Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

one or two poems to each. Seven of his poems are inspired by the generous gifts he receives
from his visitors, comprising money; food; clothing; furniture; writing materials, and even 'a
Cliaret [chariot]' to take him home once discharged 505 . Many of these gifts are plainly given to
Carkesse at his own request. indeed, his poems evidence how the articulate and better connected
patient could wheedle considerable privileges out of visitors. Carkesse does not just dedicate
(and apparently convey) his poems to his charitable visitors by way of thanks. lie actually uses
them to tender and register further requests for the items he desires for his greater comfort506.
Apart from the material rewards of visiting, Carkesse's poems reveal the rapture a patient might
experience at the appearance of visitors of the opposite sex, and the great honour or 'Extasie'
he might feel at the visit of a dignitary, like the Duke of Grafton 507. Cloistered from women
patients, Carkesse's female visitors patently act as welcome stimulus to his libido. The visitors
Carkesse mentions are plainly a breath of fresh air to him, eulogised as transforming his cell arid
mood, however briefly. It is not the conduct of the general public of which Carkesse complains,
quite the reverse. What torments Carkesse is his very situation of confinement, in which his
visitors are alleviators and potential delh'erers, and a prized link with the outside world508.
Whilst under mechanical restraint, Carkesse can only have seen the faces of spectators as they
'peep[ed] in' through the grate of his cell, yet he plainly found the sight quite captivating. On
being visited by a tinman's wife, when chained by the leg, he turns his enthralment with her, her
marital obligation and his own mechanical restraint, into a telling metaphor of confinement509.
505 Op. cii.; 'Silver' or 'Chink' from an anonymous lady and 6d a piece from Lady Jane Lewison Gower and
Mrs Catherine Newport, 43-44, 57; 'Apricotta' from the anonymous lady of 43-4, and 'Venison' from a friend, 58;
a 'Trunk' for his verses from another friend and 'a Chair' or 'Throne' from yet another, 44; a 'Shirt' from the
anonymous Lady of 43-4 and 'a periwig' from a Mr. Stackhouse, 49; writing material. from the anonymous lady
of 43-4, and the chariot from Lady Sheriffess Becklord, Mrs Catherine Heywood and Mrs Johnson, 45-6.
506 From the friend who had sent him 'a Chair of State', Carlcese asks for something even 'more considerable',
'a Csrpet...or Table'; he hopes that the two Ladies who had both given him 6d, will 'cure' him again, and solicits
another three ladies for a feather bed and 'brighter Sable' with which 'to make his Cloyster 64 for their Reception';
ilid, 44, 46 & 57.
507 mid, 24-6, 36, 41-6, 57 & 64.
508 In one poem Carkesse asks Sir Edward Seymour ('Seymor'), the Speaker who had chosen Carkesse's enemy
Pepys as Secretary to the Admiralty, to 'Rescue' him from Bethiem, by sending a 'Seteant...at Armes'. In
another, he begs the Duke of Monmouth to send his 'Charet' to Bethlem for the same purpose, and, in a third,
claims to have ultimately been supplied with sudi a chariot by Lady Sherifess Beckford, Mrs Catherine Heywood
and Mrs Jobnson. J,d, 41, 45-6 & 51. As Deporte observes, however, many of C*rkesse's reiesta aie thensselve,
redoknt of his own 'inflated vision of his talents'; see 'Vehicles', in PapckoIog, 79.
509 The fanciful Addre,.e made io...the Ledy Monk (1660), effects the same metaphorical conversion of the
'chains', 'cells' and misery of confinement into the 'ornaments', 'Palaces' and 'happineuse' of 'Honour', as is
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