Green Ribbon Club
Encyclopedia
The Green Ribbon Club was one of the earliest of the loosely combined associations which met from time to time in London taverns or coffee-houses for political purposes in the 17th century.
It had its meeting place at the King's Head tavern at Chancery Lane End, so was known as the King's Head Club. It seems to have been founded about the year 1675 as a resort for members of the political party hostile to the court. As these associates were in the habit of wearing in their hats a bow, or bob, of green ribbon, as a distinguishing badge useful for the purpose of mutual recognition in street brawls, the name of the club was changed, about 1679, to the Green Ribbon Club. The 'Green Ribbon' was the badge of The Levellers
in the English Civil Wars in which many of the members had fought and was an overt reminder of their radical origins.
The frequenters of the club were the extreme faction of the country party, the men who supported Titus Oates
, and who were concerned in the Rye House Plot
and Monmouth's rebellion
. Roger North
tells us that they admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced, for it was a main end of their institutions to make proselyte
s, especially of the raw estated youth newly come to town. According to Dryden
(Absalom and Achitophel) drinking was the chief attraction, and the members talked and organized sedition over their cups.
Thomas Dangerfield
supplied the court with a list of forty-eight members of the Green Ribbon Club in 1679; and although Dangerfield's numerous perjuries make his unsupported evidence worthless, it receives confirmation as regards several names from a list given to James II
by Nathan Wade in 1685 (Harleian manuscripts 1845), while a number of more eminent personages are mentioned in The Cabal, a satire
published in 1680, as also frequenting the club.
From such sources it appears that the duke of Monmouth
himself, and statesmen like Halifax, Shaftesbury, Buckingham
, Macclesfield
, Cavendish, Bedford, Grey of Warke, were among those who fraternized at the King's Head Tavern with third-rate writers such as Scroop, Mulgrave and Shadwell
; with remnants of the Cromwell
ian régime like Lord Falconbridge
, John Claypole
and Henry Ireton (two sons-in-law and a grandson of the old Protector
); with such profligates as Lord Howard of Escrick
and Sir Henry Blount
; and with scoundrels of the type of Dangerfield and Oates.
An allusion to Dangerfield, notorious among his other crimes and treacheries for a seditious paper found in a meal-tub, is found in connection with the club in The Loyal Subject's Litany, one of the innumerable satires of the period, in which occur the lines:
The club was the headquarters of the Whig
opposition to the court, and its members were active promoters of conspiracy and sedition. The president was either Lord Shaftesbury or Sir Robert Peyton, MP for Middlesex
, who afterwards turned informer. The Green Ribbon Club served both as a debating society and an intelligence department for the Whig faction. Questions under discussion in parliament were here threshed out by the members over their tobacco and ale; the latest news from Westminster or the city was retailed in the tavern, for some or others were continually coming and going, says Roger North, to import or export news and stories.
Slander of the court or the Tories was invented in the club and sedulously spread over the town, and measures were concerted there for pushing on the Exclusion Bill
, or for promoting the pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth. The popular credulity as to Catholic outrages in the days of the Popish Plot
was stimulated by the scandalmongers of the club, whose members went about in silk armour, supposed to be bulletproof, in which any man dressed up was as safe as a house, says North, for it was impossible to strike him for laughing; while in their pockets, for street and crowd-work, they carried the weapon of offence invented by Stephen College and known as the Protestant Flail.
The genius of Shaftesbury found in the Green Ribbon Club the means of constructing the first systematized political organization in England. North relates that every post conveyed the news and tales legitimated there, as also the malign constructions of all the good actions of the government, especially to places where elections were depending, to shape men's characters into fit qualifications to be chosen or rejected. In the general election of January and February 1679 the Whig interest throughout the country was managed and controlled by a committee sitting at the club in Chancery Lane.
The club's organizing activity was also notably effective in the agitation of the Petitioners in 1679. This celebrated movement was engineered from the Green Ribbon Club with all the skill and energy of a modern caucus. The petitions were prepared in London and sent down to every part of the country, where paid canvassers took them from house to house collecting signatures with an air of authority that made refusal difficult. The great pope-burning processions in 1680 and 1681, on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth
's accession, were also organized by the club. They ended by the lighting of a huge bonfire in front of the club windows; and as they proved an effective means of inflaming the religious passions of the populace, it was at the Green Ribbon Club that the mobile vulgus first received the nickname of the mob. The activity of the club was, however, short-lived.
