Earl Mervin Touchet's Sodomy Trial

Early Modern European considered sodomy an affront to society that it was a capital offence. Although this was a rather harsh punishment, most cases of sodomy never made it into trial. Those that end in a trial include an additional element that brought it to the State’s attention. The case of Earl Mervin Touchet, on April 25, 1631, involved a nobleman who faced a trial for rape and sodomy. His peers presided over the case and sentenced him to hang. In a different case, Thomas Rivers’ trial occurred on December 11, 1667, in which his apprentice accused him of sodomy, causing his near execution. The king ultimately pardons Rivers. Captain Edward Rigby was charged with sodomy for soliciting sex toward William Minton on December 7, 1698. His punishments
As Randolph Trumbach says, a rake was an aristocratic man that sexually pursued young males and females. Earl Mervin was married two times and in the deposition, two of his servants accused him of sodomizing them. Rakes brought fear and awe to society, seeing them as an example of “masculine self-assertion.” As a starting point in male sexuality, the earl’s action by itself was not a problem. Many rakes were not persecuted since it involves those in the upper echelon of society. The only reason some sodomites faced prosecution involved an exception such as political and economic factors, violence, and a crime against nature. Under sodomy charges, Earl Mervin suffered for subverting society in a way that his fellow lords could not
As James Saslow mention, “Sodomy was practiced across the entire spectrum of middle-and lower- class occupation: London merchants and actors…” Although not a rake, sodomy in the lower classes still exhibit the traits of those above, in which a master and apprentice follows the pederast model. Pederasty relations are those relations between two men, in which one was older usually with a beard, and the other was a prepubescent boy. A practice that originates from Greece, it was also common in Italy, especially Florence. As mentioned in the case of Earl Mervin, a male adult was allowed relations with a young man since they shared feminine features. This relationship although frowned upon was not a problem but it depended on what brought it to the authority’s attention. The violation that occurred in Rivers case is based on violence. In the trial, Wells accuses the master of binding him and abusing him both in a cellar and in a public field. The apprentice describing what occurred to him as abuse, which fall under the definition of a violent