"LET THIS UNHAPPY PARLIAMENT BE DISSOLVED": FIRST EDITION OF CLARENDON'S A FULL ANSWER TO AN INFAMOUS AND TRAYTEROUS PAMPHLET, 1648

EARL OF CLARENDON. A Full Answer to an Infamous and Trayterous Pamphlet, Entituled, A Declaration of the Commons of England in Parliament Assembled, Expressing Their Reasons and Grounds of Passing the Late Resolutions Touching No Further Addresse or Application to Be Made to the King. [London]: R. Royston, 1648. Square octavo, modern brown paper wrappers; pp. 188. $1800.

First edition of this condemnation of Parliament's vote not to negotiate with the King via the Vote of No Addresses, an extended version of the earlier "An Answer to a Pamphlet."

The 1st Earl of Clarendon, Edward Hyde, was a barrister, historian, and member of Parliament. Although he began as part of the parliamentary opposition to the royalists, he switched sides and became one of Charles I's most loyal supporters. Shortly after the First English Civil War, "as the unity of parliament disintegrated in 1647, the possibility opened up of encouraging and exploiting divisions inside the enemy camp. Although Hyde was extremely concerned by the king's negotiations with the Scots, and believed that he had conceded too much in the treaty and engagement that followed, he nevertheless returned to polemic in January 1648 to gnaw at the worries of moderates in England about the vote of no addresses" in which Parliament voted not to negotiate with Charles based on receiving news that he has opened an engagement with the Scots that would make the Engagers a majority in Parliament and restore Charles to the throne. Clarendon's "short attack on parliament's account of the failure of negotiations with the king, An Answer to a Pamphlet, Entitled a Declaration of the Commons of England, was circulating in London in May; a lengthier version, A Full Answer to an Infamous and Traiterous Pamphlet, was published in July" (DNB). The Second English Civil War began in 1648, the same year this work was published, and Charles was executed just one year later. ESTC R205012. Wing C4423. Auction description affixed to inside of rear wrapper. Citations and bibliographical information written in pen and pencil on front wrapper.

Faint scattered foxing to interior, light rubbing to extremities of oversize wrappers. An extremely good copy.