The failure to carry the Exclusion Bill
, one of the favourite projects of the faction, was a blow to its influence, which declined rapidly after the flight of Shaftesbury, the confiscation of the city of London's charter, and the discovery of the Rye House Plot
, in which many of its members were implicated. In 1685 John Ayloffe
, who was found to have been a dubber at the King's Head Tavern and a green-ribon man, was executed in front of the premises on the spot where the pope-burning bonfires had been kindled; and although the tavern was still in existence in the time of Queen Anne, the Green Ribbon Club which made it famous did not survive the accession of James II.
The precise situation of the King's Head Tavern, described by North as over against the Inner Temple
Gate, was at the corner of Fleet Street
and Chancery Lane
, on the east side of the latter thoroughfare.
It had its meeting place at the King's Head tavern at Chancery Lane End, so was known as the King's Head Club. It seems to have been founded about the year 1675 as a resort for members of the political party hostile to the court. As these associates were in the habit of wearing in their hats a bow, or bob, of green ribbon, as a distinguishing badge useful for the purpose of mutual recognition in street brawls, the name of the club was changed, about 1679, to the Green Ribbon Club. The 'Green Ribbon' was the badge of The Levellers
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil Wars which emphasised popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance, all of which were expressed in the manifesto "Agreement of the People". They came to prominence at the end of the First...
in the English Civil Wars in which many of the members had fought and was an overt reminder of their radical origins.
The frequenters of the club were the extreme faction of the country party, the men who supported Titus Oates
Titus Oates
Titus Oates was an English perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.-Early life:...
, and who were concerned in the Rye House Plot
Rye House Plot
The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother James, Duke of York. Historians vary in their assessment of the degree to which details of the conspiracy were finalized....
and Monmouth's rebellion
Monmouth Rebellion
The Monmouth Rebellion,The Revolt of the West or The West Country rebellion of 1685, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland at the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was a Roman Catholic, and some...
. Roger North
Roger North (17th century)
Roger North, KC , English lawyer, biographer, and amateur musician, was the sixth son of t he fourth Baron North....
tells us that they admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced, for it was a main end of their institutions to make proselyte
Proselyte
The biblical term "Proselyte", derives from the Koine Greek προσήλυτος/proselytos, as used in the Septuagint for "stranger", i.e. a "newcomer to Israel"; a "sojourner in the land", and in the New Testament for a convert to Judaism from Paganism...
s, especially of the raw estated youth newly come to town. According to Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
(Absalom and Achitophel) drinking was the chief attraction, and the members talked and organized sedition over their cups.
Thomas Dangerfield
Thomas Dangerfield
Thomas Dangerfield was an English conspirator.Dangerfield was born about 1650 at Waltham Abbey, Essex, the son of a farmer...
supplied the court with a list of forty-eight members of the Green Ribbon Club in 1679; and although Dangerfield's numerous perjuries make his unsupported evidence worthless, it receives confirmation as regards several names from a list given to James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
by Nathan Wade in 1685 (Harleian manuscripts 1845), while a number of more eminent personages are mentioned in The Cabal, a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
published in 1680, as also frequenting the club.
From such sources it appears that the duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, KG, PC , was an English nobleman. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Lucy Walter...
himself, and statesmen like Halifax, Shaftesbury, Buckingham
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, KG, PC , was a poet and notable Tory politician of the late Stuart period, who served as Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council.-Career:...
, Macclesfield
Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield
Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield PC was an English aristocrat, soldier and courtier.-Life:The eldest son of Sir Charles Gerard, he was a member of an old Lancashire family, his great-grandfather having been Sir Gilbert Gerard of Ince, in that county, one of the most distinguished judges...
, Cavendish, Bedford, Grey of Warke, were among those who fraternized at the King's Head Tavern with third-rate writers such as Scroop, Mulgrave and Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell was an English poet and playwright who was appointed poet laureate in 1689.-Life:Shadwell was born at Stanton Hall, Norfolk, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and...
; with remnants of the Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
ian régime like Lord Falconbridge
Thomas Belasyse, 1st Earl Fauconberg
Thomas Belasyse, 1st Earl Fauconberg PC was an English peer. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War drawing close to Oliver Cromwell and married Cromwell's third daughter Mary...
