Sir Winston Churchill's Divi Britannici

CHURCHILL, SIR WINSTON

Divi Britannici: Being a Remark Upon the Lives of all the Kings of this Isle, from the year of the World 2855 unto the year of Grace 1660. London: Printed by Tho. Roycroft, to be sold by Francis Eglesfield, 1675. Later full armorial brown morocco by J. Clarke, all edges gilt, slipcased. 13 5/8 x 9 inches (34.75 x 22.5 cm); [6], 262, [2] pp.; copper-engraved coats of arms in text. Binding rather worn and faded, rather extensive marginal tears and creasing in signature d, some toning and foxing, sold as-is, not subject to return.

Sir Winston Churchill was the father of the first Duke of Marlborough and the ancestor of his 20th-century namesake. He wrote this history during the Commonwealth, while living in Devon and Dorset, and seems not to have been involved in the royalist conspiracies during that time. DNB says of the present work: "A pretentious and highly chauvinistic king-by-king account of British history (which Anthony Wood called 'very thin and trite' (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 4.235), its introduction was said to claim that the king could raise money without parliamentary approval, which 'being much resented by several members of parliament then sitting, the leaf of the remaining copies wherein it was, was reprinted without that passage'. ESTC R3774; Wing C-4275.
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