Green Ribbon Club

The Green Ribbon Club was one of the earliest of the loosely combined associations which met from time to time in London taverns or coffee-houses for political purposes in the 17th century. The "Green Ribbon" was the badge of The Levellers in the English Civil Wars in which many of the members had fought and was an overt reminder of their radical origins.

It had its meeting place at the King's Head tavern at Chancery Lane End, so was known as the King's Head Club. It seems to have been founded about the year 1675 as a resort for members of the political party hostile to the court. As these associates were in the habit of wearing in their hats a bow, or bob, of green ribbon, as a distinguishing badge useful for the purpose of mutual recognition in street brawls, the name of the club was changed, about 1679, to the Green Ribbon Club. The King's Head Tavern, described by North as over against the Inner Temple Gate, was at the corner of Fleet Street and Chancery Lane, on the east side of the latter thoroughfare.

The frequenters of the club were the extreme faction of the country party, the men who supported Titus Oates, and who were concerned in the Rye House Plot and Monmouth's rebellion. Roger North tells us that they admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced, for it was a main end of their institutions to make proselytes, especially of the raw estated youth newly come to town. According to Dryden (Absalom and Achitophel) drinking was the chief attraction, and the members talked and organized sedition over their cups.

Thomas Dangerfield supplied the court with a list of forty-eight members of the Green Ribbon Club in 1679; and although Dangerfield's numerous perjuries make his unsupported evidence worthless, it receives confirmation as regards several names from a list given to James II by Nathan Wade in 1685 (Harleian manuscripts 1845), while a number of more eminent personages are mentioned in The Cabal, a satire published in 1680, as also frequenting the club.

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