A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the Second Earl of Castlehaven (review)

In A House in Gross Disorder, Herrup retells a story that is familiar-at least in its bare outlines-to students of early modern English history. In 1631, Mervin Touchet, second earl of Castlehaven, was accused by family members of committing sodomy and aiding a servant to commit rape upon his wife. He was found guilty and executed. But Herrup demonstrates that this seemingly simple case was far from straightforward. She uses this highly charged tale as a lens through which to view early modern society, and, in particular, the ways that law intersected with morality and social organization.

Herrup approaches the case from three intertwined perspectives: biographical, legal, and literary. Chapters 1 and 4 scrutinize the lives of the major characters before and after the trial. These individual stories give important insights not only into the details of the case but also into the broader moral and social anxieties of the day: a patriarch who cannot keep order in his family; an English noble tainted by Irishness and Catholicism; a head of household who seems to favor his minions over his wife and children; a son who publicly accuses his father; wives charged with incontinence; and servants gaining parts of a noble patrimony-all markers of proper order gone awry. Herrup uses these biographical sketches to examine how this dysfunctional family broke the prescriptions of early modern social values, but also to reveal the tensions between order and disorder that permeated society more broadly.

The central portion of the book deals with the legal proceedings themselves. Herrup examines the legal and social constructions of sodomy and rape-the two main charges against Castlehaven-showing how ambiguities about the nature and characteristics of the crimes made the case far from clear-cut. The prosecutors for the Crown focused less on the earl's sexual acts (their case was not airtight) than on his social, moral, and religious failings. They emphasized his weakness as a father, a husband, a head of household, and a nobleman, articulating the dangers that his example posed to society at large. By "embedding the specific charges into a broader edifice of sin" (64), prosecutors built a case that spoke directly to early modern sensibilities and anxieties. Deftly interweaving discussion of the nuts and bolts of legal procedure with a close reading and textual analysis of the legal arguments of the Crown and the defense, Herrup reveals the "interplay among sexual accusations, legal process, and social values" (145). Her multidimensional approach to the law and legal sources makes this book far more than a simple trial narrative.

The book's final chapter analyzes the literary remains of the trial. The story of the earl has been retold many times in different ages, reflecting varying concerns. It helped sell more copies of State Trialsin the eighteenth century; it served as the centerpiece of titillating tales of the naughty nobility in the nineteenth century; and it has been used to symbolize early modern attitudes toward homosexuality and sexual deviance in more recent times. Herrup rightly reminds us of the dangers of "treating any text too reverently" (142-143); the Castlehaven trial (like many historical events) produced not one clear narrative, but a jumble of interpretations suiting particular times and places.

Those trying to determine the earl's guilt or innocence will find no satisfaction in this book. Herrup is more interested in raising questions than in finding black-and-white answers. This approach adds subtlety and complexity to the story, but it also means that the analysis does not always follow a clear direction. The discussions of order and misrule can, at times, feel repetitive. But, overall, the book succeeds admirably both in conveying an interesting criminal case and analyzing the broader societal patterns that it revealed. One of Herrup's goals was to show the cultural and social dimensions of legal procedures, as well...