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The outrageously debauched life of Colonel Francis Charteris (1675-1732), as immortalized in Hogarth���s Harlot’s Progress, and his spectacular fall from grace at the hands of a humble servant.
This vivid account chronicles Colonel Francis Charteris’s privileged life of cruelty, criminality, and excess which led him to become one of the most hated men of his time. This is the ideal book for readers of Erin Mackie, Matthew J. Kinservik, Lucy Moore, and Jerry White.
Despite being descended from an ancient Scottish line leading back to Norman France, Charteris was not born to great wealth. Instead, he made it his life’s work to acquire it — not by any honest means and hard toil, but as a ruthless gambler, cheat, blackmailer, fraudster and extortionate money lender. He was also a penny-pinching miser.
Not wishing to waste his money on common prostitutes as did most wealthy men of his time, and also to protect himself from disease, he believed in taking what he wanted from innocent and unwilling victims. The women, often lured under false pretences to work in his household, he believed he could rape with impunity. His downfall finally came when one brave servant girl stood up for her rights. The trial was a sensation, and the conviction long overdue.
Drawing from a wealth of contemporary sources such as newspaper and journal reports, court documents, public records, private letters and memoirs, Stratmann delivers a thoroughly researched account of a man so notorious his contemporaries called him ‘The Rape-Master General’.
This vivid account chronicles Colonel Francis Charteris’s privileged life of cruelty, criminality, and excess which led him to become one of the most hated men of his time. This is the ideal book for readers of Erin Mackie, Matthew J. Kinservik, Lucy Moore, and Jerry White.
Despite being descended from an ancient Scottish line leading back to Norman France, Charteris was not born to great wealth. Instead, he made it his life’s work to acquire it — not by any honest means and hard toil, but as a ruthless gambler, cheat, blackmailer, fraudster and extortionate money lender. He was also a penny-pinching miser.
Not wishing to waste his money on common prostitutes as did most wealthy men of his time, and also to protect himself from disease, he believed in taking what he wanted from innocent and unwilling victims. The women, often lured under false pretences to work in his household, he believed he could rape with impunity. His downfall finally came when one brave servant girl stood up for her rights. The trial was a sensation, and the conviction long overdue.
Drawing from a wealth of contemporary sources such as newspaper and journal reports, court documents, public records, private letters and memoirs, Stratmann delivers a thoroughly researched account of a man so notorious his contemporaries called him ‘The Rape-Master General’.