Yorkshire Almanac Notables at York await the death of Charles II, planning to prevent anti-papists and other dissidents from disrupting the accession of James II

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

John Reresby. 1875. The Memoirs of Sir John Reresby of Thrybergh, Bart., M.P. for York, etc., 1634-1689. Ed. James J. Cartwright. London: Longmans, Green, and Company. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

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

The high sheriff of the county, with many of the chief of the gentry, came to York to consider which way to take to secure the peace of the county in case of ill news. That night we sat up together till one in the morning, expecting the coming in of the post, which acquainted us at the last of the King’s relapse, and the fears of his physicians that he might not recover. Upon this the sheriff, myself, and all the deputy-lieutenants there present, resolved to do our utmost, should the King die, to obviate all things to the best of our power that should anyways obstruct the Duke of York’s just claim to the Crown; and considering that the safety of the county did most depend upon that of this city (for this they unanimously agreed to), they issued out orders that night for four companies of Sir Thomas Slingsby’s regiment to be raised, and to relieve one another, by way of additional guard to the garrison under my command as governor.

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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.

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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

15 September 1679: The election at York for the Exclusion Bill Parliament is devolved to more convenient locations

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”

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

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

7 April 1687: James II’s declaration of freedom of conscience arrives in Yorkshire, but fails in its alleged underlying intention – to drive people into the arms of the Catholic church

11 September 1666: Nine days after the start of the Great Fire, Margaret Hodgson of Richmond tells a York court that a beggar told her yesterday of a plot to burn London

16 March 1676: Charles Chauncy of Bridlington tells a court what he found when he went to confiscate horses and firearms from John Constable, Catholic

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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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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