Black Sheep: 2

by Christopher Hugh Sykes

Book by Sykes, Christopher

Genres: History

285 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 1983

Reviews

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every well-placed family produces an occasional profligate, bounder, or cad. Well, so does every ordinary family, but "black sheep" with titles get more press. After investigating the effects of primogeniture on the younger sons of the English aristocracy — especially in a earlier era when lack of prospects could not be readily balanced by a talent for commerce or the arts — Sykes regales the reader with the lurid exploits of "mad drinkers" such as John Wilmot, earl of Rochester (known as "Rake Rochester") and champion spendthrifts such as the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, who died at the age of thirty having gone through more than £50 million. Then there was the infamous John Knatchbull, younger son of a baronet and brother of one of Robert Peel’s ministers, who destroyed his promising naval career with gambling debts and later was transported to Australia for picking pockets. He was subsequently convicted of forgery and further exiled to tiny Norfolk Island; after serving that sentence he committed a brutal murder and was publicly hanged at Sydney in 1844. An altogether entertaining look at the side of the aristocracy Debrett’s chooses to ignore.