English Civil War

A Briefe Discourse, concerning the Power of the Peeres, and Commons of Parliament... printed in the yeere, that Sea-Coale was exceeding deare, 1640 [STC 22166]--[Prynne, William.] A Full Vindication and Answer of the XI. Accused Members,... 1647 [Wing P3968]--An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled...with instructions for the taking of the League and Covenant...5. Feb. 1643... for E. Husbands, [1644] [Wing E2110]--Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of. The two last speeches of Thomas Wentworth, late Earle of Strafford, and Deaputy of Ireland. The one in the Tower, the other on the scaffold on Tower-Hill, May the 12. 1641. 1641, woodcuts [Wing S5799], slightly cropped--Strafford's Ghost. Complaining, of the cruelties of his country-men, in killing one another...for G. Bishop, August 22, 1644, woodcut [Wing E84], cropped--The Archbishop of Canterbury's speech...preacht by himself on the scaffold on Tower Hill, on Friday the 10. of Ianury, 1644...Peter Cole, 1644, with the initial blank [Wing L599]--The Last Advice of William Laud...for J.B., 1645 [Wing L468]--The Declaration of the Protestant Army in the province of Mounster, under the Command of the Right Honourable the Lord Baron of Inchiquin. Printed at Corke: 1648 [UNRECORDED BY ESTC, WING OR SWEENEY]--Charles I. His Majesties Proclamation in Scotland: with an explanation of the meaning of the oath and covenant...Robert Young, 1639 [STC22001.5]; and 13 others, by Laud and others, including Wing F415, Declarations of the Parliament of England, King's Declarations (e.g. the causes moving him to dissolving Parliament in 1640), Ordinances (e.g. for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops in England and Wales, 1646, for the selling of the Bishops' land in England and Wales, 1646); 4to, later quarter calf, marbled boards (spine numbered 14); some works stained or browned, binding worn (1)

The Forbes Baronetcy was created in 1626 for Sir William Forbes (d. circa 1650) by James VI in the Barontage of Nova Scotia. The majority of the works offered here were acquired by the sixth Baronet, also William (1739-1806), who added Pitsligo to his title in 1781. He was an eminent Scottish banker and benefactor, good friend of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson (see lots 45-46), and finally succeeded in recovering the Pitsligo estates forfeited after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. His son William, the seventh baronet, beat Sir Walter Scott to the hand of the renowned beauty Williamina Belsches Stuart (1776-1810), and it was with their marriage that the family moved to her family seat, Fettercairn House in Kincardineshire, Aberdeenshire.

One of the sixth baronet’s acquisitions for his library at Pitsligo were numerous highly important miscellanies and tract volumes, many of which were purchased as a set from Edinburgh bookseller Elphinstone Balfour in October 1786. These were subsequently supplemented by further contemporary tracts and other works from the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century. Most of these miscellanies bear a nineteenth century Forbes family bookplate.

A FINE TRACT VOLUME, INCLUDING THE LOST CORK FIRST EDITION of The Declaration of the Protestant Army in the province of Mounster, previously known only by the Edinburgh reprint by Evan Tyler in the same year [Wing D755; Aldis 1322].