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 This important journal, previously unpublished, has now been meticulously edited by D. W. Hayton.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.
