THE PEOPLES ANCIENT AND JUST LIBERTIES ASSERTED, IN THE TRYAL OF WILLIAM PENN, AND WILLIAM MEAD, AT THE SESSIONS HELD AT THE OLD-BAILY IN LONDON. [bound with:] THE SECOND PART OF THE PEOPLES ANCIENT AND JUST LIBERTIES.

Penn, William:

Edité par [London: Andrew Sowle], Printed in the Year, 1670.

A propos de cet article

An important work reporting the events of the trial of William Penn, comprised of the rare first state of the first edition of the first part and the only 17th- or 18th-century edition of the second part. ESTC asserts that the two parts were "probably intended" to be issued together, although they usually appear separately. Protecting its established Church, England prohibited Quaker religious meetings. In 1670, William Penn held a service on Gracechurch Street in London. Penn and fellow Quaker William Mead were arrested for unlawful assembly and disturbing the King's peace, and brought to trial. The bench attempted to intimidate Penn a`nd Mead during the trial, and then tried to do the same with the jurors, who ultimately decided in favor of the defendants. The jury disobeyed the judge's several orders to find the defendants guilty, and after issuing threats, the judge locked up the jury for a time. "The stirring call of Penn to his jury whom the judges were trying to coerce, 'Ye are Englishmen, mind your privilege: give not away your right,' and their reply 'Nor will we ever do it' is one of the most dramatic incidents in Anglo-American legal history" - Marke. The case, with the jurors' successful writ of habeas corpus, vindicated the power of juries to override instructions of the court. The trial became a bellwether for reform of the arbitrary and oppressive English court system. Penn himself did not write the text, however, he is quoted verbatim from the trial record. Bronner and Fraser venture that Penn may have been the author of some of the material printed in the second half. The account of the trial takes up the first part of the first work, followed by a commentary on the illegal actions of the bench and a summary of legal precedents. The second part recounts the trial of the named Quaker defendants, who were convicted by the more malleable jury which replaced the one that refused to convict Penn and Meade. "The trial plays an important role in the emergent principle of jury independence and a key role in Penn's career as a political actor during the 1670s, culminating in his American colonizing enterprise" - Murphy. This account of the trial went through several printings in 1670 and later years; the present work is the first state of the first edition of the first part and the only 17th- or 18th-century printing of the second part. The first state of the first part was "probably printed shortly after 5 Sept. 1670, the last day of the trial," according to Bronner and Fraser. Both Sabin and Smith assert the first edition titlepage had the word "ASSERTED" misspelled "ASSSRTED," and was reset throughout to produce the first part of the current work. However, more recent scholarship by Carroll Frey in "How Penn's Printer Worked: A Study of the Penn-Mead Trial Book" as reported by Bronner and Fraser contradicts Sabin and Smith, asserting the edition with the misspelled titlepage is, in fact, the second issue of the third edition. The first part here satisfies seven of the eight first state issue points enumerated by Bronner and Fraser, from page 58 reading "68" to the pointing finger in the margin of page 40. The only issue point at odds with Bronner and Fraser's first state is the last one, with the text here ending "and unlimited wills" on page 49, which Bronner and Fraser assign to the third state. The present copy also has the stop-press correction with the slash line before the name "Bushel" on page 5, which the bibliography still assigns to the first state. It is possible this copy was a late-assembled first state with a slightly later last gathering, which would be the strictest interpretation of Bronner and Fraser. It is overwhelmingly the first state of the first part of the work. Penn's trial was a dramatic and important moment in English legal history, and one of the more familiar and important episodes in the life of the founder of Pennsylvania. BRONNER & FRASER 10A, N4. ESTC R205173, R21970. WING (2nd ed) P.

N° de réf. du vendeur 55581

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: THE PEOPLES ANCIENT AND JUST LIBERTIES ASSERTED, IN THE TRYAL OF WILLIAM PENN, AND WILLIAM MEAD, AT THE SESSIONS HELD AT THE OLD-BAILY IN LONDON. [bound with:] THE SECOND PART OF THE PEOPLES ANCIENT AND JUST LIBERTIES.
• Éditeur: [London: Andrew Sowle], Printed in the Year, 1670.