Chirac.....these are not men. They are stuffed shirts, not worthy of my attention, let alone my contempt.

Though we are told that moral standards are slipping, I would direct the casual reader to one shocking fact. For a few brief years in the 18th century, Britain was run by Satanists. Did it harm us? Never, damn your eyes! These shocking tales, and more, are revealed below in a selection of some of the more bizarre characters ever to wield political office in Britain.....

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Cecil Tournour, 6th Earl of Winterton (1883- 1953)

OK, so he's a Lord. Seeing as he was a politically active Lord rather than your bog-standard gentry, I'll allow him in. Anyway, I've a particular fondness for Winterton. He was a notoriously "difficult" character, and took great pride in that reputation- to the extent that he had lengthy tracts published in The Times deploring the awful modern habit of politeness. He was particularly irritated by having waiters say "please" and "thank you" to him, it seems.
However the act that sneaks him into this article concerns one of the more bizarre injuries suffered in Parliament. Winterton was a stickler for Parliamentary etiquette, and points of order in the House tended to leave him purple-faced and wringing his hands in fury. One particular breach left the enraged Earl so irate that his hand-wringing actually dislocated both his thumbs, leaving him in need of urgent medical assistance.


Colonel Charles De Laet Waldo Sibthorpe (1783- 1855)

Sibthorpe was a fabulous character- it's impossible to make up someone so entertaining. He was famously mad, described by Dickens as "...with a brain slightly damaged and, quite unintentionally, the most amusing man in the House".
He was a fanatical opponent of all forms of modern progress, particularly railways which he opposed on the grounds that they might encourage the working classes to move around. Another of his bugbears was modern flushing lavatories, which he opposed on the grounds that they would result in Sanitary inspectors being appointed to forcibly enter homes and examine their owner's excrement.
All things foreign were deeply suspect- he opposed the Great Exhibition of 1851 on the grounds that it might entice foreigners, and proposed that the consort's annuity (paid to the spouse of the monarch) should be reduced by 40% as the Queen was marrying a filthy foreigner (this was his only successful bill, and Queen Victoria shunned him for the rest of his life).


Bob Mackreth (1738- 1802)

The House of Commons was, for centuries, a misnomer. Unless you were very far from common, you weren't getting in. Mackreth bucked the trend, however. He was a waiter and billiard-maker up until 1774, when he experienced a radical career change. At that time, Parliamentary candidates were usually nominated by the local Lord, and in this case the local Lord was Robert Walpole, the Earl of Orford- and he was prone to bouts of insanity. Walpole nominated Mackreth, who was a waiter at his club.
The first election was declared void as Walpole couldn't remember Mackreth's name. However the second was successful and Mackreth was returned as MP for Castle Rising. Naturally he quickly amassed a fortune through rampant corruption, but despite being imprisoned for six weeks and challenging the Lord Chancellor to a duel, he remained an MP for the rest of his life.


Colonel James Luttrell (1725- 1792)

Luttrell was probably one of the most relentlessly horrible people ever to hold office in the House. He was the MP for Bosinney, a classic "Rotten borough" with only 25 registered voters and under the total control of Lord Bute. All that Bute required were gentry who would vote with him, and their personal morals were an irrelevance.
That suited Luttrell well. He was a noted libertine with a reuptation of extreme physical violence, particularly sexual violence towards women. On one occasion he abducted and raped an 11-year-old girl, for which he avoided prosecution by bribing witnesses to claim she was a prostitute.
He was also possessed of a questionable sense of humour, which was demonstrated when he was invited to a ball thrown by one Mrs Corneley. Luttrell turned up dressed as a corpse, complete with a coffin bearing a plate stating that he had died from venereal diseases contracted from Mrs Corneley.
Luttrell's crowning glory was probably his relationship with his father, Lord Irnham. This relationship was so bad that Lord Irnham challenged his so to a duel. Luttrell declined, on the grounds that his father was not a gentleman.


Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (1830- 1903)

Salisbury was Tory Prime Minister three times between 1885 and 1902, which is fairly impressive considering that he was a lifelong opponent of democracy. As he was MP for a Rotten Borough in Exeter, he never had to face a real election in his life- which was probably just as well considering that he was very openly critical of the system that allowed beastly commoners the same power as Lords.
His maiden speech in the Commons was noted for the fact that it ended mid-sentence, with Salisbury yawning and sitting down, too bored to continue. He even turned the post of PM down the first two times it was offered to him, apparently on the grounds that he couldn't be bothered. On losing the position of PM, his own son sent him a telegraph reading "I hear you are turned out. Many congratulations."
Salisbury's general apathy also showed up in his dress, being famously scruffy. In 1886, while he was Prime Minister, he was refused entry to the casino at Monte Carlo because he was thought to be a tramp. He ended his political life as a short-sighted, senile laughing-stock, with the nation's Prime Minister being unable to recognise his own children.


John Wilkes (1727- 1797)

One of the most colourful characters ever to enter British politics, Wilkes is almost a personal hero of mine. We'll deal with that "almost" later. An ugly little man with a hideous squint, he compensated for his looks with lightning wit and a formidable talent with words that allowed him to charm his way into beds.
His early life was "relatively" quiet, in that he chose to spend most of his time participating in orgiastic and heretical rituals with the Hellfire Club. In that setting, his anarchic sense of humour was given free rein- this culminated with a prank he played on another Hellfire member, Lord Sandwich. During an everyday attempt to summon Satan, Wilkes sneaked the Hellfire Club's pet baboon into the chamber, and set it loose on Sandwich who (believing he had been seized by the Devil) passed a bowel motion consisting of raw, solid fear. This sparked off a long-running feud between the pair, typified by the following exchange between them-

Sandwich- "You, Sir, will die either on the gallows or from the pox!"
Wilkes- "That would depend on whether I embrace your Lordship's principles or your mistress."

When he wasn't taking part in heretical debauchery, he tended to pass his time publishing porn. By far his most famous example was a bawdy parody of Pope's "Essay on Man", entitled "Essay on Woman". The 94-line poem opens with...

"Awake my Fanny! Leave all meaner things:
This morn shall prove what rapture swiving brings!"
...and ends with...
"Hope humbly then clean Girls; nor vainly soar ;
But **** the **** at hand, and God adore.
What future ****s he gives not thee to know,
But gives that **** to be thy Blessing now."
OK, it's not "Hamlet", is it? It's much better.

Becoming unaccountably bored with porn and Satanism, Wilkes took the obvious career progression and decided to become a politician. His first attempt to get elected saw him bribe a ship's captain to take a ship-load of opposition voters to Norway rather than Berwick-upon-Tweed, but he still lost. His second attempt saw him spend the huge sum of £6,000 on bribes to get himself elected.
Entering Parliament in 1757, he quickly became a strident critic of Lord Bute and King George III and started publishing a satirical paper "The North Briton" to attack them. His attacks became more energetic when Lord Bute became Prime Minister. Issue 45 of "The North Briton" directly accused the King of lying on behalf of Bute in his speech to Parliament, and got him thrown into the Tower while his papers were publicly burned by the hangman. However, the rebellious Wilkes was becoming increasingly popular with the public, and the burning of "Issue 45" saw the hangman attacked by the crowd and most of the papers rescued to be freely distributed.
Wilkes was freed on the grounds of Parliamentary privilege, but was promptly charged with Obscene Libel for his "Essay on Woman" as well as Seditious Libel for "The North Briton" and expelled from Parliament (in favour of his defeated opponent, the vile Colonel Luttrell who appears earlier in this article).

He repeatedly stood for election, despite being an outlaw, and won every time due to his massive popular support- though each time the result was overturned by Parliament. The cry "Wilkes for liberty!" was commonly heard aired by the London Mob. Eventually he was arrested again and spent two years in prison. He stood successfully for Lord Mayor of London in 1774, and re-entered Parliament as a Radical the same year. He was the pioneering champion of the freedom of the press to report politics in whatever manner it chose.

