Diaries of the Seventeenth Century

Page 4 of 6

• 1. Seventeenth century diary writing
• 2. Private journals
• 3. Diary of a conspirator
• 4. Diary of a revolutionary
• 5. A matter of perspective
• 6. Find out more
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Diary of a revolutionary

The revolution in the north of England was nevertheless seen as a trick of a different kind by a Leeds dissenter, Ralph Thoresby. His account tells us about a popular rather than a noble revolution, accomplished through rumour and panic rather than William's invasion:

'we underlings knew not what to make of these affairs ... only I cannot omit the dreadful alarm of the flying army of Irish and massacring Papists, who with unheard-of cruelty burnt and killed all before them ... all the artificers, even the most precise, spent the next, though the Lord's day (16th December) in mending the fire-arms of such as had any and fixing scythes in shafts (desperate weapons) for such as had none'.

'7000 assembled in Leeds to defend themselves against this imaginary force of bog-trotting papists'

7000 assembled in Leeds to defend themselves against this imaginary force of bog-trotting papists, roused to the height of fear in the night by the call of 'horse and arms!... The drums beat, the bells rang backwards, the women shrieked and such dreadful consternation seized upon all persons'. Thoresby's revolution was a popular one, managed 'artfully' by the power of rumour.

Thoresby was a dissenter, the group who had at first been persecuted in the High Church, Tory reaction of 1681-5, and then courted by a catholic king desperate for allies between 1686 and 1688. This experience deeply colours the account of the very well informed presbyterian Roger Morrice, who was close to the presbyterian leaders in London. His suspicions of the church hierarchy - the very men who now ironically seemed to be standing up to popery - shaped his view of the revolution.

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Published: 2001-04-01