Author: [Rowlands, Richard, pseud:] Verstegan, Richard:
Title: Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities, Concerning the most Noble and Renowned English Nation. By the Study and Travel of R.V.
Description: London: John Bill, printer to the King's most Excellent Majestie, 1628. Second edition, first printed in England. 4to., pp.[xxiv], 338, [xii]. Title-page in red and black with large engraved vignette, woodcut initials head- and tail-pieces, many handsome illustrations in the text. Neatly pencilled bibliographical notes to ffep, few marginal notes in an older hand. Title-page a little foxed, occasional light ink blots and some spotting, a few pages with some light smudgy marks, eg. p.99. Trimmed a little close at head edge but never touching text. Later pale tan calf (probably late 19th c.), red and green labels to spine with date at foot wrongly put as 1828, blind tooled borders, edges coloured yellow, endpapers renewed. Headcap worn with small loss, some scuffs, joints worn with upper beginning to split at head, corners worn, frame of toning around free endpapers, still very good. To front paste-down the armorial bookplate of Hugh Robert Hughes of Kinmel, H.M. Lieutenant of Flintshire, obscuring a second bookplate beneath. Hughes (1827-1911), an avid collector of books and manuscripts on welsh history, topography and genealogy, purchased the collections of John Williams (1833-1872) of Beaumaris and Angharad Llwyd (1780-1866) of Caerwys (and later of Tyn-y-Rhyl), so the concealed bookplate may belong to one of these earlier collectors. Also to the paste-down is a small library label with shelf mark, and an ownership inscription of Brent Grafton-Maxfield dated 1972. An important work of early Anglo-Saxon scholarship originally published in Antwerp in 1605. Richard Rowlands (1548/50 – 1640), English-born Anglo-Dutch writer and intelligence informant, was forced to flee England in 1581 having secretly printed Thomas Alfield's account of the execution of Edmund Campion. It was during this time that he revived his ancestral surname of Verstegan. 'From March 1587 Verstegan lived in Antwerp. From 1590 until 1603 he worked as a publishing and intelligence agent for the superiors of the English mission, William Allen in Rome and Robert Persons in Spain. He maintained communications between them and the missionaries in England, arranged passports and the smuggling of books, bought books in Flanders for the seminaries in Spain, and oversaw the printing of numerous English Catholic works in Antwerp. He continued to write polemical and martyrological works, including, most importantly, answers to the 1591 proclamation against Jesuits and seminary priests. He also produced devotional translations (among them the first English translation of the Tridentine primer), religious verse, and a seminal work of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, the Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities (1605), about which he corresponded with Sir Robert Cotton. He edited or contributed to several of the political works generally attributed to Robert Persons. His writings in these years were a cause of great concern to the authorities in England, and did much to shape the perception of Queen Elizabeth's policies on the continent.' (Arblaster, ODNB). ESTC S116256

Keywords: Early Printing (to c.1800, all subjects);British & Irish History & Topography


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