Laughed out of court

On 18, 19 and 20 December 1817, William Hone, radical author and publisher, stood trial at the London Guildhall for seditious and blasphemous libel. ¹ He had published three parodies that used familiar passages from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer to attack the Tory government of Lord Liverpool. ² Like many radicals tried for sedition during this repressive period of English history, Hone represented himself in court. The Attorney General argued that Hone’s parodies had brought the sacred language of the religious texts into disrepute. Hone’s defence appealed to the coercive force of precedent in English common law. Arming himself with books of liturgical parodies written by highly respected persons (including Martin Luther as well as Tory politician George Canning, a target of Hone’s parodies), he read these parodies aloud, one after the other, thereby demonstrating that the liturgical form could be, and frequently was, a vehicle for satire, rather than its object. ³ As Olivia Smith has noted, ‘Hone was probably the only radical in history who could legitimately defend himself by claiming that he had attacked the state.’ ⁴ Hone’s virtuosic performance, in which he spoke for over 22 hours over three days, took place in front of a responsive audience, who laughed at the recitation of his parodies, cheered him when he scored a point, coughed at the absurdity of the Attorney General’s rebuttals and guffawed at the pompous and ineffectual attempts of the presiding judge (who was, on the second and third day, Lord Ellenborough himself, also a target of Hone’s parodies) to keep order in the court. At the conclusion of each day, the jury declared Hone ‘not guilty,’ to the delighted applause and cheering of the 1,000 people in the packed courtroom, and the crowd of 20,000 waiting outside. In showing that his parodies were political rather than blasphemous, Hone exposed the libel charges as a pretext for censorship, and emerged as a kind of political martyr, a common man who had bravely stood up to the forces of repression which, as Hone later wrote, had been ‘laughed out of court.’ ⁵