Prynne, William

4to (8 1/4 x 6 3/8 in.; 210 x 162 mm). Title within typographic border and headpieces; lightly browned, a few marginal spots or smudges. Contemporary blue morocco, gilt roll-tooled double border with lily stamps at four corners, gilt-stamped arms of Charles II in center of each cover; joints worn, upper joint mended, extremities rubbed.

Clarence S. Bement (bookplate). acquisition: John Fleming, 1971

Wing P4011; ESTC R5505

lightly browned, a few marginal spots or smudges, joints worn, upper joint mended, extremities rubbed
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First edition, large-paper copy, dedication copy to Charles II. Prynne (1600–1669), the ardent Puritan controversialist twice convicted of sedition and tortured, was forgiven at the Restoration and appointed by the King as keeper of the records in the Tower of London. "F. W. Maitland called this aspect of Prynne's career ‘heroic’ ... There was a double heroism: the physical labour that Prynne described, but also the intellectual rescue of a historical feudal law from the myth of an ancient constitution (to which Prynne in the 1630s, as a disciple of Coke, had himself subscribed). The Commons' claim to sovereignty could not stand up to the scrutiny of sources; the king's imperial powers, on the other hand, were given a heightened vindication" (ODNB).