[Rarebooks] fa: EARL OF DANBY on IMPEACHMENT and the "POPISH PLOT" - 1680

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th-19th Century British books and  
pamphlets, auctions ending Sunday, May 2. Details and images can be  
found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340
OR
http://tinyurl.com/yhk74ma

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A., CA USA


The Answer of the Right Honourable the Earl of Danby to a Late  
Pamphlet, entituled, An Examination of the Impartial State of the Case  
of the Earl of Danby. London: Printed by E.R. to be sold by Randal  
Taylor near Stationers Hall, 1680. FIRST EDITION. Disbound folio  
(12.25 x 8 in); [2] + 16 pp. ...

In 1678, the Earl of Danby, Charles II's chief minister, was impeached  
by Parliament, "charged with having assumed royal powers by treating  
matters of peace and war without the knowledge of the council, with  
having raised a standing army on pretence of war with France, with  
having obstructed the assembling of Parliament, and with corruption  
and embezzlement in the treasury." In 1679 and 1680 pamphlets were  
published "asserting his complicity in the Popish Plot, and even  
accusing him of the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey" (Wikipedia).  
Danby issued this defense of his actions from the Tower, where he was  
imprisoned for nearly five years. Though an unpopular, even despised,  
politician (Gilbert Burnet described him as "the most hated minister  
that had ever been about the king"), Danby weathered the storm,  
artfully trimming his sails during the succession crisis, and was  
rewarded by being recalled to court by William III and later made 1st  
Duke of Leeds.