A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice, for the Tryal of K. Charles I.

Bound in contemporary calf, re-backed to style, the spine with six compartments and five raised bands. A hand stamped red lettering piece in the second compartment from the top. Hand Stamped authors name to the third panel from the top. The boards scuffed, corners renewed. The binding now near fine. The binding and book block still strong.

Internally there is little in the way of stains or foxing, the leaves white and crisp, but with some slight browning to the edges.

John Nalson (1638 – 1686)

Born about 1638, he is said to have been educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, but his name does not appear in the list of admissions. He entered the church, and became rector of Doddington in the Isle of Ely. In 1678 he took the degree of LL.D.

Nalson was an active polemical writer on the side of the government during the latter part of the reign of Charles II. The Countermine, published in 1677 quickly went through three editions, and was highly praised by Roger L’Estrange. Published anonymously, its authorship was soon discovered, and the parliament of 1678, in which the opposition, whom he had attacked, had the majority, resolved to call Nalson to account. On 26 March 1678 he was sent for on the charge of having written a pamphlet called A Letter from a Jesuit in Paris, showing the most efficient way to ruin the Government and the Protestant Religion, in which the names of various members of parliament were introduced. After being kept in custody for about a month, he was discharged, but ordered to be put out of the commission of the peace, and to be reprimanded by the speaker (1 May).

Nalson then published several other pamphlets, undertook to make a collection of documents in answer to John Rushworth (1682), and printed the Trial of Charles I (1684), prefixing to his historical works long polemical attacks on the Whigs. He begged William Sancroft for preferment; he asked on 21 July 1680 for the deanery of Worcester, on 14 August 1680 for the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, and to be given a prebend either at Westminster or Ely. In 1684 he did receive a prebend at Ely. He died on 24 March 1686, aged 48, and was buried at Ely.