“As a pauper, the obvious destination for James Tilly Matthews was the Bethlem Hospital, already long known in popular slang as Bedlam. The principal public asylum in London, it had accepted dangerous and insane paupers as 'objects of charity' for… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“The Bedlam that greeted James Tilly Matthews, then, was not so much a baroque spectacle of depravity as an exhausted and run-down public institution, its building falling apart and its professional image tarnished.” — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“The Air Loom, for all its florid craziness, can be seen to have a function and a rationale: as a miraculous, if temporary, fix… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“At Bow Street Magistrates' Court the essential facts were established. The man's name was James Tilly Matthews. He was a pauper of the south… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“It was Matthews, of course, for whom the verdict was the greatest disaster. Not only had he failed to escape from Bedlam, but the… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“If history is written by the victors, conspiracy theory is typically written by the losers, and there were few greater losers in the revolution… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“Matthews' shout of treason in the House was no random outburst of lunacy, but the last act in an astonishing adventure: one that might… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“Up to this point, it was rare for the mad to be distinguished from the poor, the homeless, the indigent, beggars, vagabonds, petty criminals… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“We think of 1789 as the date of the French Revolution, and the storming of the Bastille as its defining event. Yet as late… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“Many had suspected that the political disasters of the past few years had a hidden cause. The bloodiness of the French mob rule was… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“To look back before 1800 is to enter another world, one where the number of institutions for the mad was a tiny fraction of… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“Come the revolution, however, mesmerism was reconceived once more. From its beginnings many had seen it as an aristocratic fad: Mesmer (by this stage… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“But, mad or sane, Matthews was a man of no ordinary persistence. He was not prepared to renounce the peace plan, any more than… — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
“Haslam leaves us in no doubt what we are supposed to make of Matthews' mental world: this is gibberish and nothing more.” — Mike Jay Copy Share Image
