Sacheverell riots

[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".

The threat from Catholics was dealt with in three minutes; but the rest of the one-and-a-half-hour sermon was an attack on Nonconformists and the "false brethren" who aided them in menacing Church and State.

On the evening of 1 March, protestors attacked an elegant Presbyterian meeting-house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, built only five years earlier.

They smashed the windows, stripped the tiles from the roof and ripped out its interior wooden fittings, which they made into a bonfire.

[2] It spread across the country, notably in Wrexham,[5] Barnstaple and Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, where Presbyterian meeting-houses were attacked, with many being burnt to the ground.