ABSTRACT
The disinterment of Paine's corpse by William Cobbett in 1819, and his subsequent removal of the remains to England captured the headlines at the time on both sides of the Atlantic and it has been noted in passing by many historians, including the numerous biographers of both men. This chapter argues that Cobbett's actions were, paradoxically, both in tune with and a reaction against the dominant plebeian culture of the long eighteenth century; it suggests that whatever else he did wrong by digging up Paine, Cobbett erred principally in his timing: the radicals that he expected to enlist in his campaign to pay homage to Paine were either not interested or not yet alive to the oppositional potential of a political monument. The age when popular radicals built monuments had not yet dawned; by the time it had, Paine's bones were lost and there were other monuments to erect.