, John Claypole
John Claypole
John Claypole , was an officer in the Parliamentary army in 1645 during the English Civil War. He was created Lord Cleypole by Oliver Cromwell, but this title naturally came to an end with the Restoration of 1660....
and Henry Ireton (two sons-in-law and a grandson of the old Protector
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
); with such profligates as Lord Howard of Escrick
William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick
William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick was an English Parliamentarian soldier, nobleman, and plotter.-Life:He was the second son of Edward Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick. He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1646, and was then admitted to Lincoln's Inn...
and Sir Henry Blount
Henry Blount
Sir Henry Blount was a 17th century English landowner, traveller and author.-Life:He was the third son of Sir Thomas Pope Blount of Blount's Hall, Staffordshire and Tyttenhanger, Hertfordshire and was educated at St Albans Free School and Trinity College, Oxford...
; and with scoundrels of the type of Dangerfield and Oates.
An allusion to Dangerfield, notorious among his other crimes and treacheries for a seditious paper found in a meal-tub, is found in connection with the club in The Loyal Subject's Litany, one of the innumerable satires of the period, in which occur the lines:
- "From the dark-lanthorn Plot, and the Green Ribbon Club From brewing sedition in a sanctified Tub, Libera nos, Domine."
The club was the headquarters of the Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
opposition to the court, and its members were active promoters of conspiracy and sedition. The president was either Lord Shaftesbury or Sir Robert Peyton, MP for Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, who afterwards turned informer. The Green Ribbon Club served both as a debating society and an intelligence department for the Whig faction. Questions under discussion in parliament were here threshed out by the members over their tobacco and ale; the latest news from Westminster or the city was retailed in the tavern, for some or others were continually coming and going, says Roger North, to import or export news and stories.
Slander of the court or the Tories was invented in the club and sedulously spread over the town, and measures were concerted there for pushing on the Exclusion Bill
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1678 through 1681 in the reign of Charles II of England. The Exclusion Bill sought to exclude the king's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic...
, or for promoting the pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth. The popular credulity as to Catholic outrages in the days of the Popish Plot
Popish Plot
The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that gripped England, Wales and Scotland in Anti-Catholic hysteria between 1678 and 1681. Oates alleged that there existed an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the execution of at...
was stimulated by the scandalmongers of the club, whose members went about in silk armour, supposed to be bulletproof, in which any man dressed up was as safe as a house, says North, for it was impossible to strike him for laughing; while in their pockets, for street and crowd-work, they carried the weapon of offence invented by Stephen College and known as the Protestant Flail.
The genius of Shaftesbury found in the Green Ribbon Club the means of constructing the first systematized political organization in England. North relates that every post conveyed the news and tales legitimated there, as also the malign constructions of all the good actions of the government, especially to places where elections were depending, to shape men's characters into fit qualifications to be chosen or rejected. In the general election of January and February 1679 the Whig interest throughout the country was managed and controlled by a committee sitting at the club in Chancery Lane.
The club's organizing activity was also notably effective in the agitation of the Petitioners in 1679. This celebrated movement was engineered from the Green Ribbon Club with all the skill and energy of a modern caucus. The petitions were prepared in London and sent down to every part of the country, where paid canvassers took them from house to house collecting signatures with an air of authority that made refusal difficult. The great pope-burning processions in 1680 and 1681, on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
's accession, were also organized by the club. They ended by the lighting of a huge bonfire in front of the club windows; and as they proved an effective means of inflaming the religious passions of the populace, it was at the Green Ribbon Club that the mobile vulgus first received the nickname of the mob. The activity of the club was, however, short-lived.
The failure to carry the Exclusion Bill
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1678 through 1681 in the reign of Charles II of England. The Exclusion Bill sought to exclude the king's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic...
, one of the favourite projects of the faction, was a blow to its influence, which declined rapidly after the flight of Shaftesbury, the confiscation of the city of London's charter, and the discovery of the Rye House Plot
Rye House Plot
The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother James, Duke of York. Historians vary in their assessment of the degree to which details of the conspiracy were finalized....
, in which many of its members were implicated. In 1685 John Ayloffe
John Ayloffe
John Ayloffe was an English satirist, executed in London.Ayloffe was a Whig republican implicated in the Rye House plot to assassinate the monarch Charles II. He was a member of the Green Ribbon Club, and said to have fled to Scotland with the armed rebels led by Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of...
, who was found to have been a dubber at the King's Head Tavern and a green-ribon man, was executed in front of the premises on the spot where the pope-burning bonfires had been kindled; and although the tavern was still in existence in the time of Queen Anne, the Green Ribbon Club which made it famous did not survive the accession of James II.
The precise situation of the King's Head Tavern, described by North as over against the Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
Gate, was at the corner of Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
and Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane is the street which has been the western boundary of the City of London since 1994 having previously been divided between Westminster and Camden...
, on the east side of the latter thoroughfare.