The History Of England
From the Accession of James I.
to the Elevation of the House of Hanover.
By Catherine Macaulay
Edit. III.  Vol. IV.

Printed For Edward And Charles Dilly
In The Poultry
London ( England )
MDCCLXIX ( 1769 )

Antique hardcover.
Full leather, sprinkled calf.
Five raised spine bands.
Gilt spine compartments.
Tinted page edges.
5" x 8"
(4) + 409 + (2) pages.

254 years old.

Volume 4 only of The History Of England by Catharine Macaulay (1731-1791), English historian.
This volume addresses King Charles I and events of the 1640s.
Single page Appendix at the rear giving the text of " The Warrant for the Execution of King Charles I ", with names of the signers calling for the death of the king.

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Bookplate on the front pastedown endpaper :
" John Jackson Jun.  Lincoln's Inn "

John Jackson was an 18th century barrister in England.
( a barrister is a type of lawyer which mostly specialises in courtroom advocacy and litigation )
" Lincoln's Inn " is a legal society in England; one of four to which barristers belong and where they are called to the Bar.

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Condition.
Worn binding with some loss of leather ( see the photos ).
Lacks the spine labels.
The front cover is detached, but present.
The rear cover is attached by the binding cords only.
Old waterstains visible on the first few pages ( mostly fading away after the first several leaves ).
Some page rippling in the first several pages ( fading as the pages progress ).
Small corner creases.
Lacks the last free ( blank ) endpaper ( probably lacks a blank endpaper at the front, also ).
Small, vintage stamping on the rear pastedown endpaper showing an address and an old phone number :
" 140 Codding St., Providence , R.I. , Phone Union 3937-R "
( it would seem that " Codding Street " no longer exists in Providence , Rhode Island )
Some endpaper foxing, foxing on the Appendix page, but very little elsewhere.
The pages are otherwise good.
The John Jackson Bookplate is in very good condition ( see the photos ).

Carefully packed for shipment to the buyer.

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Additional information :

Author Catharine Macaulay (1731-1891) was a prominent English historian and writer at the forefront of radical transatlantic politics in the eighteenth century.
She is widely acknowledged as England's first major female historian and pamphleteer.

Macaulay was a significant contributor to eighteenth century debates over human rights and republican liberty ; she was celebrated and influential during her lifetime.
Her most substantial work was the eight-volume " A History of England ", the first volume of which was published in 1763, but the last not until twenty years later. Being practically unknown before the publication of the first volume, she overnight became "the Celebrated Mrs. Macaulay".

She was the first Englishwoman to become an historian and during her lifetime the world's only female historian.

This history, which began with the accession of James 1, told the history of the English Civil War as the outcome of the struggle of the Commons to retain their liberties against the absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts ; it affirmed the right of the people to depose their monarch.
Macaulay criticized the policy of the British Government in the lead up to the American War of Independence , and was welcomed by the Americans, after Independence, as an important advocate of the principles on which the United States was founded.

Macaulay's " History Of England" covers, in eight volumes, the period from 1603 to 1689. She chose this period because, as she wrote in the first volume, she wanted "to do justice...to the memory of our illustrious ancestors".
She lamented that her contemporaries had forgotten that the privileges they enjoyed had been fought for by "men that, with the hazard and even the loss of their lives, attacked the formidable pretensions of the Stewart family, and set up the banners of liberty against a tyranny which had been established for a series of more than one hundred and fifty years".
She expressed the belief that the Anglo-Saxons had possessed freedom and equality with representative institutions but that these were lost at the Norman Conquest.
The history of England, in Macaulay's view, was the story of the struggle of the English to win back their rights that were crushed by the " Norman yoke".
Macaulay justified the execution of King Charles I by claiming that " Kings, the servants of the State, when they degenerated into tyrants, forfeited their right to government ".

As an influential 18th century woman of strong political and social opinion, she made both many friends and many enemies.
She was personally associated with many leading figures among the American Revolutionaries ( Benjamin Franklin , etc.) , and visited the United States for about one year in the mid 1780s.
Macaulay stayed at Mount Vernon with George Washington and his family for a time. Afterwards, Washington wrote to Richard Henry Lee of his pleasure at meeting " a Lady ... whose principles are so much and so justly admired by the friends of liberty and mankind ".
It is said that Macaulay "had been furnished by General Washington with materials " for writing a history of the American Revolution but that "she was, by the infirm state of her health" stopped from doing so.

She died in Binfield in Berkshire, England, on June 22, 1791 and was buried in All Saints' parish church there.