Affair of the Poisons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Poisonings, black masses, ritualisitc child murder (allegedly), and a portion of the cream of French society implicated in murder, withchcraft, magic and devil worship — with investigations curtailed when starting to inch towards the inner circle of the king of France. According to Macclesfield – but also to many of his contemporaries – public office was a piece of private property to be bought and sold; the only caveat was that whoever possessed the office should act well. But his trial raised interesting questions about what Edmund Burke, Hastings’ chief prosecutor, called “geographical morality”: a morality that was place-specific rather than universal. Indeed, the market crash had left a hole in the coffers of the Court of Chancery, whose fund was being used to pay the lord chancellor for lucrative offices at his disposal. The trial came just a few years after the first major stock market crash in British history, the South Sea Bubble, which was widely blamed on corrupt ‘stock-jobbers’. Unbeknownst to Hamilton, Reynolds’ husband James had full knowledge of the dalliance, and he eventually contacted the founding father and demanded more than $1,000 in hush money, which Hamilton paid. George won his case and was able to divorce his wife, who went on to marry her lover. The affair continued for several more months, but in late-1… In 1663, upon receiving one of his first bribes, Pepys did not open the package in which the money was contained until he returned home “and there I broke it open, not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper if ever I should be questioned about it”. This, this is a scandal; 36 people executed in the aftermath. Some of Rumbold’s trading was legitimate; but he constantly sought to use his official position to further or even create his private advantage. You can unsubscribe at any time. If you subscribe to BBC History Magazine Print or Digital Editions then you can unlock 10 years’ worth of archived history material fully searchable by Topic, Location, Period and Person. By entering your details, you are agreeing to HistoryExtra terms and conditions and privacy policy. The slow speed and uncertainty of anti-corruption was not just about changing administrative or institutional practices – though that was important – but also about changing the hearts and minds of officials and those with whom they interacted, as well as the culture in which they operated, and that was, and remains, a highly challenging task. In 1725 another lord chancellor, the Earl of Macclesfield, was again impeached for corruption, this time for selling ‘jobs’ (the word had recently been coined to mean a public office that had been perverted for personal or political gain). William Hone was not the perpetrator of corruption; nor was he the direct victim, but, as a publisher and author, he sought to publicise what he saw as the systemic corruption of early 19th-century society. An astute merchant and financier who sought to reform and retrench public finances, he nevertheless sought opportunities in government for his own enrichment. Fraud scandals are fascinating by their very nature. The Sadleir scandal was a British banking fraud of the 1850s that destroyed several companies and the savings of thousands of people. In early 19th-century England, being executed as a criminal meant that your body could also be given to a medical school for dissection. The jury acquitted him on each occasion, making him a popular hero who had the last laugh. Hone conducted his own defence, showing not only that religious texts had frequently been parodied in the past but also that laughing at the government for its corruption was not an offence. Thurlow thought a corrupt motive still had to be shown and Hastings was acquitted. Cranfield had incurred Buckingham’s wrath largely because Middlesex’s reforms undermined the lucrative patronage system that the duke had developed. The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine, Save 50% on a BBC History Magazine or BBC History Revealed subscription, From the acceptance of bribes to tax evasion, claims of corruption and scandal have featured heavily in recent news. Annulments, Separations, Divorce and Scandal Despite what readers sometimes encounters in historical romance novels, annulments and divorces in Regency England were not easy to obtain. But as long as there was a degree of ambiguity – in both the work, and the artist’s proclivities – 19th Century society was prepared to turn a blind eye. These two apparently unconnected stories are linked by an early nineteenth century scandal, involving News Corp’s boss Rupert Murdoch’s great great great grandfather, Robert Sherson, an East India Company official who was accused of embezzling money from a relief effort after a famine and then violent storms hit Madras in 1807. Buckingham had an element of revenge when, just three years later, Lord Treasurer Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex was also impeached. Macclesfield’s defence was intriguing. From dashing adventurers to men who might be women, dutiful wives, court beauties and famous last words, join me for a countdown of Five Georgian Super Spies. Two years later Pepys was again under attack but this time brazened it out, protesting that he never did “directly or indirectly… demand or express any expectation of fee, gratuity or reward from any person for any service” and deliberately underestimated the amount he was now worth by £6,000. Later 18th-century scandal revolved around the figure of the nabob, a British East India man who became as wealthy (through dubious means) as the Indian princes whose title was applied to him and who then returned to Britain to spread his corrupt ways. This was also the lesson of one of the longest trials in British history, another East India Company corruption case which was brought against Warren Hastings between 1787 and 1795. Beyond that, the state didn’t really have a legitimate interest. On one side you have the person or company pulling off the fraud with an impressive disregard for the long-term consequences of their actions ... An 18th-century development scheme in the swamps of Louisiana? Criminal conversation, beastly behavior, sexual shenanigans … it’s all here in these ten shocking scandals that rocked nineteenth century society … Nevertheless, Pepys evaded any formal charge, though he had come close to being indicted in 1668 when an inquiry accused him and his colleagues of having “corruptly preferred and postponed payments” and he resolved “to declare plainly, and, once for all, the truth of the whole, and what my profit hath been”. After parting ways with Troup, Hamilton had one of the most significant romances of his entire life with John Laurens, a fellow aide de camp to George Washington. Rumbold was an associate of Lord Clive, who made a spectacular fortune in India, and like him also sought to combine private interest with state and company service. 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