Of the Antient Lawes of Great Britaine, London, 1605.
An Early Stuart Apologia for Legal Union Myth, Antiquity, and the Defense of "Ancient Liberties" Saltern (Salteren), George. Of the Antient Lawes of Great Britaine. London: Printed for Iohn Iaggard, And Are to bee Solde at His Shop in Fleetestreete, at the Signe of the Hand and Starre, 1605. Quarto (6-3/4" x 5"; 172 x 127 mm). [86] pp. Wanting initial blank A1; text complete. Later paneled calf, raised bands, red morocco lettering-piece, board edges gilt. Some rubbing and minor scuffing, more pronounced at extremities; front board detached. Early shelfmark and armorial bookplate of the Earls of Macclesfield to front pastedown. Moderate browning, with occasional light dampstaining and soiling. Margins trimmed, at places shaving signature marks, catchwords, and part of the imprint. Early annotations and underlining in a contemporary hand, occasionally affected by trimming. Discreet embossed Macclesfield stamps to title and following leaf. Housed in a crimson quarter morocco clamshell case. $5,000. Only edition. Rare. A curious and ambitious contribution to the ideological literature surrounding the proposed Anglo-Scottish Union under James I. Writing at a moment of acute constitutional sensitivity, Saltern seeks to allay entrenched anxieties that incorporation would erode the "ancient liberties" of either realm. His strategy-distinctive among Unionist writers-is to posit not divergence but deep continuity: an inherited body of "antient lawes" shared by both kingdoms, extending (with characteristic early-Stuart antiquarian licence) from a pre-Roman past into the present. The tract thus belongs to that fertile intersection of legal humanism and political propaganda in the early seventeenth century, where history-frequently conjectural-was deployed in aid of present constitutional design. Its argument, though ultimately unpersuasive in its own moment, anticipates later efforts to articulate a common British legal identity prior to the statutory Union of 1707. Provenance: The celebrated Macclesfield library at Shirburn Castle, one of the great aristocratic collections formed in the eighteenth century and long noted for the strength of its legal holdings. Rare in commerce, with no recent market presence traced. ESTC S116514. OCLC records copies at a small number of institutional libraries (including Harvard, Yale, the Li.
Price: $5,000.00
Book number 84247