Editing Thomas De Quincey (section)

==Financial pressures==
[[File:Thomas DeQuincey.jpg|thumb|left|Thomas De Quincey]]
Along with his opium addiction, debt was one of the primary constraints of De Quincey's adult life.<ref name=GL/>{{rp|319–39}} De Quincey came into his patrimony at the age of 21, when he received £2,000 ({{Inflation|UK|2000|1806|fmt=eq|r=0|cursign=£}}) from his late father's estate. He was unwisely generous with his funds, making loans that could not or would not be repaid, including a £300 loan to Coleridge in 1807. After leaving Oxford without a degree, he made an attempt to study law, but desultorily and unsuccessfully; he had no steady income and spent large sums on books (he was a lifelong collector). By the 1820s he was constantly in financial difficulties. More than once in his later years, De Quincey was forced to seek protection from arrest in the debtors' sanctuary of Holyrood in Edinburgh.<ref name=HAE/>{{rp|342f}}<ref name=GL/>{{rp|310f}} (At the time, [[Holyrood Park]] formed a debtors' sanctuary; people could not be arrested for debt within those bounds.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Parliament for a People.... |url=http://www.scottishaffairs.org/backiss/pdfs/sa50/sa50_McCrone.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120904052619/http://www.scottishaffairs.org/backiss/pdfs/sa50/sa50_McCrone.pdf |archive-date=4 September 2012 |access-date=25 September 2011 }}</ref> The debtors who took sanctuary there could emerge only on Sundays, when arrests for debt were not allowed.) Yet De Quincey's money problems persisted; he got into further difficulties for debts he incurred within the sanctuary.<ref name=HAE/>{{rp|372}}

His financial situation improved only later in his life. His mother's death in 1846 brought him an income of £200 per year. When his daughters matured, they managed his budget more responsibly than he ever had himself.<ref name=HAE/>{{rp|429f}}