Martyrs and Mystics. Ed Glinert
John Wycliffe’s religious doctrines and his pioneering translation of the Bible into English.
The Gordon Riots
London’s most violent religious disturbance was a week of mayhem in June 1780 which resulted in hundreds of deaths and the burning and looting of much of the capital in the wake of government plans to allow Catholics greater civil rights. The protest became known as the Gordon Riots because the mob was whipped into a frenzy by Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association.
Two years previously, the Catholic Relief Act had been passed, banning any further persecution of Catholic priests. This followed negotiations by the government with a group of Catholic gentry who agreed to drop Stuart claims to the throne and to deny the civil jurisdiction of the Pope. Catholics were still, however, banned from holding important public posts in teaching and the army, though by 1780 the government, concerned at the depleted number of troops available to fight in the American War of Independence, considered changing the law to allow Catholics to join the army.
On Friday 2 June 1780 Parliament met to debate the proposals. When Lord Gordon failed to win approval for his anti-Catholic petition by 192 votes to 6, the mob went on the rampage. Spoiling for a fight, they headed for the only places in London where Catholics could worship openly – two chapels in Soho and Holborn. They ransacked the buildings, smashed the doors and windows, and burnt prayer books and religious artefacts in the street.
By noon the next day it appeared the disturbance was over, but at three in the afternoon soldiers escorting a group of thirteen men to Bow Street Magistrates Court were pelted with mud. In the slum district of Moorfields the houses of Irish immigrants (mostly Catholic) were attacked. As the violence continued on the Sunday, householders chalked up the warning ‘No Popery’ on their doors. The Italian parents of the clown Joseph Grimaldi daubed on their door ‘No religion’, while in the Jewish ghetto around Houndsditch houses were chalked with the words: ‘This is the home of a true Protestant.’
The following day riot leaders marched on Lord Gordon’s house in Welbeck Street, Marylebone, to bring him trophies of relics ransacked from the looted chapels. Tuesday 6 June was the worst day of mayhem. A hugh mob swarmed through Seven Dials heading for Newgate Prison. One who joined it en route was the painter-poet William Blake, who had seen the crowd from his studio window and had joined it out of curiosity. The rioters attacked the gaol with sledgehammers and pickaxes, and prisoners poured out, though some stayed put, at a loss of where to go, until the rioters set fire to the building.
Trouble continued for the rest of the week, at the end of which 285 people were dead and 200 wounded. Although Lord Gordon was charged with high treason and sent to the Tower, where he languished for eight months, he was cleared of blame. Remarkably he later forsook the Anglican Church for Judaism, changed his name to Israel Abraham George Gordon, and died at the age of forty-two in Newgate Prison where, ironically, he had been incarcerated for libelling Marie Antoinette.
Bermondsey
ST THOMAS A WATERING, Old Kent Road at Albany Road
John Penry was publicly hanged in 1593 at this ancient site, where streams cross the ancient London to Dover road, and which was mentioned by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, for campaigning too vigorously for Welsh religious independence and a Welsh Bible. When Penry acquired a printing press John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was most vexed and had Penry arrested and imprisoned. He escaped to Scotland but eventually chose to return to London to continue campaigning for religious teaching in Wales to be conducted in Welsh. He was arrested in Islington in March 1593 and sentenced to death, without being allowed to see his wife or four daughters – Deliverance, Comfort, Safety and Sure-Hope.
→ Canterbury Cathedral, p. 142
Blackheath
During the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 John Ball preached a sermon here on the main route from Kent into London in which he thundered:
What right do they have to rule over us? Why do they deserve to be in authority? If we all came from Adam and Eve what proof do they have that they are better than we? Therefore why should we labour for them while they live in luxury?
From his preaching came the rhyme that was soon upon the lips of many: ‘When Adam delved