Louis xiv

1729 · 27852 — London: J. Newcomb 1729. First Edition Rare. Illustrated with the engraved frontispiece portrait. 8vo bound in later half-calf over marbled boards the spine with raised bands compartments decorated with panel designs in gilt black morocco lettering label gilt. 2 135; 62 appendix pp. A very well preserved unpressed and crisp copy the portrait with a bit of old evidence of damp unobtrusive and visually mostly confined to the verso. An English soldier adventurer and Jacobite conspirator Bernardi's involvement in an assassination plot against William III led to his subsequent forty-year imprisonment without proper trial in Newgate. While the principal conspirators were executed Bernardi and five others were held without coming to trial initially for a year ostensibly to gather further evidence. However their continued imprisonment was sanctioned by subsequent Acts even after William III's death. Bernardi's life in prison was made difficult by effects of the old wounds he had sustained in the 1670s. Bernardi also complained that his confinement in the "dismal and loathsome" gaol had cost him "above seven hundred pounds for his lodging". J. Newcomb hardcover