ABSTRACT
The deliberate silence surrounding Jeremiah Joyce's life is both loud and profound. Lord Holland removed large sections of the Charles Stanhope papers and Stanhope's widow ordered that many of her own were to be burnt on her death has meant that very little can be gleaned about the details of Joyce's roles and actions in the Stanhope household. Stanhope had insisted that all the children were taught at home and refused his male children's requests to be sent to Eton where they would receive the sort of education befitting their social station. Extolling Joyce's virtues, Aspland recorded Joyce's activities in the Unitarian world and included an account of his notorious involvement in the Treason Trials of 1794. The year 1816 was a bad one for the Joyces. On the night of Friday 21 June 1816, Joyce returned home, 'complained of a stomach pain and laid down on the sofa and a few minutes later died'.
