Historians crack 17th-century diary code

Historians at Cambridge University have taken seven years to painstakingly extract 320-year-old stories of freak weather, bishops behaving badly and prisoners being held without trial. The 900,000-word eyewitness account of life in Restoration England is taken from a diary which required a specialist code-breaker to decipher and some have claimed rivals Samuel Pepys.

The Entring Book diary of Roger Morrice, a Cambridge alumnus and former clergyman, was written in his own 17th Century shorthand and shows the topics in the news were remarkably similar to today (Tuesday, 07 August).

It was discovered in a London research library, having been left for 300 years and then examined by a research team led by Cambridge's Dr Mark Goldie.

Dr Goldie said: "The Entring Book has such an enormous scope that it tells us far more than the politics of the time. It covers publishing, plays, business, military and religious matters.

"We hear about foreign affairs, public opinion, London life, gossip and rumour and books and censorship. Morrice could have been arrested for sending newsletters and information around the country at the time."

The book, which is the longest diary of public life in England during the later part of the Stuart age, is now set to appear on bookshop shelves for the first time.

Spanning the years 1677 to 1691 it covers the latter part of Charles II's reign, the rule of James II and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 that heralded the start of English parliamentary government.