… is his castle.
I am currently reading a book called The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. It is a true story of the mystery behind the gruesome murder of a child in a quiet family house in Wiltshire during 1860. The crime in fact inspired the classic Victorian detective novel.
The following quote appears towards the beginning of the book and I found it rather interesting. It it is from an article in the Morning Post (10th July 1860). The article was arguing that the security of all homes rested on solving the murder case, which would involve violating a sacred place – an Englishman’s home.
Every Englishman is accustomed to price himself with more than usual complacency upon what is called the sanctity of and English home. No soldier, no policeman, no spy of the Government dare enter it… Unlike the tenant of a foreign domicile, the occupier of an English house, whether it be mansion or cottage, possesses an indisputable title against every kind of aggression upon his threshold. He defies everybody below the Home Secretary; and even he can only violate the traditional security of a man’s house under extreme circumstances, and with the prospect of a Parliamentary indemnity. It is with this thoroughly innate feeling of security that every Englishman feels a strong sense of the inviolability of his own house. It is this that converts the moorside cottage into a castle. The moral sanctions of an English home are, in the nineteenth century, what the moat, and the keep, and the drawbridge were in the fourteenth. In the strength of these we lie down to sleep at night, and leave our homes in the day, feeling that a whole neighbourhood would be raised, nay, the whole country, were any attempt made to violate what so many traditions, and such a long custom, have rendered sacred.
How times have changed!
Quite apt Cherie, given how this government has now taken away this precious principle with its law on home defence.
Yes, I just had to post it. The next chapter goes on in detail about how policing worked in those days too. And as you know that has changed for the worse too.
Wow this hit home for me as we were tied up in civil litigation defending our property-when it should be a given and one should not have to fight for a right once gained-and now obviously lost.
I think we need to go back to moats and drawbridges.
I am not sure I want to go back as far as the moats and drawbridges, but the thought is romantic (oops! sorry got distracted).
Distraction aside – I agree we do need to go back to the time when we had proper rights which we had earned. We shouldn’t have to fight for what is rightfully our own. Such a thought is morally wrong.
A flat should also be inviolate…
I agree
I’m in agreement…the right to self-defense, defense of family, property…
It should go without saying really shouldn’t it?
With you on that one (home as a sanctuary, hence inviolate), Cherie. Horrified by recent changes in UK.
!
You’re the second reliable recommender re the book; so I’ll just have to read it now
The changes are just moving along so quickly. I can see why but most people won’t so it sadly it won’t change anytime soon.
I will be posting a review of the book when I have finished it. Half way through now
Because of modern technology mankind thinks itself an advanced species yet somewhere along the line lost sight of what really counts – respect for one another and of their possessions.
I concur with you completely on this.
I agree mankind thinks that all that technology means they are the dominant species, but eventually I think nature will have the last say on that.
& yes the craving for more and better of everything has made mankind lose sight of the fact that everyone is important and has a role to play – as you say a lack of respect or is it arrogance?
Those were the days!
So sad how quickly it seems to have changed.