So why isn't he a hero of mine? Because he proved to be the biggest sell-out in history. On re-entering Parliament, he freely admitted that his radical stance was purely adopted to win public support. He became increasing conservative, and in 1780 he brutally suppressed protestors in the Gordon Riots, causing the streets to run red with blood. The expression "Wilkes for Liberty!" became a joke, and his popular support disappeared leaving him a faded non-entity.


Sir Francis Dashwood (1708- 1781)

The Daddy. The unequalled, hell-raising, damn-your-eyes Daddy. Others may have been equally debauched, but none were quite so darned stylish about it.

Dashwood first entered public attention when he started his first "Grand Tour" of Europe. Being a charming and handsome man, with no discernable moral standards whatsover, he rogered his merry way from royal court to royal court, leaving scandal, broken marriages and the occasional duel in his wake. His alarmed tutor took him to a Good Friday scourging ceremony at the Sistine Chapel, in the hope of instilling some Christian values in his pupil. Dashwood reacted by wrestling a whip out of the hands of a priest and merrily thrashing the living daylights out of the panicking congregation, which fled screaming "Il diavalo!".

Impressed by that? Well he moved to Russia and entered the Russian Court pretending to be the King of Sweden. If you think that's impressive, bear in mind that Sweden was a long-time enemy of Russia at the time. If you that that's even more impressive, bear in mind that he managed to seduce the Tsarina Anna in the process. Now that's beyond impressive, isn't it?

Returning to England, he founded the Hellfire Club at Medmenham Abbey, enabling the great and good to spend pleasant evenings doing odd things to the rude bits of ladies while attempting to summon the occasional god or demon. While blind drunk, of course. Among the members were John Wilkes, Lord Sandwich (yes- inventor of the bread-based convenience food), the painter William Hogarth, Lord Bute (later Prime Minister), the Prince of Wales and (occasionally) Benjamin Franklin. In founding the Hellfire Club, Dashwood is hailed as the creator of what became modern Satanism, by marrying primitive heresies with the libertarian doctrines found in the works of Rabelais. "Do what thou will" was the motto of the order.

Dashwood had a formidable collection of porn, including the first ever English translation of the Kama Sutra (beating Sir Richard Burton by a century). His library was greatly appreciated by Lord Bute, who repaid the favour in 1762 by appointing Dashwood as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This was a curious appointment as Dashwood was notoriously for being useless with figures. By his own admission he was totally unable to even contemplate any sum over five figures, so placing him in charge of the nation's economy was never the brightest move Bute made.

His career in high office was brief- in 1763 he was forced to resign after he imposed a tax on cider that caused riots from enraged scrumpy drinkers. The Hellfire Club was also breaking up at this point, largely due to feuding sparked off by the antics of John Wilkes. Dashwood switched to the quieter life, and (somewhat astonishingly) produced a revised edition of the Book of Common Prayer with his lifelong friend, Benjamin Franklin. He died in 1781, leaving the bulk of his estate to one of his illegitimate daughters.

The experts are still divided as to whether Dashwood was a "real" Satanist or not. Personally, I get the impression he was just doing it for laugh. I heartily recommend the same approach be taken to every faith- the world would be a happier place for sure.

[One_more_turn]

Colonel Charles De Laet Waldo Sibthorpe (1783- 1855)

Sibthorpe was a fabulous character- it's impossible to make up someone so entertaining. He was famously mad, described by Dickens as "...with a brain slightly damaged and, quite unintentionally, the most amusing man in the House".
He was a fanatical opponent of all forms of modern progress, particularly railways which he opposed on the grounds that they might encourage the working classes to move around. Another of his bugbears was modern flushing lavatories, which he opposed on the grounds that they would result in Sanitary inspectors being appointed to forcibly enter homes and examine their owner's excrement.
All things foreign were deeply suspect- he opposed the Great Exhibition of 1851 on the grounds that it might entice foreigners, and proposed that the consort's annuity (paid to the spouse of the monarch) should be reduced by 40% as the Queen was marrying a filthy foreigner (this was his only successful bill, and Queen Victoria shunned him for the rest of his life).

That's what Taliban is all about. - "I HATE CHANGES!"