Mark Goldie's authoritative and highly readable introduction to the political and religious landscape of Britain during the turbulent era of later Stuart rule.
Compiled between the years 1677 and 1691, the Entring Book is 900,000 words long, with many sensitive passages written in a secret shorthand that has only recently been decoded. This remarkable chronicle of public affairs has remained for nearly three centuries, secure but little known, in Dr Williams's Library, London. The Entring Book fits no simple definition. It is not just a political diary, nor is it only the newsletter it sometimes resembles. It's possible that it could have been the material for a history of Morrice's own times, or it may have been a letterbook, recording correspondence to an unnamed recipient. Writing in great detail, with meticulous regularity, Morrice may have been passing on all he knew to senior figures in the opposition to Charles II and James II. The Entring Book's enormous scope means it also covers publishing, plays, business, military and religious matters, foreign affairs, public opinion and London life, making it an essential resource. Through it we can trace the transformation of puritanism into Whiggery and Dissent. This seven volume set includes an introductory and an index volume as well as a biographical encyclopedia of names.
The first comprehensive history of seventeenth-century London, told through the lives of those who experienced it The Gunpowder Plot, the Civil Wars, Charles I’s execution, the Plague, the Great Fire, the Restoration, and then the Glorious Revolution: the seventeenth century was one of the most momentous times in the history of Britain, and Londoners took center stage. In this fascinating account, Margarette Lincoln charts the impact of national events on an ever-growing citizenry with its love of pageantry, spectacle, and enterprise. Lincoln looks at how religious, political, and financial tensions were fomented by commercial ambition, expansion, and hardship. In addition to events at court and parliament, she evokes the remarkable figures of the period, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Pepys, and Newton, and draws on diaries, letters, and wills to trace the untold stories of ordinary Londoners. Through their eyes, we see how the nation emerged from a turbulent century poised to become a great maritime power with London at its heart—the greatest city of its time.
The Entring Book is the longest and richest diary of public life in England during the era of the Glorious Revolution. Spanning the years 1677 to 1691, in nearly a million words, it records the downfall of the House of Stuart. This is a chronicle not only of politics and religion, but also of culture and society, gossip and rumour, manners and mores, in a teeming metropolis risen phoenix-like from the Great Fire. Its author, Roger Morrice, was a Puritan clergyman turned confidential reporter for leading Whig politicians - well-connected, a barometer of public opinion, and supremely well-informed. Written just twenty years after Pepys's Diary, the Entring Book depicts a darker England, thrown into a great crisis of `popery and arbitrary power'