queer masculinities

Chris Mounsey: (Anglo) Ireland 5
Norton’s six-page description of the events that led up to the execution
are all he needs to capture the experience of his subject’s oppression
as an Early Modern homosexual. Norton, being a modern
homosexual knows what was going on between master and servants as
he has shared the experience. Homosexuality, for the essentialist, is a
transhistorical category, and thus he can confidently declare:
‘Meanwhile, Florentius (sometimes Lawrence) Fitz-Patrick and
Castlehaven were buggering each other in the mansion at Fontain
(later Fonthill) Gifford in the County of Wilts.’ 12
Furthermore, as a modern homosexual looking back at the treatment
of his historical forefather, he may rise to outrage that:
The outcome [of the trial] was a foregone conclusion because of
Castlehaven’s suspected Roman Catholic allegiance; in the words of
the Attorney General: ‘when once a Man indulges his Lust, and
Prevaricates with his Religion, as my Lord Audley has done, by
being a Protestant in the Morning, and a Papist in the Afternoon,
no wonder if he commits the most abominable Impieties.’ He was
the ideal victim to be prosecuted for what many regarded as the
‘Jesuit perversion.’ 13
He may then further demonstrate the transhistorical nature of the
experience of the homosexual since, as he argues that:
The legal precedent therefore clearly established the principle that
homosexuals can be convicted and executed for acts which take
place between consenting adults in private, even if penetration
cannot definitely be proven, and even if the only accusation comes
from the confession of one of the men involved. 14
However, the facts of the case go some way to detract from this type
of reading. As Norton himself points out, Touchet was not solely tried
for sodomy, but also for the rape of his wife. In support of his position,
Norton argues: ‘Undoubtedly Castlehaven deserved punishment for
having assisted in the rape of his wife, but he would never have been
prosecuted for that had he not been a homosexual and a suspected
Papist.’ 15
Norton might have added to this list of ‘defects’ that Touchet was
Irish, particularly since Touchet’s dalliance with the papacy was brief,
and that Touchet’s son, who brought the case against his father, was
an out and out Catholic. Why should a court find against a man who