and
John Wilkes The excitement created by the actions of
John Wilkes led Horne into politics, and in 1765 he brought out a scathing pamphlet on
Bute and
Mansfield, entitled "The Petition of an Englishman". In the autumn of 1765 he escorted another rich young man to
Italy. In Paris he met Wilkes, and from
Montpellier, in January 1766, addressed a letter to him which began the quarrel between them. In the summer of 1767 Horne returned, and in 1768 secured the return of Wilkes to parliament for Middlesex. With inexhaustible energy he promoted the legal proceedings over the
riot in St George's Fields when a youth named Allen was killed, and exposed the irregularity in the judge's order for the execution of two
Spitalfields weavers. His dispute with
George Onslow, MP for
Surrey, who at first supported and then threw over Wilkes for place, culminated in a civil action, ultimately decided, after the reversal of a verdict which had been obtained through the charge of Lord Mansfield, in Horne's favour, and in the loss by his opponent of his seat in parliament. An influential association, called
The Society for Supporting the Bill of Rights, was founded, mainly through the exertions of Horne and Wilkes, with the support of
John Wheble, in 1769, but the members were soon divided into two opposite camps, and in 1771 Horne and Wilkes, their respective leaders, broke out into open dispute. On 1 July 1771 Horne obtained at Cambridge his degree of
M.A., though not without some opposition from members of both the political parties. Earlier in that year he claimed for the public the right of printing an account of parliamentary debates, and after a long struggle, the right was definitely established. In the same year (1771), Horne argued with
Junius, and ended in disarming his masked antagonist.
Study of law and personal legal problems showing
Fox as the personification of vice next to a portrait of
Pitt as the embodiment of honesty, followed by portraits of their fathers, Lord Holland and William Pitt senior displayed below. The title is an allusion to the pamphlet by the same title written by Horne Tooke. Horne resigned his
benefice in 1773 and began the study of the
law and
philology. An accident, however, occurred at this moment which largely affected his future. His friend William Tooke had purchased a considerable estate, including Purley Lodge, south of the town of
Croydon in Surrey. The possession of this property brought about frequent disputes with an adjoining landowner, Thomas de Grey, and, after many actions in the courts, de Grey's friends endeavoured to obtain, by a bill forced through the houses of parliament, the privileges which the law had not assigned to him (February 1774). Horne, thereupon, by a bold
libel on the Speaker, drew public attention to the case, and though he himself was placed for a time in the custody of the
serjeant-at-arms, the clauses which were injurious to the interest of Tooke were eliminated from the bill. Tooke declared his intention of making Horne the heir to his fortune, and during his lifetime he bestowed upon him large gifts of money. No sooner had this matter been happily settled than Horne found himself involved in serious trouble. For his conduct in signing the advertisement soliciting subscriptions for the relief of the relatives of the Americans "murdered by the king's troops at
Lexington and Concord," he was tried at the Guildhall on 4 July 1777, before Lord Mansfield, found guilty, and committed to the
King's Bench Prison in St George's Fields, from which he only emerged after a year's durance, and after a loss in fines and costs amounting to £1,200. Soon after his release he applied to be
called to the bar, but his application was rejected on the grounds that his orders in the Church were indelible. Horne thereupon tried his fortune, but without success, on farming some land in
Huntingdonshire. Two tracts about this time exercised great influence in the country. One of them,
Fads Addressed to Landholders, etc. (1780), written by Horne in conjunction with others, criticizing the measures of
Lord North's ministry, passed through numerous editions; the other,
A Letter on Parliamentary Reform (1782), addressed by him to Dunning, set out a scheme of reform, which he afterwards withdrew in favour of that advocated by
William Pitt the Younger. On his return from Huntingdonshire he became once more a frequent guest at Tooke's house at
Purley, and in 1782 assumed the name of Horne Tooke. In 1786 Horne Tooke conferred perpetual fame upon his benefactor's country house by adopting, as a second title of his elaborate philological treatise of
Epea Pteroenta — the Greek phrase
ἔπεα πτερόεντα ("winged words") comes from
Homer — the more popular though misleading title of
The Diversions of Purley. The treatise at once attracted attention in England and the Continent. The first part was published in 1786, the second in 1805. The best edition is that which was published in 1829, under the editorship of
Richard Taylor, with the additions written in the author's interleaved copy. Between 1782 and 1790 Horne Tooke gave his support to Pitt, and in the election for
Westminster, in
1784, threw all his energies into opposition to Fox. With Fox he was never on terms of friendship, and
Samuel Rogers, in his
Table Talk, asserts that their antipathy was so pronounced that at a dinner party given by a prominent Whig not the slightest notice was taken by Fox of the presence of Horne Tooke. It was after the election of Westminster in 1788 that Horne Tooke depicted the rival statesmen (
Lord Chatham and
Lord Holland,
William Pitt and
Charles James Fox) in his celebrated pamphlet
Two Pair of Portraits.
Bids for office and treason trial At the
general election of 1790, Horne Tooke stood as a candidate for the Westminster constituency, in opposition to Fox and
Lord Hood, but was defeated. At a second attempt in
1796, he was again at the bottom of the poll. In the meantime, the excesses of the French republicans had provoked reaction in England, and the Tory ministry adopted a policy of repression. Early on the morning of 16 May 1794 Horne Tooke was detained and conveyed to the
Tower of London. His was one of a series of arrests that placed him in the company of a number of prominent figures associated with the
London Corresponding Society, its opposition to the war with France and call for democratic reform, among them
Thomas Hardy,
Thomas Spence,
Thomas Holcroft, and
John Thelwall. For the
government of William Pitt their trials in November for treason proved an acute embarrassment. Juries were not ready to accept mere expression of political opinion as evidence of plots against King and Parliament. When the evidence running to four printed volumes failed to impress in the case of Hardy, the courts were unable to take seriously the charges against his associates. Horne Tooke jeered at the
Attorney-General and clowned in the dock. His jury took only eight minutes to settle on acquittal. Horne Tooke's public life after this event was only distinguished by one act of importance. Through the influence of the
second Lord Camelford, he was returned to parliament at a by-election on 14 February 1801 for the
pocket borough of
Old Sarum. When he took his seat two days later an observer described him as "very old" (he was then aged 64) and "lame", "walking about the House from bench to bench ... followed by
Sir Francis Burdett", his sponsor and a former pupil.
Lord Temple endeavoured to secure his exclusion on the ground that he had taken orders in the Church of England, and one of
James Gillray's caricatures delineates the two politicians, Temple and Camelford, playing at
battledore and shuttlecock, with Horne Tooke as the
shuttlecock. The
Addington ministry would not support this suggestion, but instead secured passage of the
House of Commons (Disqualifications) Act 1801, which rendered all persons in holy orders ineligible to sit in the
House of Commons with effect from the
1802 general election. ==Later years and legacy==