Dedication -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Antiquity : eros, lust and self-possessed government -- The middle ages : Edward II's favourites : one throne, two kings -- The early modern age : King James, effeminacy and spineless policy -- The Victorian age : the rhetorical conflation of homosexuality and bad government in the Cleveland street and Dublin castle scandals -- Late modernity : homosexuality, disloyalty and falling below the standards of public life -- Conclusions -- Index