Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

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

[Letter to John Flamsteed from Horton, 19 November 1775]
[W]e have been so alarmed and terrified here with the rebels in these parts these three or four weeks past, who have been continually marching towards and approaching so near as gave just occasion and fear they had a design against us, especially considering almost all other parts were guarded with the King’s soldiers, whereas these parts were left utterly naked and defenceless, besides a multitude, amongst whom some affirm two-thirds of the inhabitants, and the greatest part of the gentry, clergy, and leading persons dissatisfied, are ready to side with the rebels upon their appearance, some of whom were not afraid to declare as much, notwithstanding the engagements they are under by oaths of allegiance and fidelity lately taken to King George and his Government, but at violating whereof they seemed not in the least to hesitate. By this you may assuredly judge what our apprehensions were, and how little capable any sensible person could be of diverting his thoughts from so imminent a danger. Now, by God’s gracious providence appearing for us in the defeat of the rebels at Preston (an account whereof you have had), our fears are in good measure dissipated, and our minds more composed, other common affairs may with more freedom and satisfaction be attended to.

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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

Comment

Cudworth dates the letter 19 October 1775, before the Battle of Preston. 19 November seems more probable.

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Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Battle of Preston (1715) (1) W/G ·
• 📌Bradford (73) W/G ·
• Flamsteed, John (1646-1719) (4), the first Astronomer Royal, prepared a 3,000-star catalogue, Catalogus Britannicus, and a star atlas called Atlas Coelestis, made the first recorded observations of Uranus, laid the foundation stone for the Royal Greenwich Observatory W/G ·
• George I of Great Britain (3) W/G ·
• House of Hanover (2) W/G ·
• House of Stuart (1) W/G ·
• Jacobite rising of 1715 (3), attempt by the Old Pretender to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts, lasting from the raising of the Jacobite standard in Aberdeenshire on 27 August to surrender at Preston on 14 November W/G ·
• Jacobitism (3) W/G ·
• Kingdom of Great Britain (2) W/G ·
• 📌Little Horton (9) W/G ·
• Northern England (8) W/G ·
• Sharp, Abraham (1653-1742) (6), mathematician and astronomer, assistant of John Flamsteed W/G ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (150) W/G ·

All tags.

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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

Comment

Cudworth dates the letter 19 October 1775, before the Battle of Preston. 19 November seems more probable.

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Similar

24 March 1703: The mathematician and astronomer Abraham Sharp experiences the northern lights for the first time, at Little Horton, Bradford

7 December 1703: Abraham Sharp writes to John Flamsteed of the difficulties of observing Jupiter from Little Horton, Bradford

19 October 1715: Abraham Sharp of Halifax fears for his scientific instruments

24 May 1669: Abraham Sharp (16), later mathematician and astronomer, undertakes not to fornicate for the next eight years and is apprenticed to a York textile merchant

10 June 1715: Following the accession of the Hanoverian George I, Tories ring the bells of Leeds church on the birthday of his Jacobite rival, the Old Pretender, currently plotting a comeback

23 June 1674: Oliver Heywood attends the funeral of Martha Stansfield and her baby

29 February 1824: Prophet John Wroe is baptised on the Leap Day in the Aire near Apperley Bridge before an audience of 30,000

2 May 1844: The Bradford Observer reports a 10% increase in the borough’s population in two years

20 April 1835: A teetotallers’ tea-party at the first, great, Wilsden Temperance Festival

5 February 1649: The Puritan John Sharp of Bradford, on military service at Hull, writes passionately to his “cousin” at York

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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

Comment

Lots of puzzles here. The porphyry chair is a sign of Rome’s determination never to be fooled again as they allegedly were by Pope Joan:

Succeeding popes were placed in a porphyry-chair with a hole in the bottom, and immediately after the election, their genitals were to be searched by the youngest deacon (Baron 1768).

But here it is just metonymy for the absurd notion that this English Puritan should become pope.

Until the practice was abolished at some point in the 20th century, those granted an audience with the pontiff would kiss his slipper.

I am not sure that “wakeling” is “weakling.”

“You writt and unwritt” may be an allusion to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs re that “viper’s bird,” Bishop Gardiner:

And as touching divinity, he was so variable, wavering with time, that no constant censure can be given what to make of him. If his doings and writings were according to his conscience, no man can rightly say whether he was a right protestant or papist. If he wrote otherwise than he thought, for fear, or to bear with time, then was he a double deep dissembler before God and man, to say and unsay, to write and unwrite, to swear and forswear, so as he did (Foxe 1847)

The editor tells us that “Walkinton” refers to John Nelson, Rector of Walkington, 11 miles northwest of Hull, who married John Sharp’s sister Sarah.

I take Sharp’s “cousin” to be like those of The Huff:

He is a Protector to all distressed Damsels called in our Vulgar Tongue Common Whores, and that he may put a better Gloss on the matter, calleth them Cozens (Head 1673).

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