Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

A Yorkshire Almanac Comprising 366 Historical Extracts, Red-letter Days and Customs, and Astronomical and Meteorological Data

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

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:

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Excerpt

I received notice from my lieutenant at York that the day the Countess of Strafford’s body came there to be buried (being attended by several gentlemen of the country, and a guard out of my company), the rabble, to tear off the escutcheons from the hearse, had made an assault upon them, when the soldiers endeavouring to beat them off were driven and pursued into the minster, where the choir being hung with black cloth and escutcheons, was plundered of them, several of the soldiers hurt as well as those of the rabble, so that a greater riot had not been known in that place. That he (my lieutenant) had complained to my lord mayor [John Thompson, a goldsmith] of some of the leaders of this fray, and that he refused to punish them as he ought. At the same time I had a letter from my lord mayor, who complained of the lieutenant and the soldiers, and denied but that he was ready and active to inflict such punishments upon the offenders as the law allowed in that case.

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.

Abbreviations:

  • ER: East Riding
  • GM: Greater Manchester
  • NR: North Riding
  • NY: North Yorkshire
  • SY: South Yorkshire
  • WR: West Riding
  • WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

I received notice from my lieutenant at York that the day the Countess of Strafford’s body came there to be buried (being attended by several gentlemen of the country, and a guard out of my company), the rabble, to tear off the escutcheons from the hearse, had made an assault upon them, when the soldiers endeavouring to beat them off were driven and pursued into the minster, where the quire being hung with black cloth and escutcheons, was plundered of them, several of the soldiers hurt as well as those of the rabble, so that a greater riot had not been known in that place. That he (meaning my lieutenant) had complained to my lord mayor [John Thompson, a goldsmith] of some of the leaders of this fray, and that he refused to punish them as he ought. At the same time I had a letter from my lord mayor, who complained of the lieutenant and the soldiers, and denied but that he was ready and active to inflict such punishments upon the offenders as the law allowed in that case.

184 words.

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