[Rarebooks] fa: REPORT on CHRISTOPHER LAYER & JACOBITE CONSPIRACY- 1722 ("Wondrous Plot" - Ciphers, etc.)

[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

William Pulteney: A Report from the Committee Appointed by Order of  
the House of Commons to Examine Christopher Layer, and Others; And to  
whom several Papers and Examinations laid before the House, relating  
to the Conspiracy mentioned in His Majesty's Speech, at the Opening of  
this Parliament, to be carrying on against his Person and Government,  
were referred... London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, Bernard Lintot, and  
William Taylor, 1722. FIRST EDITION...
A fascinating and detailed report of a parliamentary investigation  
into a "wondrous plot" to restore the Stuarts to the throne, in the  
person of the Old Pretender (the would-be James III). Christopher  
Layer, the primary instigator of the plot, was an ardent Jacobite and  
a lawyer of dubious repute who "hoped to be made lord chancellor in  
the event of a restoration of the Stuarts. Accordingly he went to Rome  
in the summer of 1721, and there unfolded to the Pretender the details  
of a wondrous plot ‘which,’ he declared, ‘no one would understand till  
it had been carried out successfully.’ He proposed to enlist broken  
soldiers, seize the Tower, the Mint, the Bank, and other public  
buildings, secure the royal family, and murder the commander-in-chief  
and ministers whenever the conspirators could find them together.  
Layer boasted of having a large and influential following, and it is  
certain that he met some confederates regularly at an inn in Stratford- 
le-Bow. He tried to entice soldiers at Romford and Leytonstone, and  
succeeded in enlisting a handful of malcontents. After a day spent in  
such work Layer would write his letters and despatches in the house of  
one of his many mistresses... He was betrayed by two female friends  
and placed under arrest in a messenger's house, from which he managed  
to escape, but was retaken after an exciting chase the same evening  
and closely confined in the Tower" (DNB). Eventually tried and found  
guilty, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in May, 1723.  
Though the report is complete in itself, this copy does not include  
the separate appendixes mentioned on the title-page. It does include,  
however, numerous colorful details of the cyphers, codewords and  
pseudonyms employed by the conspirators (James the Pretender =  
"Joseph" or "Freeman"; Lord Orrery = "Mr. Burford"; Gen. Dillon =  
"Mrs. Chivers"; tories = "tanners", whigs = "waggs", etc.)