The Parliamentary Diary of Sir Richard Cocks 1698-1702
Sir Richard Cocks author D W Hayton editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:8th Aug '96
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Sir Richard Cocks, a Gloucestershire country gentleman, was a new and enthusiastic member of the Parliament which began in 1698. His diary is the only substantial parliamentary diary yet to have been discovered between Narcissus Luttrell and Anchitell Grey's reports of debates in the early 1690s and Sir Edward Knatchbull's in the 1720s. It covers the four parliamentary sessions of 1698-1702, in which vital questions of state were decided and significant developments took place in the evolution of English party politics. Cocks showed keen appreciation of the drama and significance of the events of which he was a witness and his diary offers a unique insight into events in the Commons. Unlike other diarists, he also showed a keen interest in the details of parliamentary procedure. This important journal, previously unpublished, has now been meticulously edited by D. W. Hayton. Fully annotated, with a detailed introduction and appendices, it is a major source for the political and parliamentary history of the period.
an extremely rich source... He has here produced an excellent piece of scholarship, in which meticulous attention to detail is blended with a dry wit. The end product is a definitive edition of the diary, which renders Cocks's prose as reader-friendly as it ever could be and offers a vast amount of related material, for which scholars of the period have every reason to be grateful. * Times Literary Supplement, 17 January 97, p.30. *
an important addition to the genre ... David Hayton is ideally qualified to bring this diary to press and his editing is excemplary. A lengthy introduction, written with characteristic poise and wit, provides a context for the diary ... The diary itself is meticulously presented and superbly footnoted. Hayton has spared no effort, and the Clarendon Press has done him and Cocks proud ... given the quality of Hayton's edition and the strength of Cocks' view no political or intellectual historian of the period can afford to ignore the bucolic baronet. * Julian Hoppit, University College, London, Parliamentary History 16/3 *
ISBN: 9780198223702
Dimensions: 241mm x 162mm x 30mm
Weight: 821g
426 pages