This is an account of the Gordon Riots, one of the most violent outbreaks of popular protest in British history. In 1780, Lord George Gordon MP led 50,000 people to present a petition calling for the repeal of the 1778 Roman Catholic Relief Act. The demonstration turned into a riot.

Contending visions -- The Elm Park Riot -- Portents of violence -- Teh Eighth Avenue Riot -- Judgment -- Aftermath -- Killed, injured and arrested in connection with the 1870 riot -- Killed, injured, and arrested in connection with the 1871 riot and a list of property damanges -- Sources of biographical information on selected committee of seventy members.

In the eighteenth century, the Catholics of England lacked many basic freedoms under the law: they could not serve in political office, buy or inherit land, or be married by the rites of their own religion. So virulent was the sentiment against Catholics that, in 1780, violent riots erupted in London—incited by the anti-Papist Lord George Gordon—in response to the Act for Relief that had been passed to loosen some of these restrictions. The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next fifty years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age. Gripping, spirited, and incisive, The King and the Catholics is character-driven narrative history at its best, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned oppression—and showing how sustained political action can triumph over injustice.

A new and controversial perspective on the causes, personalities and consequences of the most devastating urban riots in British history.

The fascinating story of Boston's violent past is told for the first time in this history of the city's riots, from the food shortage uprisings in the 18th century to the anti-busing riots of the 20th century.

This book, first published in 2000, examines the diversity of protest from 1780 to 1840 and how it altered during this period of extreme change. This textbook covers all forms of protest, including the Gordon Riots of 1780, food riots, Luddism, the radical political reform movement and Peterloo in 1819, and the less well researched anti-enclosure, anti-New Poor Law riots, arson and other forms of 'terroristic' action, up to the advent of Chartism in the 1830s. Archer evaluates the problematic nature of source materials and conflicting interpretations leading to debate, and reviews the historiography and methodology of protest studies. This study of popular protest gives a unique perspective on the social history and conditions of this crucial period and will provide a valuable resource for students and teachers alike.

The story of Catholicism in Britain from the Reformation to the present day, from a master of popular history – 'A first-class storyteller' The Times Throughout the three hundred years that followed the Act of Supremacy – which, by making Henry VIII head of the Church, confirmed in law the breach with Rome – English Catholics were prosecuted, persecuted and penalised for the public expression of their faith. Even after the passing of the emancipation acts Catholics were still the victims of institutionalised discrimination. The first book to tell the story of the Catholics in Britain in a single volume, The Catholics includes much previously unpublished information. It focuses on the lives, and sometimes deaths, of individual Catholics – martyrs and apostates, priests and laymen, converts and recusants. It tells the story of the men and women who faced the dangers and difficulties of being what their enemies still call ‘Papists’. It describes the laws which circumscribed their lives, the political tensions which influenced their position within an essentially Anglican nation and the changes in dogma and liturgy by which Rome increasingly alienated their Protestant neighbours – and sometime even tested the loyalty of faithful Catholics. The survival of Catholicism in Britain is the triumph of more than simple faith. It is the victory of moral and spiritual unbending certainty. Catholicism survives because it does not compromise. It is a characteristic that excites admiration in even a hardened atheist.

It is high treason in British law to imagine the king's death. But after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, everyone in Britain must have found themselves imagining that the same fate might befall George III. How easy was it to distinguish between fantasising about the death of George and imagining it, in the legal sense of intending or designing? John Barrell examines this question in the context of the political trials of the mid-1790s and the controversies they generated. He shows how the law of treason was adapted in the years following Louis's death to punish what was acknowledged to be a "modern" form of treason unheard of when the law had been framed. The result, he argues, was the invention of a new and imaginary reading, a "figurative" treason, by which the question of who was imagining the king's death, the supposed traitors or those who charged them with treason, became inseparable.

This study of anti-Catholicism in 18th-century England demonstrates that the "no Popery" sentiment was a potent force under the first three Georges and was, on occasions, manifested in the hostility of significant sections of the middle and upper ranks of society, as well as the populace at large.

A groundbreaking anthology containing the work of poets who have witnessed war, imprisonment, torture, and slavery. A companion volume to Against Forgetting, Poetry of Witness is the first anthology to reveal a tradition that runs through English-language poetry. The 300 poems collected here were composed at an extreme of human endurance—while their authors awaited execution, endured imprisonment, fought on the battlefield, or labored on the brink of breakdown or death. All bear witness to historical events and the irresistibility of their impact. Alongside Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, this volume includes such writers as Anne Askew, tortured and executed for her religious beliefs during the reign of Henry VIII; Phillis Wheatley, abducted by slave traders; Samuel Bamford, present at the Peterloo Massacre in 1819; William Blake, who witnessed the Gordon Riots of 1780; and Samuel Menashe, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge. Poetry of Witness argues that such poets are a perennial feature of human history, and it presents the best of that tradition, proving that their work ranks alongside the greatest in the language.