Beschreibung:

Binding for Queen Mary I of England and Ireland. Polydori Vergilii Urbinatis Anglicae historiae libri vigintiseptem, Basel: Michael Isingrin, 1555, title with printer's woodcut device with contemporary hand colouring, two leaves within woodcut borders, including dedication leaf to Henry VIII, red-ruled borders throughout, four fine, contemporary manuscript pen and ink and watercolour double-page maps [?by George Lily, d. 1559] of England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland and France bound in at front, armorial bookplate of F[rancis] Fortescue Turvile [1752-1839], all edges gilt, old ink titling at head of fore-edge, ‘Re[g]ni Anglicarum | Polidoris’, later calf (c. 1800) with original gilt-decorated calf panels relaid to both boards, the central royal escutcheon on both panels built up from small tools showing France ancient in the first and fourth quarters and England in the second and third, with monogram ‘M R’ within a decorative central lozenge compartment, outer ornamental border frame of interlaced circles with arabesque decoration to inner and outer corners (one damaged and one missing), spine scuffed and heavily rubbed with loss at head, upper joints weak, some edge wear and damage to spine and joints, folio (337 x 220 mm) (Quantity: 1) Provenance: By direct family descent from Francis Fortescue Turvile, from his great aunt Maria Alethea Fortescue, who died unmarried in 1763. Maria Alethea Fortescue was a descendant of the Catholic martyr, Blessed Adrian Fortescue (c.1480-1539), a Lay Dominican and courtier who attended the court of Henry VIII. Upon the accession of Queen Mary I in 1553 Adrian’s second wife Anne Rede (or Reade) of Boarstall, Buckinghamshire (1510-1585) was appointed a member of the royal household and is mentioned amongst the ladies who attended the queen in her chariot as she rode from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on 30 September 1553, the day before her coronation. The immediate male Fortescue line was carried on through the eldest son of Adrian and Anne Fortescue, Sir John Fortescue of Salden (c.1533-1607), in Buckinghamshire, and in turn by his son Sir Francis Fortescue (1563-1649), whose wife Grace Manners (c.1563-c.1634) purchased what is now the older part of Bosworth Hall, Husbands Bosworth Hall, Leicestershire. The book is listed (as the sixth item) in a late-Victorian handwritten catalogue of the Bosworth Hall library. The most likely provenance path for the book is that it passed from Queen Mary to Anne Rede, who then passed it on to Sir John Fortescue of Salden, in whose family possession it remained until the mid-eighteenth-century when, via the Turvile (or Turville) and Constable-Maxwell lines, the book remained at Bosworth until the present day. The book was discovered in a private collection by Dr Peter Leech, a musicologist, lecturer and conductor at Cardiff University School of Music, who is a specialist in the cultural history of British Catholicism from the 16th century to 1800. https://www.peterleech.com Adams V448. This work is seen as the beginning of modern English historiography, an important piece of propaganda for the Tudor monarchy, and as an influence on Shakespeare's history plays. Polydore Vergil (c.1470-1555), originally from Urbino, began his research into English history soon after his arrival in London, in 1502, but research for a full-scale history of England most likely began in 1506-7, encouraged by Henry VII. First published in 1534, it went through two further editions, published in 1546 and 1555, this third edition the first to contain an account of the recent life and reign of Henry VIII, and therefore referring to both Mary and her half-sister Elizabeth. The last known letter by Polydore Vergil is a Latin letter of congratulation to Mary I upon her accession to the English throne, likely written from Urbino, and dated 5 August 1553 (MS. Harl. 6989, fol. 149). Mary had been proclaimed Queen on 19 July, following Edward VI’s death on 6 July 1553. The bespoke manuscript