[Rarebooks] fa: HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 1655 - John Spottiswood - Folio w/ Portraits

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 4 Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/yyxup2jr

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

John Spottiswood [also spelled Spottiswoode, Spotiswoode, Spotswood]: The History of the Church of Scotland, beginning the Year of our Lord 203, and continued to the end of the Reign of King James the VI. of ever blessed Memory. Wherein are described, the Progress of Christianity; the Persecutions and Interruptions of it; the Foundation of Churches; the Erecting of Bishopricks; the Building and Endowing Monasteries, and other Religious Places; the Succession of Bishops in their Sees; the Reformation of Religion, and the frequent Disturbances of that Nation, by Wars, Conspiracies, Tumults, Schisms. Together with great variety of other Matters, both Ecclesiasticall and Politicall. Written by that grave and Reverend Prelate, and wise Counsellor, John Spotswood, Lord Archbishop of S. Andrews, and Privy Counsellor to King Charles the I. that most Religious and blessed Prince. London: Printed by J. Flesher for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivie-lane, MDCLV [1655]. First edition. Folio (32 cm) in modern full Levant morocco, gilt titles to spine; [24], 546, [12] pp.; with the engraved frontispiece portrait of Spottiswood by Hollar, engraved portrait of Charles I, terminal leaf of publisher's adverts ("Books Printed for Richard Royston"). ESTC R17108; Wing S5022.

Aside from some very minimal library markings (some faint evidence of a bookplate removed from the front paste-down, small inkstamp to the upper  corner of the frontispiece, ink numeral to the verso of the title-page), a fine copy with no foxing, modest toning and cockling, a few light pencil marks in the margins, but otherwise unusually clean, bright and fresh, firmly and handsomely bound.

An adherent of the Stuart cause, Spottiswood repeatedly took James I's part in his dealings with the recalcitrant Scottish kirk, and in 1633 crowned Charles I at Holyrood. This, the first edition of his magnum opus, was published posthumously, Spottiswood having died in exile in London in 1639 after being deposed by the Scottish assembly. His detractors were no more pleased with his book than they had been with him, one of them, the Secessionist Thomas M'Crie, describing Spottiswood as "a shrewd and crafty politician, and the author of a History of the Church of Scotland, which, as has been well observed, might more properly be called 'Calumnies against the Church of Scotland.'...His falsehoods and misrepresentations have been so completely exposed, that to appeal to him now as an authority on any point of history affecting the cause of Presbytery, may be set down at once as a mark of blindfolded prejudice."