High Life, Low Morals - Rilegato

When the Victorian novelist William Thackeray was looking for a tale of early 18th-century London life with which to provide the plot for his novel Henry Esmond, he came up with the fateful feud between the Whig Lord Charles Mohun and the Tory James Douglas- Hamilton, Duke of Arran. In November, 1712, Mohun and Hamilton met in Hyde Park to fight a brutal duel which left both men dead and whose consequences sent shock- waves throughout Stuart England. In High Life, Low Morals, Victor Slater provides a detailed and compelling account of the feud between these two contrasting political figures, set against the high life and low life of early 18th-century London.

According to Slater, "Godliness went out of fashion when the Stuarts returned from their Continental exile in the spring of 1660." The subsequent world of debauchery, degeneracy, intrigue and political corruption provided the perfect backdrop for the fatal feud, which raged from the turn of the century, between Mohun and Hamilton. Mohun was an infamous Whig, rake, womaniser and duellist, who had already murdered a man before becoming entangled with Hamilton, a Scottish Tory opposed to the increasingly popular policy of Anglo-Scottish union. As both men clashed over a contested property inheritance, their legal and political clashes in the courts and on the floor of the House of Lords increasingly reflected the polarities and complexities of post-Restoration England. Slater vividly brings to life the Hogarthian world of London's coffee houses, brothels, clubs (including the infamous Kit-cat club), taverns and "shilling ordinaries" through which both men moved. The duel is thrillingly evoked, although Slater is also careful to offer a sober assessment of the reasons for both men's death. Mohun and Hamilton, "so representative of their time and their order, were drawn together in conflict and clashed fatally, driven by demons of their own making as well as social forces beyond their control." We might say good riddance to both men but that is testimony to the power of Slater's ability to represent a world of high life and distinctly low morals. --Jerry Brotton