Introduction

Summary

THIS volume includes the text of over 380 pages of Volume Q of Roger Morrice's Entring Book, covering the period from the issuing of the Declaration of Indulgence in April 1687 to the offer of the crown to William and Mary in February 1689. It provides an account of the final eighteen months of the reign of James II, the invasion of William of Orange, the flight of James, and the events of the only legal interregnum in English history, documenting both the Revolution of 1688 and the first crucial phase of the Revolution settlement. The format of this section of the Entring Book is remarkably consistent. Throughout the period Morrice made weekly entries, which give every indication of being drafted contemporaneously. The text is divided into sections headed by a date — invariably a Saturday, suggesting that Morrice probably made up his account each Saturday — and containing news and anecdotes from the preceding week, or which had come to his attention during that week. Occasionally Morrice missed a week, but there are only two gaps of two weeks — in August 1687 and March 1688. The character of the Entring Book is also very consistent through this period: it is very much a journal of public affairs. As throughout the document, we are allowed very little insight into Morrice himself, but his selection of news is enormously revealing of the preoccupations and concerns of the Puritan Whig group of which he was a part. Predictably, as the second great crisis of the Stuart monarchy approached its resolution in November 1688, the Entring Book becomes more dense and the weekly entries become longer, sometimes extending to twenty pages or more.

The volume opens with the issuing of the Declaration of Indulgence on 4 April 1687. For some months James II had been distancing himself from the Tories and high churchmen, and making overtures to Whigs and Dissenters in an attempt to secure support for his religious policies. The declaration, however, marked a decisive breach with the king's old allies, as James committed himself to a policy of religious toleration. The immediate aim towards which he was working was securing the legislative repeal of both the penal laws and the Test Acts, the consequence of which would have been to have placed both Catholics and Dissenters on a footing of equality with the adherents of the established Church.