John Wilkes
A little perspective may help. I mentioned Wilkes, earlier, because he was both an actual "hero of the revolution," and someone reviled for his low moral character.
"I am neither moved by Wilkes' private vices, nor by his public merits...God forbid, my lords, that there should be a power in this country of measuring the civil rights of the subject by his moral character..."
--William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, hero of the Seven Years' War, and champion of American liberties; quoted in
Political Ideas: 1760-1792, by R.W. Harris
Wilkes, Liberty, and Number 45
by Jack Lynch
Member of Parliament, political agitator, friend of freedom, demagogue, wit, libertine, pornographer, and shameless self-promoter, England's John Wilkes was to colonial Americans an idol. Boston's Sons of Liberty, which counted among its number John Hancock and Samuel Adams, identified Wilkes with their cause; our forefathers named towns and babies for him; and his fights against government oppression helped inspire the Bill of Rights. Wilkes was at the center of many an important eighteenth-century political change, but to some—Benjamin Franklin, for instance—he seemed an unlikely hero.
For one thing, his personal immorality was legendary. He belonged to the Knights of St. Francis of Wycombe, better known as the Hellfire Club or the Monks of Medmenham Abbey. The members of this secret society dressed in Franciscan robes and parodied Roman Catholic rituals to engage in ribaldry and drunken orgies, often with prostitutes dressed as nuns....
http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/summer03/wilkes.cfm
