A darker shade of Pepys

If Samuel Pepys's is the best-known diary in English history, then Roger Morrice's is perhaps the least known. Morrice's million-word Entring Book is the richest surviving narrative of British history in the 1680s, and one of history's best kept secrets. That's set to change. Working under the general editorship of Dr Mark Goldie and Research Associate Dr Jason McElligott of the Faculty of History, a team of six scholars in six universities is preparing to publish the Entring Book in six volumes. This weekend, on 10-12 July, the Morrice team are holding an international conference at Clare College, attended by 80 delegates representing a range of disciplines including history, literary studies, theology, politics and sociology.

"Pepys's ebullience matched the heady early years of the restored monarchy under King Charles II. But Morrice describes the dark days of political crisis, show trials, religious persecution, and the fear of 'popery and arbitrary power' that gripped the nation in the 1680s, and culminated in the second overthrow of Stuart monarchy," explains Dr Goldie.

Although historians have known about the Entring Book for many years, not all of it was accessible; the political unrest of the time meant that the Entring Book was dangerous to write: the punishments for seditious words were severe, so some of Morrice's most sensitive information, and the names of key sources, were disguised in shorthand. These passages are now being decoded for the first time.

The Entring Book reveals the importance of the 'Puritan Whig' tradition, the nexus of noblemen, gentlemen, lawyers, and clergy, who were committed to limiting the monarchy, to regular and independent parliaments, and to religious toleration. Through its pages we can watch the subtle transformations by which Puritans became Whigs, by which the radical zeal of the Civil Wars gave way to the moderation of Augustan England.

Where the Republic of Oliver Cromwell in 1649 had failed, where the restored and unrestricted monarchy of 1660 had failed, the Revolution of 1688 succeeded. It entrenched parliamentary monarchy and the sovereignty of crown-in-parliament that has been the foundation of the British polity since. The Entring Book is by far our best-informed narrative of that Revolution.

Morrice's diary is also a rich source for every aspect of Restoration society: its social structure and urban growth, the theatres and coffee houses, the courts, military and colonial affairs, London commerce, parish, ward and livery company politics, piety and blasphemy, and the flow of news within the Three Kingdoms and across the European Continent. It offers first-hand accounts of spectacle, carnival, riot, and demonstration.

The Entring Book will help historians answer questions they are currently asking about the nature of communication and the control of information in the early modern world, the role of gossip and rumour, of manuscript newsletters and satirical ballads, and the relationship between oral and literate culture. In the rumour mills of the coffee houses, the Royal Exchange, and Westminster Hall, Morrice was listening - thanks to the Entring Book Project we will all now be able to discover what he heard.

The Morrice Project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and Dr Williams's Library, London, which owns the manuscript. The conference has been organised with the support of CRASSH and the Trevelyan Fund.