11. HHH The Tryal of Dr. Henry Sacheverell…Published by Order of the House of Peers…
London, Jacob Tonson, 1710.
8vo. (19.5 x 12 cm), 456 pages. Bound with the imprimatur leaf present. Some reasonably light browning and marking, particularly to the first title page, a faint water stain in the margin of a few pages and a small ink stain in the margin of 50 pages, far from the text. The end papers are somewhat marked. An old signature at the top of the first page of text.
Bound with;-
The Bishop of Salisbury’s and the Bishop of Oxford’s Speeches… On the…Impeachment of Dr. Henry Sacheverell… Also The Bishop of Lincoln’s and the Bishop of Norwich’s Speeches
London, John Morphew, 1710.
8vo (19.5x12cm), 16+16+32 pages (numbered 33-63), each of the speeches with a title page. The page numbers leap from 16 to 33 between the second and third of these groups of pages, however the texts and the collation are complete (A-D8). In the same condition as the first work.
Bound in full leather (polished, panelled brown calf), contemporary with the publication, rubbed on the corners and edges with slight loss. Re-backed in leather, the spine with loss at the top and bottom and the front cover detached.
Dr. Sacheverell’s trial was an earth-shaking event in British politics; in two sermons, preached in Derby and at St. Paul’s Cathedral, he warned of the danger that ’false friends’ (that is protestant non-conformists) posed to the Church of England, and, in his assertion of passive obedience, questioned the probity of the Whig ministry then in power. At his trial the Whig’s were able to assert their view of the constitution after the glorious revolution: but, although found guilty of seditious libel, he was a now a popular hero, seen as a pillar of the Church, and the Whig ministry was left much weakened.