Tim Harris 
The Entring Book of Roger Morrice III 
The Reign of James II, 1685-1687

First edition of an eye-witness account of seventeenth-century England – the dark side of Pepys.


The
Entring Book is the longest and richest diary of public life in England during the era of the Glorious Revolution. Spanning the years 1677 to 1691, in nearly a million words, it records the downfall of the House of Stuart. This is a chronicle not only of politics and religion, but also of culture and society, gossip and rumour, manners and mores, in a teeming metropolis risen phoenix-like from the Great Fire. Its author, Roger Morrice, was a Puritan clergyman turned confidential reporter for leading Whig politicians – well-connected, a barometer of public opinion, and supremely well-informed. Written just twenty years after Pepys’s Diary, the
Entring Book depictsa darker England, thrown into a great crisis of `popery and arbitrary power’.