“Et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium”, Coke, Institutes, Ch.73

My Lords and Gentlemen,

There is much trouble in the Court which I must first note here before commencing my Treatise.

I have the highest regard for the military prowess of the Prince, George Augustus¹Subsequently George II. Indeed, the Duke of Marlborough himself has written to me that at Oudenade he “distinguished himself extremely, charging at the head of and animating by his example his troops, who played a good part in this happy victory”²While the Duke of Marlborough wrote this elsewhere, there is no record of any correspondence between the Duke and the Somnambulist; compare Van de Kiste, John (1997) George II and Queen Caroline. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. , p. 23.. It is unfortunate that so brave a young man should quarrel with his father.  It is still more unfortunate when the father of so brave a young man is His Majestie the King³The Somnambulist here is referring to the rift between George Augustus, Prince of Wales and George I. Despite an earlier reconciliation by Sir Robert Walpole, by 1721 the rift had become manifest again. 

Such matters might seem without the purview of my Treatise, confined as it is to Philosophical Speculation. Yet, I most truly believe that the behaviour of the Prince in quarrelling with his father has at its origin a philosophical error. Despite his seeming recent reconciliation with his Majestie it appears that the Prince has embraced all manner of  Wokery⁴The Somnambulist may here be referring to the Prince’s opposition to the measures to promote religious freedom promoted by George the First: compare, for instance,Thompson, Andrew C. (2011) George II: King and Elector. New Haven and London: Yale University Press pp 48-50. and with his wife has sought to banish himself from the Court. Rather than staying silent about matters best kept privy to his Family, the Prince and his wife have felt impelled to express their innermost emotions in that most unseemly manner of the Proponents of Sleeplessness. They state in Publick their innermost beliefs about their treatment at the hands of His Majestie claiming that this is “their truth” which cannot be gainsaid. Those who say that the truth is not what the Princess says it is are guilty of that most heinous of sins: slumbering. I fear that such thinking is corrosive of all good order for if the Truth is what any man or woman should say it is, what is to stop a Despot telling us that black is white or white is black and men are women and women are men and condemning us for saying otherwise?

Indeed, the proponents of Wokery in Edinburgh are seeking to do just that. They seek to silence those whose views they regard to be “hateful”. They do so even if such anathematized views be expressed even in a man’s own home.

In England it has surely been established “a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium .” ⁵“and each man’s home is his safest refuge”,  Coke Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England (1628) ch. 73. Yet in Scotland this is not so. Should one “stir up hatred” (in other words say something that is hateful in the eyes of the Proponents of Wokery) one is to be damned. Indeed, should one do so even in one’s ruminations over a pipe with friends after a good meal before one’s one hearth, one is at risk of penalty. Should my mistress say to me as we break our fast in the morning, “Men should not be allowed to say that they are women and I hope you agree with me” (whether or not she be misguided in the matter), she will have offended against the Scotch law.

While I had intended to confine my Treatise to the study of the Theory of Sleeplessness in England and Wales, I shall add an appendix explaining how Wokery in Scotland is nothing less than a manifestation of that most pernicious of errant philosophies: Jacobitism. 

I remain your most humble and obedient servant,

The Somnambulist.