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Reputation, rage, and liberty
above any obligations to his class or his status. William Windham was from an old Norfolk family. He came of age, married a courtesan, and began running through the family fortune. His behaviour, even by the standards of the day, went beyond merely eccentric, rakish, or unconventional. Over the holiday season of 1861–1862, a jury of twenty-four men and Masters in Lunacy oversaw an Inquiry at the Court of Exchequer in Westminster before bursting crowds to decide whether that behaviour reached the threshold of madness. No less