rights by the Whigs that led to blacking. George I made
Cadogan a baron in 1716 and then an earl in 1718. He was
also an influential member of the Regency Council of Lords
Justices, which presided over major affairs of state, and he
served as the acting commander in chief. He bought a
large property of about a thousand acres at Caversham,
about twenty miles west of Windsor. There he built a grand
house and ornate gardens and laid out a 240-acre deer
park. Yet this property was consolidated by encroaching on
the rights of those around the estate. People were evicted,
and their traditional rights to graze animals and collect peat
and firewood were abrogated. Cadogan faced the wrath of
the Blacks. On January 1, 1722, and again in July, the park
was raided by mounted and armed Blacks. The first attack
killed sixteen deer. Earl Cadogan was not alone. The
estates of many notable landowners and politicians were
also raided by the Blacks.
The Whig government was not going to take this lying
down. In May 1723, Parliament passed the Black Act,
which created an extraordinary fifty new offenses that were
punishable by hanging. The Black Act made it a crime not
only to carry weapons but to have a blackened face. The
law in fact was soon amended to make blacking
punishable by hanging. The Whig elites went about
implementing the law with gusto. Baptist Nunn set up a
network of informers in Windsor Forest to discover the
identity of the Blacks. Soon several were arrested. The
transition from arrest to hanging ought to have been a
straightforward affair. After all, the Black Act had already
been enacted, the Whigs were in charge of Parliament,
Parliament was in charge of the country, and the Blacks
were acting directly contrary to the interests of some
powerful Whigs. Even Sir Robert Walpole, secretary of
state, then prime minister—and like Cadogan, another
influential member of the Regency Council of the Lords
Justices—was involved. He had a vested interest in
Richmond Park in southwest London, which had been
created out of common land by Charles I. This park also
encroached upon the traditional rights of local residents to
graze their animals, hunt hares and rabbits, and collect
firewood. But the ending of these rights appears to have
been rather laxly enforced, and grazing and hunting