Sacheverell riots

The Sacheverell riots were a series of outbreaks of public disorder, which spread across England during the spring, summer and autumn of 1710 in which supporters of the Tories attacked the homes and meeting-houses of Dissenters, particularly those of Presbyterians, whose congregations tended to support the Whigs. (Further violence, again targeting Presbyterian chapels, occurred in the Coronation riots of 1714 and the Rebellion riots of 1715.)^[1] The Sacheverell and Rebellion riots are regarded as the most serious instances of public disorder of the eighteenth century, until, perhaps, the anti-Catholic protests of 1780.^[2]

The riots reflected the dissatisfaction of many Anglicans with the toleration of an increasing number of Independent, Baptist, and Presbyterian chapels, which diminished the apparent authority of the Church of England; and were a reaction to perceived grievances against the Whig government, in regard to high taxation resulting from the War of the Spanish Succession, the recent sudden influx of some 10,000 Calvinist refugees from Germany,^[3] and the growth of the merchant classes, the so-called "monied interest".^[2]