AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE STATE OF IRELAND, FROM THE INVASION OF THAT COUNTRY UNDER HENRY II TO ITS UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN ON THE 1ST OF JANUARY, 1801 (TWO VOLUMES IN THREE BOOKS)

Author: Plowden, Francis
Title: AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE STATE OF IRELAND, FROM THE INVASION OF THAT COUNTRY UNDER HENRY II TO ITS UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN ON THE 1ST OF JANUARY, 1801 (TWO VOLUMES IN THREE BOOKS)
Publication: London, England: Printed by Roworth for T. Egerton, Military Library, Near Whitehall, 1803
Edition: First Edition

Description: Leather-bound. Matching set of three books: Volume I, Volume II Part I, and Volume II Part 2. Quarto, 11.4 in. x 9 in. Contemporary full calf boards with thin double frame in gilt to front and backs. Gilt title to red panels with decorative gilt bandlines, and blind-tooled decorative band lines, to rebacked spines. Marbled edges. Rubbing and light scuffing to board faces and edges. All corners nudged and showing. Dentelles. Marbled endpapers. Ex libris bookplate top front pastedowns. Light foxing to title page and endpapers. Interior pages bright and sharp.

Volume I: pp. xxx, [2] (errata), 630, [2], 373 (appendix), [21] (index). Illustrated with engraved frontis of the author. Light foxing to frontispiece.
Volume II, Part 1: pp. xxiv, 686, [18] (index).
Volume 2, Part 2: pp. xxi, [1] (errata), 687-1076, 404 (appendix), [11] (index). Very Good.

Bookplate is that of The Duke of Bedford, Woburn Abbey. The Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England.The Russell family currently holds the titles of Earl and Duke of Bedford. John Russell, a close adviser of Henry VIII and Edward VI, was granted the title of Earl of Bedford in 1551. At the time of the writing of this book, John Russell (1766-1839) was the 6th Duke of Bedford.

Author Francis Peter Plowden (1749-1829), catholic political writer, was born at Plowden Hall, near Bishop's Castle in Shropshire, on 28 June 1749. He was called to the English bar in 1797. For his first public incursion into Irish affairs he had some support, practical and financial, from Henry Addington, who became prime minister in March 1801 and whose purpose, like Plowden's, was to reconcile catholic opinion in Ireland to the union with Great Britain (which had come into effect on 1 January).

Plowden spent two months in Dublin doing research for a history of Ireland (September-October 1801). At Dublin Castle he was received by the under-secretary, Alexander Marsden; more significantly, perhaps, he was a guest of the catholic businessman and United Irishman James Dixon. The result was "An historical review of the state of Ireland from the invasion of that country under Henry II to its union with Great Britain" (published in 2 volumes in London in June 1803). Whilst supporting the union, Plowden insisted that it should be a union without discrimination against catholics and blamed the rulers of Ireland for the various rebellions, the last of which (1798) was still being hotly debated. The forcefulness with which Plowden attached blame lost him Addington's support even before publication, and An historical review was the subject of critical articles by Sir Richard Musgrave (qv) in the British Critic of November and December 1803... He criticised Musgrave's History of the different rebellions in Ireland (1801) as ‘false, inflammatory and malignant'. Such was public interest in Plowden's history of Ireland that a Philadelphia edition appeared in 1805 and a revised London edition in 1809. (from Dictionarty of Irish Biography).

Seller ID: 86849

Subject: Irish & Ireland: History