Yorkshire Almanac John Reresby finds that Charles II has broken a promise and made someone more generous than him sheriff of Yorkshire

5 October 1665: John Reresby finds that Charles II has broken a promise and made someone more generous than him sheriff of Yorkshire

John Reresby. 1734. The Memoirs of the Honorable Sir John Reresby, Baronet, and Last Governor of York. London: S. Harding. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

I went to Oxford to put the king in mind of a former promise, to make me high sheriff of the county of York, the year next ensuing; but hearing that Sir Francis Cobb (who had been at some extraordinary charge in receiving and attending the court at York) obtained a grant to continue in that office for another year, at his highness’s intercession I waited on the duke, acquainted him with my claim, and begged his assistance. He told me he wished he had known my claim in time, that he should have been ready to serve me, and that I had nevertheless his leave to solicit his majesty’s promise. I thanked him, but said I could not appear in any degree of opposition to his highness’s interest and pleasure, and would therefore defer my pretensions to a better opportunity. This he took very kindly, went with me to the king, and presented me to him for the next year; his majesty gave me his hand to kiss, and his word once more that I should be sheriff as I had desired.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Reresby was indeed successful in October 1666, “though I was not of the three in the list presented to [Charles] by the judges.”

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Comment

Reresby was indeed successful in October 1666, “though I was not of the three in the list presented to [Charles] by the judges.”

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7 February 1685: Notables at York await the death of Charles II, planning to prevent anti-papists and other dissidents from disrupting the accession of James II

24 June 1687: John Reresby, governor of York, protests James II’s plans to turn his residence into a Catholic school

20 October 1676: John Reresby of Thrybergh Hall (Rotherham) hears that the Duke of Norfolk is telling London that he killed a Barbadian slave by castrating him

17 October 1688: York on the eve of the Glorious Revolution: “an archbishopric without a bishop, a city without a lord mayor, a garrison without a soldier”

25 March 1685: The York apprentices ask John Reresby to lead their new militia troop

13 January 1686: A mob plunders the funeral of the Countess of Strafford at York Minster

2 September 1686: John Reresby describes his organisation of the York garrison

21 February 1688: On Shrove-Tuesday, cock-throwing York apprentices break a Catholic window, and the militia intervenes, torturing citizens and violating their civic rights

2 August 1680: William Dolben, perhaps reluctantly, condemns Thomas Thwing to death at York for his part, without co-conspirators, in a fictitious conspiracy – the Popish Plot

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Comment

This is a Jesuit hagiography, and I don’t know to what extent the source reflects the substance of Dolben’s remarks. Wikipedia takes a more benevolent view of him:

In the aftermath of the Popish Plot, Dolben tried many of the accused, including Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 2nd Baronet and Sir Miles Stapleton; due to his impartial trait of pointing out inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence, both were acquitted.[4] At the trial of Mary Pressicks, who was accused of saying that “We shall never be at peace until we are all of the Roman Catholic religion”, Dolben saved her life by ruling that the words, even if she did speak them, could not amount to treason.[5] As a result of this and his opposition to Charles II’s removal of the City Corporation’s writs, he was “according to the vicious practise of the time” dismissed on 18 April 1683. Again working as a barrister, Dolben prosecuted Algernon Sidney in November 1683 before being reinstated as a Justice of the King’s Bench on 18 March 1689. Records from 29 April show him “inveighing mightily against the corruption of juries [during the Glorious Revolution]”,[1] and he continued sitting as a Justice until his death from an apoplectic fit on 25 January 1694,[6] and was buried in Temple Church.

Vulgar almanacs glory in death sentences and executions, but I suppose one (1) is called for.

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