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King of the Beggars |
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Loveable rogue
Bampfylde even dressed up as an old woman! |
Bampfylde’s story obviously exerted a strong hold on the public’s imagination, but why? His was a real-life story in the literary tradition of the loveable “rogue”, and perhaps, as Hugh Breitmeyer argues, this was the key to his popularity.
Although a beggar, Bampfylde provided an example of stubborn independence and freedom, which would have appealed to 18th-Century audiences, living in a period when people were “being increasingly forced into narrow conformity by social and economic forces”. The accounts of Bampfylde’s colourful exploits also coincided with a thirst for comic or semi-comic “lives” and “rambles” amongst 18th-Century readers.
Whilst Bampfylde was a deeply dishonest man, there was never anything “seriously anti-social” about his actions, argues Breitmeyer. Certainly if the published accounts are to be believed, the “victims” of his tricks did not seem to resent him, and even encouraged him on occasion to see if he could fool them for a second time. He is always described as a sensitive, family-loving man, and references are made to his education and knowledge, perhaps helping to broaden his appeal and make his image slightly more respectable.
Bampfylde Moore Carew - a loveable rogue
© Devon Library Services |
Folk hero
Yet with his confidence tricks and disguises Bampfylde did make fools of the rich and powerful, and this would have appealed to many a reader. Even today we all like to hear such stories, and remember times when we ourselves, as children, succeeded in fooling the “authorities”. And folk heroes who helped the poor against the rich - like Robin Hood - have always been popular.
We may never know the full truth about Bampfylde Moore Carew, that most irrepressible of rogues, but his popularity in the 18th Century still tells us something about the mindset of his contemporaries, and their respect for such defiant independence.
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