John Penruddock of Compton Chamberlayne (2)

Small Earthquake in Wiltshire (1655) – Lecture Tuesday 06 November 2.30pm

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This earthquake was political rather than tectonic. In March 1655 Cavalier gentleman John Penruddock of Compton Chamberlayne led an armed uprising against the republican government of Oliver Cromwell. His followers, the only branch of the Sealed Knot to carry out their part of a planned nationwide rebellion, seized near-by Salisbury, proclaimed the exiled Charles II King at Blandford, and were routed in Devon. Professor Eric L Jones brings the story of this little-known footnote to the Civil Wars to the Tuesday 06 November meeting of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society at 2.30p.m. in Gold Hill Museum. This illustrated talk is free to S&DHS members while non-members may pay £3 at the door.

Professor Jones’s 2017 book Small Earthquake in Wiltshire: seventeenth-century conflict and its resolution is available in Gold Hill Museum shop and published by The Hobnob Press.